19 Comments

• 1. JS  |  May 25th, 2008 at 8:36 am

  Kerry and Fonda endorsed this kind of behavior, why wouldnt Obama and the rest of the twisted liberal party of demoncrats…i mean…look at the way they lied about the war already…they would do this…they would do that…if you just elect us….and they knew that to appeal to the side of human nature that promotes universal well being…all they needed to do was to hop on the anti war wagon and start a few fires….and thats what they did….with out ever having any intention of fulfilling the obligations they made of themselves….thats not politics….politics deal with facts and reality…the reality that took us into iraq to start with…the same reality that took us into afghanistan as well….(that being the truth, above all things)…that crosses into the bounds of criminal activity…to defraud the public by perpetrating a confidence ploy that brings intentional deceit to the table….

  we dont hold these charlatains to the same standards we hold ourselves too…which is caused by our failure to control them, instead of certifiing that this is a government of the people, by the people, it becomes a government of capitalists and socialists…..controlling the masses like they were sheep……even so….what poor shepards they have been!!

• 2. Marty13  |  May 25th, 2008 at 9:00 am

  JS, not that I wasn’t having an extrodinarily difficult time deciphering your post but when I got to this nugget I just had to stop………

  “politics deal with facts and reality”

  Huh? Seriously, did you really mean to write this? Pour that second cup of coffee before you post.

• 3. JS  |  May 25th, 2008 at 9:13 am

  maybe thats the nature of the real problem marty13, accepting such low standards from our elected officials…politics are what runs the government…not lies and con jobs like obama and billary are presenting us with….but real life situations…

• 4. Casper  |  May 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am

  Mark,
  So what happened to talking is appeasement? I guess that one didn’t fly.
  The basic policy of the Bush administration over the last seven years with Iran, is “We won’t talk to you unless you do everything we want you to ahead of time.” During the last seven years Iran has gained a lot of influence in the region and is much stronger and dangerous now than it was. Bush’s policy isn’t working. Obama is suggesting that it might be worthwhile talking to them. He has also stated that he willing to use all options including military ones if needed to deal with Iran. It makes sense to me.

• 5. js  |  May 25th, 2008 at 10:15 am

  stonger? more powerful? you mean that providing the training and equipment to kill iraqi civilians makes iran more powerful? wake up… they only thing that gives iran power is its ability to influence public opinion with its lies about the great satan and destroying israel…pure rhetoric which evolved from its sorce….islam…which only has power over its followers…not the bush admin or america….beyond that the only power they can use is oil….which is in a huge bubble right now and will more than likely come crashing down on thier head….because there is no shortage of oil

• 6. Timothy Horrigan  |  May 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am

  In case anyone has forgotten who the Soviets are.. the Soviet Union was a federation of Russia and 14 other European and Asian Republics, which existed from the Oc tober 1917 Revolution until the early 1990s. The USA had a long standoff with the USSR which ostensibly continued right up to 1990. (Actually, the militaries on both sides had arrived at a separate peace long before 1990, but for public domestic consumption the politicians and bureaucrats on both sides pretended to be at war right up until the end.)

  Anyway, I am not sure how “not talking” to the Soviets could have improved the situation in 1960, which was not good. As it was, the Soviet and American leaders met both openly and covertly with each other many times.

  A more aggressive military posture in the early 1960s might have been disastrous… as it was, in the early 1960s the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly touched off Armageddon… at a time when few Americans were looking forward eagerly to the End Times.

  The end result was not so terrible, even though we negotiated with them for decades and never got around to nuking them. The Soviet Union eventually devolved into the relatively peaceful “Former Soviet Republics.” The satellite states in Eastern Europe are now fully integrated with the old Western European states in a more than relatively peaceful and prosperous European community.

• 7. Mark Noonan  |  May 25th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

  Casper,

  Where has Iran gained influence? Syria is now talking a separate peace with Israel. The Iraqi government while making nice-nice with Iran, has no interest in an Iranian alliance in spite of religious and cultural affinity. The Afghan government is hostile. The Pakistani government figures that Iran is at least partially responsible for the violent ferment inside Pakistan (has to do with Iranian claims to a slice of Pakistani territory). The Gulf States are hostile to Iran. Saudi Arabia contemplates building nuclear weapon to counter a possible Iranian nuclear force.

  This is not increased influence, Casper…this is a prime member of the Axis of Evil boxed into a corner and requiring an American surrender to get out of it…Obama proposes such a surrender. Talking, in and of itself, isn’t appeasement…but a unilateral US withdrawal from Iraq coupled with unconditional negotiations with the Iranian government is appeasement…and it will lead the Gulf States and Iraq to fall into line as Iranian satellites out of fear of Iran and lack of confidence in American will.

  You’ve got it exactly backwards, Casper, because you follow the leftwing viewpoint on Iraq and the war, and that is an Alice in Wonderland view.

• 8. neocon  |  May 25th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

  Two of liberals talking points I find amusing:

  1. Iran is now more of a threat
  2. Saddam kept Iran in check.

• 9. Casper  |  May 25th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

  Mark,
  I wish you would make up your mind on Iran. One day you act as if they are the greatest threat to mankind and we need to attack them, now you are saying they are boxed in and not a threat, unless Obama talks to them. Say hi to Alice for me.
  As for the surrender BS, exactly who would we surrender too and what would we surrender? Our army? Part of our country?

• 10. neocon  |  May 25th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

  Casper,

  PAY ATTENTION. Mark has been consistent on Iran throughout.

  Iran is a threat, and always has been. If we let them continue down the path towards acquiring nukes, then we’ll have a huge problem.

