posted
So I just got done reading Mr. Card's new column on the "appeasement" flak. I don't want this thread to turn into a rehashing of Card's support for President Bush's foreign policy, Empire, or any other hot-button topic that generates lots of rather incendiary comments. (I'm not even going to go into my opinions on these issues. )
I do have two issues that this column raised that I want to discuss:
I am curious--when was it the policies of the political parties to leave foreign relations out of campaigns? I'm guessing it was from 1952 through 1960 when Eisenhower and Stevenson set the bar for dignity in a national campaign so high Kennedy and Nixon had to follow suit. Considering the tumult over the Marshall Plan and the Cold War that happened in 1948 (Truman vs. Dewey) and the Daisy ad in Johnson vs. Goldwater sixteen years later, it's clear that such a debate over foreign policy has been the rule rather than the exception. (See 1916 "He kept us out of war," 1920, "Normalcy," 1972 "Out of 'Nam," etc.) I'd appreciate any thoughts/comments on what other presidential campaigns had foreign relations as a major issue.
Second, there was one campaign when the candidates of the two major parties ran as isolationists (due to the political climate of the time) with no intention whatsoever of keeping their promise after the election. In 1940, FDR and Willkie (who was a former democrat and an initial fan of the League of Nations) both knew that the U.S. would get involved in WW2, sooner better than later, but did their best to top each other in making isolationist claims. In fact, Willkie spent much of his time after the election campaigning in support of Lend-Lease. All I'm saying is, don't be too surprised if after the election, President Obama looks at the facts on the ground and decides to broaden and deepen our commitment in the Middle East. He is, after all, in favor of unilateral strikes on high-value targets in Pakistan.
Just a few thoughts.
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posted
I dunno about 1952 and 1960. Republicans used the "Who lost China?" argument against Democrats in '52, and in '60 Kennedy argued that Eisenhower/Nixon were responsible for a missile gap.
Probably something went on in '56 as well, but Stevenson didn't run much of a campaign, so that whatever he said didn't make much impact.
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There is nothing we can do, short of killing them or surrendering to them, that will stop them from acting as they have been acting for decades – murderously and relentlessly. There is certainly nothing we can say.
This feels a WHOLE lot like the kind of the absolutism and group think that OSC claims to abhor so very much.
It think one problem is that as a fan of history, OSC is enamored with the idea that the great voices of the past cut through the ignorant and dulling haze of the opposition, and saved the world. He consistently forgets that the right decisions, as well as the wrong ones, are not really identified or understood fully until the history of that event is being written.
The mind that wrote Churchill's history of the World Wars is not the same mind that actually WAS Churchill during that time. That's why Churchill couldn't write the history before it actually happened- he didn't know everything, and he wasn't sure which of his decisions was right.
OSC seems daily to be losing his peripheral vision. It seems all the more strange coming from a man who writes often that the inability to accept that others think differently, and have understandable reasons for doing so, leads to mutual destruction. That he would advocate never speaking to hostile nations is frightening– that he would suggest that the only endgame is the destruction of one side by the other, is lunatic.
quote: "If we had kissed, it would have been the miracle to make us Human in each other's eyes. Instead we killed each other." Orson Scott Card
quote:That he would advocate never speaking to hostile nations is frightening...
In fairness, that is not what Card is saying in that article. He is saying that Obama is right to want to speak to hostile nations before hitting them with a stick, but that he believes Obama's claims about being willing to use a stick are -- or will be perceived by those nations as -- spurious ones. Moreover, he is critizing Obama for making fun of McCain's foreign policy when Card's interpretation of McCain's policy also amounts to "talk to them, but hit them with a stick if you have to."
Card, of course, actually believes that this is also Bush' foreign policy, but admits that potential voters might not agree (and, more insidiously, observes that it is not in Obama's best political interest to acknowledge this "fact.")
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It's certainly arguable that he didn't try to talk enough with Afghanistan and particularly Iraq before using the stick, but he definitely did try words instead of sticks first.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: It's certainly arguable that he didn't try to talk enough with Afghanistan and particularly Iraq before using the stick, but he definitely did try words instead of sticks first.
I suppose that if you see, "We won't negotiate. Do what we demand or will hit you with our big stick" as diplomacy then Bush is very diplomatic.
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posted
Blackmail is hardly diplomacy. That said, there are legitimate cases in which it is the best option.
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That's an oversimplification and I think you know it.
In Afghanistan, the government of that country refused to even speak to the President. Yeah, he made demands of them after 9-11...many of them reiterations of demands that had been ignored by the Taliban for years.
So, yeah, diplomacy wasn't going to happen in Afghanistan. You can dream if you like, but it's hardly reasonable to criticize President Bush for failing to negotiate with people who wouldn't even speak to him.
