Comments on: Congress, the President, and the polls: a game of withdrawal chess https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/ A blog about political change, among other things Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:10:24 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: sergey https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35098 Fri, 11 May 2007 09:51:14 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35098 No change to democracy in Arab world would ever lead to liberal democracy, only to Iranian or Hamas-type “people republic” run by terrorists and madmen. Pressure from US can persuade autocratic rulers to abandon nukes or arrogant anti-American policy, but no incentive can persuade them to commit suicide, political and physical, and any concession to democracy for them is concession to islamists, that is, a suicide. So we should be happy to have in ME not very anti-Western secular governments, however tyrannical they can be. They are natural allies against much more dangerous enemies: islamists. As Churchill famously said justifying his alliance with Stalin, “If devil invaded Germany, I would be able to find a pair of pleasant words for the devil”. This is the example to follow.

]]> By: Lee https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35096 Fri, 11 May 2007 05:10:34 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35096 Well, Anon, by the evidence of your own postings, I’d say the internet in particular makes it easy to demonize someone who disagrees with you over politics.
Although I’ve noticed it really doesn’t matter what forum the left happens to be in at the time, the ideology seems “at ease” to demonize at any time, any person, any ideology that doesn’t conform to theirs(yours).

]]> By: Anon Y. Mous https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35094 Fri, 11 May 2007 01:58:23 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35094 I wonder if it’s natural to utterly misread someone, or if the Internet in particular makes it so easy to demonize someone who disagrees with you over politics.

Either way, I’m off to points foreign again, so I’ll have to leave and say: enjoy congratulating each other on ideological purity! Down with crimethink!

]]> By: TalkinKamel https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35092 Fri, 11 May 2007 00:13:15 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35092 Tom yes, I think it’s better to read Neo’s columns, and mostly skip the comments. Like true ideologues, they’re more concerned with presenting Leftist agitprop and trying to punish Neo for what they see as her apostasy from the true faith than they are in actually debating.

Hiya, Chicken-brains!

]]> By: TalkinKamel https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35091 Fri, 11 May 2007 00:09:51 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35091 Steve, the real question is, have you learned?

Or can you?

]]> By: Bravo Romeo Delta https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35090 Thu, 10 May 2007 23:00:32 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35090 I guess I just don’t get why it is that so many people are eager to see us lose and lose quickly. By pretty much any definition, quitting a contested field of battle is losing. Withdrawal from Iraq is losing the war in Iraq.

What is it, exactly, about the prospect of national disgrace and defeat that has some folks so excited?

BRD

]]> By: Lee https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35083 Thu, 10 May 2007 18:51:24 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35083 Anon and others always seem to be able to talk out of both sides of their mouths when needed. On the one hand, it’s our fault the world hates us when we “support” bad guys, but then say we must “deal” with them if they get “bad enough” to threaten something. In other words “peace at any price”.
Charl will decry such “harsh language” from Bush as “threatening”, but says we can ingratiate ourselves to the Egyptian people if we “denounce” Mubarak, who, of course, will rationally conclude he’s “not wanted” and relinquish authority.

]]> By: Tom https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35074 Thu, 10 May 2007 14:25:02 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35074 Well, this does it for me, neo. After reading the responses by the chicken-brained above, in future I will read your columns but never again the comments.

]]> By: Anon Y. Mous https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35071 Thu, 10 May 2007 13:25:07 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35071 “Say, wasn’t Jimmy the one who used diplomacy and leverage to get the North Koreans to stop their nuclear program?

Or was it William Jefferson Clinton?

Yeah, those guys. We’re sure better off due to their efforts, aren’t we?”

First, you fundamentally do not understand what diplomacy is. Diplomacy is not talking, and it is not using “harsh language,” and it is not repeating your demands, over and over again, in the hopes that your sheer force of will can alter another country’s behavior. Diplomacy should be understood in the same way that a purchase or sale is understood. You are trying, in essence, to purchase a change in behavior from another country. When you come to the table, you have to be able to present both the demands you are making and what you are willing to pay.

Second, yes – the diplomatic efforts of Bill Clinton’s government did, in fact, achieve something. NK abandoned enrichment efforts in exchange for substantial concessions. If you don’t want NK to build nukes and you can’t attack it for fear of losing Seoul to an artillery barrage, you have to be willing to pay. Clinton realized this and gave us an agreement that would have worked, had not the Republican-controlled Congress decided that making concessions to a dictatorship was so distasteful, it was better that dictatorship had nuclear weapons. Congress refused to fund the concessions, the NKs balked and restarted a program they had ended because of Clinton’s diplomacy. When Bush came into office, he finally killed off the deal, spent six years dicking around, and then signed a deal that looks almost exactly like the one Clinton signed. Looks like he, too, realized finally that diplomacy means you have to offer the other side something in addition to making demands. The only problem is, it’s six years later and NK has nukes. We have the same deal but the situation is much, much worse. Wouldn’t it have been better to have had the deal six years ago and no NK nukes?

But Bush and his supporters seem wedded to the idea that you don’t need to talk to people to get them to do what you want, and that you don’t need to dirty your hands working with a repellent dictator because if you just wish hard enough, magic will make the bad nukes go away.

]]> By: steve https://thenewneo.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35067 Thu, 10 May 2007 12:24:56 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2007/05/09/congress-the-president-and-the-polls-a-game-of-withdrawal-chess/#comment-35067 Like a true ideologue I’m sure she’s more concerned about figuring out how to keep people like me off her board rather than engaging people like Charg and Mouse….

Hi Neo- girl!

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