• 11. Tom Thumb  |  May 25th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

  Deleted - paranoid ravings.

• 12. Mark Noonan  |  May 25th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

  Casper,

  Boxed in, not eliminated - and the primary threat from Iran right now is in potential nuclear weapons…what you’re doing is following the leftwing line on this which goes:

  “Iran is stronger now thanks to Bush’s policies, while Obama’s desire to talk to Iran without pre-conditions will eliminate the Iranian threat”.

  The reality is:

  “Iran has been and continues to be a threat, but much less a terrorism threat today due to the policies of the past 7 years. Iran is trying to regain its ability to threaten by obtaining nuclear weapons, and only the most firm US policy - possibly including military strikes - can prevent Iran from doing this.”

• 13. Casper  |  May 25th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

  Mark,
  I would agree that Iran is stronger now thanks to Bush’s policies and there are a lot of experts that agree. However, just talking to Iran will not automatically eliminate them as a threat. It will take a combination of talking, economic carrots and sticks, and other options to turn them around.

• 14. ViralNexus  |  May 26th, 2008 at 3:03 am

  Mark, actually Iran and Iraq are working closely together. They have been actively tying their oil production and distribution markets together and they attempted to align their military interests together but the US put a stop to that. You should probably read more on Iraqi/Iranian relations before assuming that Iraq wants nothing to do with them. I was going to cut and paste this Asia Times piece verbatim but I’ll just link to it.
  How The US Dream Foundered in Iraq

• 15. James Beam  |  May 26th, 2008 at 7:59 am

  Below is an excerpt from a US Congressional Report on Iran/Contra. It proves Reagan worked with Iran.

  The Iran/contra affair concerned two secret Reagan Administration policies whose operations were coordinated by National Security Council staff. The Iran operation involved efforts in 1985 and 1986 to obtain the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East through the sale of U.S. weapons to Iran, despite an embargo on such sales. The contra operations from 1984 through most of 1986 involved the secret governmental support of contra military and paramilitary activities in Nicaragua, despite congressional prohibition of this support.

  The Iran and contra operations were merged when funds generated from the sale of weapons to Iran were diverted to support the contra effort in Nicaragua. Although this “diversion” may be the most dramatic aspect of Iran/contra, it is important to emphasize that both the Iran and contra operations, separately, violated United States policy and law.2 The ignorance of the “diversion” asserted by President Reagan and his Cabinet officers on the National Security Council in no way absolves them of responsibility for the underlying Iran and contra operations.

  2 See n. 1 above.

  The secrecy concerning the Iran and contra activities was finally pierced by events that took place thousands of miles apart in the fall of 1986. The first occurred on October 5, 1986, when Nicaraguan government soldiers shot down an American cargo plane that was carrying military supplies to contra forces; the one surviving crew member, American Eugene Hasenfus, was taken into captivity and stated that he was employed by the CIA. A month after the Hasenfus shootdown, President Reagan’s secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran was reported by a Lebanese publication on November 3. The joining of these two operations was made public on November 25, 1986, when Attorney General Meese announced that Justice Department officials had discovered that some of the proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to the contras.

  When these operations ended, the exposure of the Iran/contra affair generated a new round of illegality. Beginning with the testimony of Elliott Abrams and others in October 1986 and continuing through the public testimony of Caspar W. Weinberger on the last day of the congressional hearings in the summer of 1987, senior Reagan Administration officials engaged in a concerted effort to deceive Congress and the public about their knowledge of and support for the operations.

  Independent Counsel has concluded that the President’s most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats whose sacrifice would protect the Reagan Administration in its final two years. In an important sense, this strategy succeeded. Independent Counsel discovered much of the best evidence of the cover-up in the final year of active investigation, too late for most prosecutions.

• 16. neocon  |  May 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am

  James,

  You know, not once did I read that Reagan met with, or spoke to any of the Iranian leadership.

  So where’s your proof?

• 17. FmrMarine  |  May 26th, 2008 at 11:19 am

  Here is a good article

  http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/how_cryptomarxism_won_the_cold.html

• 18. phnx  |  May 27th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

  Chalres Krauthammer has an excellent OP ED in the WPO entitled “Obama’s Metastatic Gaffe…How a campaign missetep grew to become a foreign policy cornerstone.”

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032401690.html

  You have to register but its worth it.

  Krauthammer shows how that rather than admitting the gaffe was a mistake, Obama created an illadvised foreign policy around it. One gaffe leads to another, leads to another, etc. each one justifying the previous position.

  To summarize, Krauthammer details how completely wrong Obama is in his hastily drawn defense of his gaffe promising to meet with a number of the worlds tyrants, without preconditoins, during his first year in office.

  Obama sites Kennedy’s meeting with Kruschev, which Krauthammer recalls as a compelete diplomatic blunder for the Freshman President. A blunder which almost resulted in a nuclear exchange. As a result of the mmeting, Kruschev viewed Kennedy as weak and inexperienced. This led Kruschev to place missles in Cuba, bringing us to the brink of war. Is that the kind of diplomacy Obama wishes to emulate?

  He also notes that all of the other meetings were the result of long drawn out negotiation, first via back channels, then low level diplomats. For example the Joint communique which was issued at the end of Nixon’s visit to China, was agreed upon and written even before he arrived.

  Krauthammer states that Obama’s promise to meet without preconditions would be a disaster of the highest magnitude, giving status and credance to tyrants who deserve neither.

• 19. Consul-At-Arms  |  June 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 am

  I’ve quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2008/06/re-history-lesson-regarding-negotiating.html