And in the buildup to the second Iraq War, Bush's demands were reiterations-again-of demands that had previously been made by numerous organizations, who had used diplomacy as well, and were met largely with failure.
I didn't say that President Bush was an excellent diplomat, or that he executed lots of diplomacy, or anything like that. In the sentence you quoted, Rabbit, you'll see that I said he did try words before force, something Tom objected to.
So, yeah, he did try diplomacy. The field is open as to whether or not he tried the right kind or the right amount. In retrospect with respect to the Iraq War, I think it's obvious he didn't. But he did try.
Let's just dispense with the unnecessary castigation, shall we Rabbit? There's plenty to criticize him for already without just making stuff up.
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We've communicated with them as much as can be reasonably expected. When we say "Stop killing us (and our allies)" and they say "We will never stop killing you." What else can we do?
We know WHY they're killing us. It's their "Faith". Trying to talk them out of this is like trying to talk someone out of their religion. It just isn't that easy. They think that their reasons for killing us transcend this world, and so, no amount of worldly discussion will turn them from this goal. The American policy is basically: your religion = your business. This is not so with them. Their religion tells them to kill everyone who is NOT of their religion.
To use Card's own terminology (and I believe it's from the same source as your quote), they are Varelse. They cannot be negotiated with.
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posted
The "diplomacy" used in Iraq was a joke. Bush set demands that events have proven were literally impossible to meet.
He said there had to be inspectors or we'd invade, so inspectors went in. He said disarm or we'd invade, and he said he had nothing to disarm, and sent over thousands of pages of documents to prove it. We said none of anything that was done mattered and we invaded. And it turns out he was right, and that there was nothing to be found. Given that Saddam was telling the truth the whole time and that Bush's demands would never be met, since Bush refused to believe anything he said, his so called "diplomacy" was a smokescreen.
I found it amusing that after two weeks of inspections in Iraq, the inspectors said "give us more time!" and Bush said time was up. So we invaded, and more than a hundred thousand men and women combed the desert and after a few months Bush said "give us more time!" and now years later...nothing.
That kind of diplomacy, as far as I'm concerned, is equivilant to none at all.
As for card's article:
A series of mischaracterizations and half truths. Is he writing his next novel or commenting on current political affairs?
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quote:In the sentence you quoted, Rabbit, you'll see that I said he did try words before force, something Tom objected to.
I didn't object to it. I just put it in scare quotes.
quote:To use Card's own terminology (and I believe it's from the same source as your quote), they are Varelse.
If you're going to cite Card's use of "varelse," here, it's worth noting that the application of "varelse" to describe fellow human beings with whom communication is possible and whose physical needs are the same as our own is pretty ridiculous. It's also worth noting that by the last book, it's been observed that the only species who has made serious attempts at wiping out any other sentient species -- and in fact, has seriously considered wiping out every other sentient species -- is humanity, each time believing (rightly or wrongly) that it was in danger of extermination itself.
quote:We know WHY they're killing us. It's their "Faith".
It is this sort of dangerous over-simplification, for example, that can be used to justify genocide.
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That's an oversimplification and I think you know it.
In Afghanistan, the government of that country refused to even speak to the President. Yeah, he made demands of them after 9-11...many of them reiterations of demands that had been ignored by the Taliban for years.
Perhaps my memory fails me, but that isn't the way I remember the course of events.
The US did not have diplomatic relations in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. Following 9/11 we worked through Pakistan to deliver a message to Afganistan to turn over Bin Laden or we would invade.
Afghanistan responded (again through Pakistan) that they would turn over Bin Laden if they were assured he would be tried by an Islamic court. Bush responded that our demands were not negotiable.
If that doesn't qualify as, "We won't negotiate, Do what we say or will hit you with our big stick" what does?
Now its possible that if we had offered to sit down with Afghani leaders and negotiate mutual acceptable conditions for turning over Bin Laden that the talks would have gone nowhere. But we don't know that because we never tried it. And it wasn't the Afghani's who refused to talk, it was Bush. Claiming that negotiating with particular groups can't work is a lame excuse when we have never made a sincere attempt at it.
Its also possible that more negotiation was done behind than scenes than was made public, but given the Bush administrations obsession with secrecy all we can do is speculate. Given the bald faced lies they told about Iraq, I'm not willing to grant them the benefit of a doubt on this or any other issue. The fact of the matter is that the Bush administration and its supportors view diplomacy (i.e negotiating with enemy) as an inherent weakness and talk about refusing to participate in diplomacy (we won't negotiate) as a virtue.
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quote:I didn't object to it. I just put it in scare quotes.
