During a speech given while celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary, President Bush stated, “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along…. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, ‘Lord, if I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.” The policy of the Bush administration has generally been to denounce diplomacy, preferring instead both the threat and use of military action. The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America states, “Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.” President Bush does not believe that we should conduct talks with enemies, and appears to equate diplomacy with appeasement. However, foreign policy expert, John Holum calls this the diplomatic equivalent of holding your breath until you pass out, practiced against someone who would prefer you dead. Read the rest of this entry »