On Speaking With Enemies

Commentary, Life Lessons Comments (1)

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? -Abraham Lincoln

Recently, there as been much made about speaking with one’s enemies. President [of the US] Bush (43rd) made a speech in Israel about the problems with speaking with the enemies of Israel. Well, naturally, this page has an opinion. You must speak with your enemies; there is never a reason not to talk to them. When you don’t talk it to someone who you distrust, or distrust you, it leads to paranoia, fear and misunderstanding.

During the cold war, with our dire enemy the USSR, we had a direct red phone connection; earlier we had a direct teletype. Nixon visited china and how the many trips of Regan and the Pope (jp the II) to then USSR.

It’s said that at present barak obama has a problem with jewish voters because last year (2007 ) in a debate he stated he would speak with Syria and Iran. That created quite a stir amoung the press, but to those with a bit of some intelligence, this should ring hallow. Well, late may 2008, turns out Israel and Syria have been discussing peace (front page news most places) . And why is having a discussion with your enemies bad? We’ve been speaking with North Korea for a while, and have gotten them to toss out their nuclear program. We’ve had direct discussions with Libia, that eventually led to them renouncing terrorism and joining the international community, and with did such speaking against the wishes of our good allies the UK.

Speaking with your enemies, has always panned out, because speaking, no matter the characterization is never appeasement, it’s just talk. Furthermore, the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Diplomacy is a different matter entirely. A few of the things mentioned above, like the Libya deal and the North Korean, started in secret and that is where many others will remain until the political apparatus is willing to accept them. As everyone should know by now, there is a public and a quiet diplomacy.

War is the failure of diplomacy, some say, but it is also the First resort of a weak defense. Of course, when and how long you speak with an enemy is a diplomatic chess game, but pretending they don’t exist is foolish in the extreme.

OceansOfThought @ May 23, 2008