Which is the same thing.
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Rabbit,
quote: If that doesn't qualify as, "We won't negotiate, Do what we say or will hit you with our big stick" what does?
The offer was negotiation, negotiating an alternative to direct force, using the big stick.
Yes, Rabbit, whatever your memory tells you the Taliban did refuse to speak with Bush-that's what I said. We spoke with them, giving them the only thing we wanted. They (predictibly) refused to provide it. Negotiations don't have to take hours or days or months, however much you might prefer it.
So in short, no, it doesn't qualify as not willing to negotiate. Here's what would qualify as not willing to negotiate: 1) 9-11 happens, 2) We determine it was bin-Laden, 3) We determine bin-Laden was in Afghanistan, 4) We invade Afghanistan in an attempt to retrieve bin-Laden.
quote:Claiming that negotiating with particular groups can't work is a lame excuse when we have never made a sincere attempt at it.
Claiming that 'we've never tried' to negotiate with certain parties is even more silly when all over the world many different sorts of people had been trying and most often failing to negotiate successfully with them.
Or did you have a lengthy list of areas in which the Taliban was amenable to negotiation, Rabbit?
Oh, and in any event? bin-Laden being tried by an Islamic court would be totally unacceptable in any event.
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posted
I'm sorry Rakeesh but the Bush administration specifically said at the time "We will not negotiate". I've already said I don't think that ultimatums qualify as negotiation. Bush gave Afghanistan and ultimatum -- that isn't negotiation.
Webster defines negotiate as "to arrange for or bring about through conference, discussion, and compromise ". Bush did not attempt conference, discussion or compromise with Afghanistan. He gave an ultimatum.
I can't give you a lengthy list of areas where the Taliban was amenable to negotiation. But I have already given you one. Bush order them to turn over Bin Laden. They said yes under certain conditions. Bush said, not we won't negotiate (yes he used those words).
If Bush had come back with something like, "We can't agree to an Islamic court but would be willing to agree to trial in an International court with representation from Islamic countries or evn "we would be willing to agree to a public trial in the US courts" (for example), that would have been negotiation. If at that point the Taliban had said -- no it's an Islamic court or nothing. Then they would have been the party refusing to negotiate. But Bush didn't give them the chance to refuse to negotiate. He refused to negotiate.
quote:Yes, Rabbit, whatever your memory tells you the Taliban did refuse to speak with Bush-that's what I said.
Can you please provide a source or at least a specific example. As I said this is not the way I recall it happening and I'm certainly not going to take your word for it over my own memory.
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posted
I don't know about refusing to speak to Bush, but they certainly did refuse to hand over bin Laden. Since that was the only demand of the United States (and Europe; lest we forget, this was a time when the West was fairly united, if only for a brief period) what else was there to talk about? If you say "Hand over X, or we shoot", and the answer is no, what are you going to do? Say "pretty please"?
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posted
You admitted it yourself, Rabbit: the Taliban would not converse with the USA except through intermediaries, such as Pakistan.
quote:Bush gave Afghanistan and ultimatum -- that isn't negotiation.
Sure it is. We would've been quite within our rights to launch an attack against the Taliban immediately, without any sort of demand/ultimatum/request, whatever.
Your beef is that he didn't negotiate enough. Your complaint is one of degree, since after all Afghanistan wasn't just the home of bin-Laden at the time, but his active supporter and confederate.
It's kind of fascinating that your memory tells you the Taliban was willing to talk directly with President Bush, Rabbit. I really don't know where you would've gotten that idea, but here's some stuff:
They weren't willing to talk to President Bush, deeming it some sort of insult to speak with a non-Islamic leader. The offer they made to give bin-Laden up was to give him up to an Islamic-law court of some sort.
quote:If you say "Hand over X, or we shoot", and the answer is no, what are you going to do? Say "pretty please"?
It wasn't actually the only demand, but it was our most important demand. But just to be clear: 'Hand over X, or we shoot,' is negotiation, no matter what Rabbit says. That's because there's still a chance to stop the use of force.
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posted
You are over simplifying things. When Bush ordered the Afghani's to turn over Bin Laden, they didn't simply refuse. They didn't even say no. They said, yes if Y. We refused to even discuss the possibility of a Y so they refused to turn him over.
There is some very important psychology involved here. Making some sort of concession, even a very small concession, allows people an honorable way out.
During the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviets ultimately agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for the US removing the Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The Soviet Union agreed to keep this deal secret so that US could appear to have stood its ground.
Under Reagan, US secured the release of hostages from Iran by secret negotiations in which the US agreed to sell weapons to Iran. All the while Reagan was publicly disavowing negotiation with Iran.
