Bush Takes Swipe at Obama’s Foreign Policy

President George “LBJ” Bush set a new low for himself yesterday while speaking at the Israeli Knesset as part of the celebrations of Israel’s founding 60 years ago. He effectively called Senator Barack Obama an appeaser, suggesting that to talk to an enemy is to yield to the enemy. What was especially sad was seeing a solemn event between two nations turn into a campaign stop for the GOP.

First, here’s what Mr. Bush said, “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with 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 only 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.”

While it is true that appeasement of Adolf Hitler did not work, there is absolutely no evidence that not talking to him would have prevented the war either. Experience, though, shows that most conflicts that do get resolved without resorting to force are settled because the two sides are talking.

Additionally, Mr. Bush’s Manichaeism in matters of global affairs forces him into the position that if America doesn’t get 100% of the pie, then evil has won. His is a zero-sum world, and it is perfectly laughable on the face of it. Geopolitics is not so simple. After all, the Americans taught Usama bin Laden how to fight so the Soviets would have to leave Afghanistan. Mission accomplished, but at what cost?

This journal agrees with Senator Obama, who said, “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.” Politics used to stop at the water’s edge, Mr. President. For shame!

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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