Give me one example in international affairs where coercive negotiation (i.e. threats) have actually yielded results without some sort of concession being made.
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quote:You are over simplifying things. When Bush ordered the Afghani's to turn over Bin Laden, they didn't simply refuse. They didn't even say no. They said, yes if Y. We refused to even discuss the possibility of a Y so they refused to turn him over.
There are some answers which are a de facto refusal. Offering* to give up bin-Laden to an Islamic-law court, well, that's simply not going to happen. They knew that when they offered it. When you negotiate, your counter-offer has to at least be in the ballpark of possibilities.
If you're selling a car for $1000, I can hardly approach you and say, "I'll give you $75 for it," and expect to be taken sincerely. That's not a real offer. You and I would both know it.
And they didn't say, "Yes, if Y," either. They said, "Yes, if Y, and we'll hand him over not to you but someone else." So when I'm buying your car, I say, "I'll give you $75 for it, and you need to make sure it's detailed and tuned up for me, and park it in my garage."
It's interesting the two examples you use, by the way, Rabbit: during the Cuban Missile Crisis, what did we gain exactly? The entire thing was a gain for the USSR. The only thing we avoided was a confrontation which the Soviets instigated.
Negotiating with Iran by selling them weapons was, while it gained the undeniably good benefit of releasing the hostages, incredibly stupid. Someone takes hostages and you sell them weapons in order to gain their release? On what planet is that a good plan?
It may be the only possible plan, but that's hardly an endorsement. Thankfully these conditions did not exist with Afghanistan. We didn't have to worry about the Taliban launching global nuclear war. We didn't have to worry about the Taliban executing a horde of American hostages.
And that's another aspect of negotiation: not all parties are equal.
Here's an example of a threat working: MAD. It worked for a long time. It was, in fact, the real reason the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully, because of a threat, Rabbit.
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quote:Originally posted by sylvrdragon: We've communicated with them as much as can be reasonably expected. When we say "Stop killing us (and our allies)" and they say "We will never stop killing you." What else can we do?
We know WHY they're killing us. It's their "Faith". Trying to talk them out of this is like trying to talk someone out of their religion. It just isn't that easy. They think that their reasons for killing us transcend this world, and so, no amount of worldly discussion will turn them from this goal. The American policy is basically: your religion = your business. This is not so with them. Their religion tells them to kill everyone who is NOT of their religion.
This just isn't true. I'll just quote a related response that I posted on Ornery:
quote:It's more than just us versus them. Al-Qaeda's primary goal is not the destruction of the United States but rather a complete reformation of Islam with a return to more fundamentalist roots (sharia law, caliphate, etc). They hate us not because we are rivals but because they view our actions in the Middle East as interference with their goals. Ultimately, Al-Qaeda is at war with secular Muslims, not the secular West. Unfortunately we still hear myths (some perpetrated on this board) such as the idea that Al-Qaeda has somehow done irreparable harm to its reputation through its actions in Iraq (as if Al-Qaeda ever had a positive reputation among secular Muslims, give me a break). Even worse, we get boneheads like Giuliani (who, as a presidential candidate, was supposed to be educated on issues like this) who declare that terrorists "hate our freedom." This concept has been repeated numerous times by neoconservative pundits yet has never appeared in Osama bin Ladin's numerous fatwas. Here is his 1996 fatwa . He expresses rage against the United States for "massacres" committed by us or on our behalf and he expresses rage against certain Muslims for failing to protect the Islamic world against foreign influences and for failing to preserve fundamentalist law. There is nothing about hating our freedom.
posted
MAD is in no way analogous. It was a mutual threat and to the best of my knowledge, no side ever backed down. It just isn't the same. MAD was the equivalent of both sides saying, if you punch me in the nose I will beat you to death. That's very different psychologically from saying "If you don't give me what I want, I will beat you up."
Give me one historical example where country A has said to country B "Do X or we will attack?" and country B has done X without any concessions from country A. Just one.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: There are some answers which are a de facto refusal. Offering* to give up bin-Laden to an Islamic-law court, well, that's simply not going to happen.
How is that any different from the original "offer"? "Turn bin Laden over to a court that will most certainly order him killed"? If the counter-offer being something the opposing party cannot reasonably provide makes something not a negotiation, surely the same must be said of the original offer?
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quote:To use Card's own terminology (and I believe it's from the same source as your quote), they are Varelse.
If you're going to cite Card's use of "varelse," here, it's worth noting that the application of "varelse" to describe fellow human beings with whom communication is possible and whose physical needs are the same as our own is pretty ridiculous. It's also worth noting that by the last book, it's been observed that the only species who has made serious attempts at wiping out any other sentient species -- and in fact, has seriously considered wiping out every other sentient species -- is humanity, each time believing (rightly or wrongly) that it was in danger of extermination itself.
quote:We know WHY they're killing us. It's their "Faith".
It is this sort of dangerous over-simplification, for example, that can be used to justify genocide.
I think I need to make my definitions clear to properly put my comment into context. As I understand it, Faith, by definition, is an unfalsifiable belief.
It is from this perspective that I apply the term Varelse. For, although I can learn their language enough to ask where the nearest bathroom is, or maybe even enough to write poetry; their is no language that I could learn to say "Stop killing me" in terms that they might consider. As such, communication, as it would need to be to end this situation peaceably, is not possible (Short of a re-translation of the Quran that they somehow trust in which infidels no longer need to be put to death).
I would love to be proven wrong, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like it will take more time for them to make allowances in their religion than it will take to exterminate them (meaning the extremists), or for them to get nuclear weapons and blow us all to hell (pardon the pun).
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Now you're changing the question. At first you asked for an example of a threat or 'coercive negotiation' that yielded results. 60+ years with nuclear weapons without there having been used in anger since WWII certainly sounds like a result to me.
quote:It was a mutual threat and to the best of my knowledge, no side ever backed down.
On the contrary, if you'll remember back to the Korean War, there was certainly some backing down on nuclear questions on the part of the USA.
quote:Give me one historical example where country A has said to country B "Do X or we will attack?" and country B has done X without any concessions from country A. Just one.
Well, now that you're asking a different question, OK: I can't think of any offhand. Usually when things get that angry and tense, barring some extraordinary threat (MAD), war is probably inevitable. As it was with Afghanistan. The USA was not going to, nor should we have, tolerated anything less than unconditional surrender from the Taliban. It was a problem long overdue for dealing with.
Our methods and effectiveness in doing so are another discussion entirely.
But how about you pose some examples that aren't so uncertain? Iran's hostages and the Cuban Missile Crisis are far from persuasive.
------
Threads,
quote:How is that any different from the original "offer"? "Turn bin Laden over to a court that will most certainly order him killed"? If the counter-offer being something the opposing party cannot reasonably provide makes something not a negotiation, surely the same must be said of the original offer?
You seem to think that we had some obligation to make an offer they would have accepted. We didn't. Negotiation was simply not going to work there, but we made a cursory attempt at it anyway.
And anyway, it's strange you assume an Islamic court approved by the Taliban of all people would have surely ordered bin-Laden killed. But anyway, here's the difference: the Taliban could have yielded bin-Laden up, but they didn't. We could not have permitted him to have been tried in some Taliban-endorsed Islamic court.
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You seem to think that we had some obligation to make an offer they would have accepted. We didn't. Negotiation was simply not going to work there, but we made a cursory attempt at it anyway.
And anyway, it's strange you assume an Islamic court approved by the Taliban of all people would have surely ordered bin-Laden killed. But anyway, here's the difference: the Taliban could have yielded bin-Laden up, but they didn't. We could not have permitted him to have been tried in some Taliban-endorsed Islamic court.
Misinterpreted and misascribed in a single post. That doesn't happen often...
Resisting urge to snark. Moving on.
I'm not assuming that an Islamic court would surely have ordered bin Laden executed; I'm saying that a U.S. military tribunal (The U.S. original offer) would have.
As, to the Taliban, bin Laden was effectively a war hero, that arguably made turning him over to an authority that would kill him hardly more acceptable to them than allowing him to be tried by a sympathetic court in Afghanistan would be to the U.S..
I caution against confounding "unacceptable" and "impossible", by the way.
My point being, if bringing to the table only an offer that the opposite side more or less must refuse makes something not a negotiation, by your own definition, the U.S. didn't negotiate any more than the Taliban.
I wouldn't say with absolute certainty that the Taliban thought their offer would be flatly rejected, however; they frequently seemed to have an irrational sense of their own level of power and prestige on the world stage.
Or to put it another way, them were some crazy mothers.
To clarify a point: on research, the Taliban's original offer was not merely to try bin Laden in "under Islamic law" or "in an Islamic court", but in Afghanistan. That is certainly a less acceptable offer than "an Islamic Court" or "under Islamic Law"; trying him in Saudi Arabia or Turkey might have been acceptable to the U.S., whereas trying him in Afghanistan certainly was not.
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My mistake, I misunderstood which court and which offer you were referring to there. I got mixed up, sorry-I thought the 'court that would almost certainly order him killed' was the Islamic-law court the Taliban was offering. Naturally I thought it not a given that such a court would order him killed.
quote:I caution against confounding "unacceptable" and "impossible", by the way.
That's a reasonable point, but then again the Taliban obviously had more to lose. That's another thing about negotiations: each side needs to know where they actually stand. Back to my tenuous car sale analogy, if for example I'm starving to death but I have a car, and (somehow) my only potential buyer for that car is a guy who already owns ten cars, I shouldn't really hold out for sticker price, should I? Wouldn't that be viewed as simply ridiculous?
quote: My point being, if bringing to the table only an offer that the opposite side more or less must refuse makes something not a negotiation, by your own definition, the U.S. didn't negotiate any more than the Taliban.
That's where we disagree, then: I don't think it's a given that they must refuse, regardless of bin-Laden's reputation. Particularly given the consequences, the only responsible thing for them to have done in terms of good governance was to give him up.
It's not our fault they're a bunch of crazy mothers.
The idea that we should have negotiated more with the Taliban, in the wake of 9-11, is just baffling to me.
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quote: Now you're changing the question. At first you asked for an example of a threat or 'coercive negotiation' that yielded results.
No, I was clarifying the question since you clear misunderstand what I meant by coercive negotiations. Deterence is not the same thing. Deterence is the international equivalent of the playground "If you kick me, I'll mash your head in." Coercive negotiation is the playground equivalent of "I'll mash your head in if you don't give me that ball". They aren't equivalent. Normal rational people react very differently in the two situations.
quote:60+ years with nuclear weapons without there having been used in anger since WWII certainly sounds like a result to me.
You are grossly over simplifying 60+ years of history. MAD was far from the only thing we've done over the last 60 years to avoid nuclear war. We've agreed to negotiations, made concessions and entered into international cooperation through treaties. Yes the threat of annihilation certainly played a part, but it was only a part, not the whole story.
Which if you've been paying attention has been my point all along. I have never claimed that threats weren't a useful tool in international relations. They are a valuable tool to bring people to the negotiating table. But they aren't negotiations. I can not think of a single case in world history where any country has said "Do X or we will attack" and another country has complied without receiving some sort of concession. Its naive to think that ever could have worked and disingenuous to call that "negotiation".
quote:If you're selling a car for $1000, I can hardly approach you and say, "I'll give you $75 for it," and expect to be taken sincerely. That's not a real offer. You and I would both know it.
In international conflicts, its normal for the two sides to start far apart. Negotiation is the process of trying to find a middle ground. In order for that to work, both sides must be willing to entertain concessions. I don't know whether or not the Taliban was actually willing to negotiate on turning over Bin Laden. What I do no is that Bush publicly stated repeatedly that our terms were not negotiable. Its hardly fair of accusing them of refusing to negotiate when it was our side was saying explicitly that we would not negotiate.
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I will say this, though: to an extent actually it is our fault the Taliban were a bunch of crazy mothers.
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quote:The idea that we should have negotiated more with the Taliban, in the wake of 9-11, is just baffling to me.
I certainly couldn't argue for any reason there. In retrospect its pretty clear that we have achieved all our aims without negotiating with the Taliban. We captured Bin Laden easily, brought him to public trial, and punished him justly. We've virtually squelched Al Qaida and put an end to Islamic extremism. Afghanistan has become a paradise of peace and human rights. American is once again respected throughout the world and people are rushing to share in our freedoms and embrace our values. When the military approach is this successful, who could possibly argue that we should have tried alternatives?
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We don't need to agree to disagree, give me one example where the kind of coercive negotiations we used in Afghanistan and Iraq have worked.
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I can't think of any offhand. Doesn't mean there aren't any. It'd be nice, though, if you'd provide some examples of your own-since you're insisting on (revised) examples now-that aren't so terribly dubious, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis (which again, was resolved mostly thanks to threat), and the Iranian hostages.
quote:I certainly couldn't argue for any reason there. In retrospect its pretty clear that we have achieved all our aims without negotiating with the Taliban. We captured Bin Laden easily, brought him to public trial, and punished him justly. We've virtually squelched Al Qaida and put an end to Islamic extremism. Afghanistan has become a paradise of peace and human rights. American is once again respected throughout the world and people are rushing to share in our freedoms and embrace our values. When the military approach is this successful, who could possibly argue that we should have tried alternatives?
Fascinating. So because this current administration, which has become almost comically inept and foolish, has failed using a military approach, clearly that means that 'the military approach' as you call it was doomed to failure from the start. That's just silly. If you get a drunken parapalegic to perform delicate surgery on someone and that surgery fails, you can hardly reason that conventional medicine is fatally flawed and we should resort to healing crystals or something.
You're simply unwilling to concede that we did try negotiating with them, just because, what, it wasn't generous enough? Didn't take enough time? What? Oh, we should've asked for an International Court or something? Hey, who was that attack against again, 'the world' or the United States? We gave them an option aside from war, and they refused to take it. Small note, though: people are still rushing to share in our freedoms and embrace our values. As galling as I imagine that must be to have pointed out.
I'm dropping out of this discussion now, Rabbit-consider it won if you like.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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My mistake, I misunderstood which court and which offer you were referring to there. I got mixed up, sorry-I thought the 'court that would almost certainly order him killed' was the Islamic-law court the Taliban was offering. Naturally I thought it not a given that such a court would order him killed.
I didn't post that either! Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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quote:Fascinating. So because this current administration, which has become almost comically inept and foolish, has failed using a military approach, clearly that means that 'the military approach' as you call it was doomed to failure from the start. That's just silly.
And I also did not say that. I can't be responsible for the the silliness of the straw men you build.
quote:If you get a drunken parapalegic to perform delicate surgery on someone and that surgery fails, you can hardly reason that conventional medicine is fatally flawed and we should resort to healing crystals or something.
Which is precisely my point on negotiations. Just because the Bush pathetic inept attempts at talking to the Taliban and our other enemies have failed, is not proof that negotiations and diplomacy could never have worked. (Something I believe you have said).
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: The idea that we should have negotiated more with the Taliban, in the wake of 9-11, is just baffling to me.
It's certainly possible that it would have been a fruitless exercise. But it's dangerous to engage in international politics driven by righteous anger, no matter how justified those feelings might be. Or, more specifically, the emotional undertone might cause one to insist on a brute-force approach when a more subtle one might actually be more effective in gaining what one desires.
If nothing else, engaging them might have clarified two points:
1. Were the Taliban in fact capable of producing Osama bin Laden, and
2. Where exactly was Osama bin Laden located?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: can't think of any offhand. Doesn't mean there aren't any. It'd be nice, though, if you'd provide some examples of your own-since you're insisting on (revised) examples now-that aren't so terribly dubious, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis (which again, was resolved mostly thanks to threat), and the Iranian hostages.
You are clearly still fighting a straw man. I have never said that threats weren't useful. They are a useful tool for getting people to the negotiating table. My contention all along is that threats and ultimates don't constitute negotiating. Threats ALONE don't resolve problems -- negotiations in which both sides make concessions are needed. The Cuban Missile crisis and the Iranian hostages are good examples specifically because they were sold to the American people as proof that the US could stand its ground and get results when in truth important concessions were made behind the scenes.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Hitler threatening to invade Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Mussolini sending his divisions to the Brenner Pass in 1934.
The crisis preceding the War of Spanish Succession, where the powers of Europe demanded that the Spanish crown should go to the obscure Bohemian princeling, and France backed down. Unfortunately the Bohemian (Bavarian?) prince had the bad manners to die before the Spanish king, so the solution didn't work after all and there was a ten-year war. But in the original negotiations, the French backed down when the threat of a British/Austrian/Prussian/minor-German-princelets coalition was made.
Any number of British demands on Indian princelings.
The US demand that Germany respect their neutrality in 1915, and not fire on US-flagged ships. Admittedly the Germans went back on this two years later, but in 1915 the mere threat of American intervention worked.
Various German demands to renegotiate the reparations issue, or they would devalue the Mark again.
I'm sure I could multiply examples; it's fairly rare to find pure threats among major powers, who have credibility issues to think about, but when a major and a minor power are negotiating, it's very often all about the stick.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Thanks, KoM. I was restricting myself unnecessarily to major-major power dealings.
Sterling,
quote:It's certainly possible that it would have been a fruitless exercise. But it's dangerous to engage in international politics driven by righteous anger, no matter how justified those feelings might be. Or, more specifically, the emotional undertone might cause one to insist on a brute-force approach when a more subtle one might actually be more effective in gaining what one desires.
First of all, I think it's a bit disingenous to suggest that it was merely possible that negotiations with the Taliban would have been fruitless, as though it was equally possible that they would have borne fruit. I'm not saying that's what you're doing here (all you've specifically mentioned is possibility), but it's something I've heard before.
And yes, you're right: an emotional response can sometimes be a bad (inefficient) thing. But in this case, we weren't fueled strictly by righteous anger. If we were, we simply would've launched an attack immediately, with no effort at negotiations, no matter how abbreviated.
We still gave the Taliban of all people a chance to come clean. Unsurprisingly they totally blew it.
quote:But in this case, we weren't fueled strictly by righteous anger. If we were, we simply would've launched an attack immediately, with no effort at negotiations, no matter how abbreviated.
I'm not sure that's true.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Either way, though, I don't care much to be honest with you. We did more than we were morally required to do simply giving them the chance.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Because the whole population of Afghanistan - including women and children - had no claim on our morals.
quote: There is nothing we can do, short of killing them or surrendering to them, that will stop them from acting as they have been acting for decades – murderously and relentlessly. There is certainly nothing we can say.
I find it very sad that the man who wrote Speaker for the Dead has come to this.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Because the whole population of Afghanistan - including women and children - had no claim on our morals.
You're right. We've certainly prosecuted a war against the whole population of Afghanistan, now haven't we? Fortunately for the population of Afghanistan, the group they harbored* decided to launch such an attack against the United States instead of Russia or China.
*Out of fear or out of agreement, but exactly how much consideration are we supposed to give that? Should we not have attacked Afghanistan at all? And for the sake of that question, please let's don't pretend that there was much chance at all of further negotiation bearing fruit.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I don't want this thread to turn into a rehashing of Card's support for President Bush's foreign policy, Empire, or any other hot-button topic that generates lots of rather incendiary comments. (I'm not even going to go into my opinions on these issues. [Smile] )
curious I count maybe four comments that answer talsmitde's original request.
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:It's certainly possible that it would have been a fruitless exercise. But it's dangerous to engage in international politics driven by righteous anger, no matter how justified those feelings might be. Or, more specifically, the emotional undertone might cause one to insist on a brute-force approach when a more subtle one might actually be more effective in gaining what one desires.
First of all, I think it's a bit disingenous to suggest that it was merely possible that negotiations with the Taliban would have been fruitless, as though it was equally possible that they would have borne fruit. I'm not saying that's what you're doing here (all you've specifically mentioned is possibility), but it's something I've heard before.
Let me clarify. When I say that attempting negotiations might have bourne fruit, I am not considering only benefits that might have come from concessions or offerings that the Taliban itself was willing to make. To my mind it's possible that there may have been positives even if the result was only a delay and the Taliban holding to their line.
One, if bin Laden remained the sole object of dispute, it is possible that Afghanistan could have held him while negotiations were ongoing.
Two, a delay might have given a chance to more effectively organize a multilateral military response, even perhaps preventing bin Laden's escape.
Three, giving the ramifications time to become apparent to the Afghan citizenry may have sown seeds of popular unrest, possibly leading to either the revelation of bin Laden's position by those outside the government who wish to stay the U.S.' hand or a degree of popular uprising against a rule that puts one man above the lives and livelihoods of the nation as a whole, or both.
...Against this, I need to note that while the invasion of Afghanistan was successful in overthrowing the Taliban, it was not successful either in capturing bin Laden or in making Afghanistan cease to be a haven for terrorism in the long term.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: There is nothing we can do, short of killing them or surrendering to them, that will stop them from acting as they have been acting for decades – murderously and relentlessly. There is certainly nothing we can say.
I find it very sad that the man who wrote Speaker for the Dead has come to this.
Exactly my thoughts when I read the article.
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I think some people here missed the point of that book. The reason they were killing each other was because they couldn't communicate. Here, we CAN communicate, and they're saying that they want to kill us. In Speaker, the races wanted nothing more than to live. They didn't INTEND any harm. The killing was based on ignorance.
This is very different. The extremists that we face now say that their religion more or less OBLIGATES them to kill us. Of course, I am of the opinion that it is the exact same type of ignorance, as our enemies, like the formics, don't seem to think we are human on the same level as them.
LIKE Ender's Game, we have tried several times to communicate to them that we are just people who want to live (please, spare me whatever other grievances we may or may not have caused them, that isn't the point of this post), and, like EG, it has fallen upon deaf/non-comprehending ears. Exterminating the Formics had been the best- and only- option. I don't think Ender regretted doing it, I think he regretted the NECESSITY of doing it. People seem to forget that the criticism he received as Ender the Xenocide was unfounded and unfair, as he did the right thing for the situation as it existed at the time. Hell, if he hadn't WRITTEN The Hive Queen, then most likely, everyone else would have maintained that it had been the best option.
I think that was another point of Speaker; that Ender's Empathy had been so strong and passionate as to be a driving force in History. He was strong enough to convince the entire human race that he was evil.
It does not change that it was the right thing to do though, and even knowing how we might see this time when we look back on it in 100+ years, it doesn't change the fact that it is the best- and only- option we have now, as was stated by Mr. Card.
Edited to add:
This is not to say the extermination of everyone of that religion, but at least to remove from a position of power and influence (by any means necessary) the extremists who guide their people to genocide.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Well, not only have they SAID that it was, but I'm rather sure that so far, we've been doing a good bit of dying on their behalf (though not so much as them. They apparently aren't very good at it thus far) so... yeah. Do you have a better idea? I'd love to hear it.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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