“Know thy lot, Know thy opponents, Know thyself. Know thy opposition and know thy self and you will win a hundred battles.”

Unless you are George W. Bush. You don't have to know about Iraq, the tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites, and the likelihood that all hell will break loose on the ground once Saddam has been removed. You don't have to know about any of that. You just have to "go in and take him out." And throw in a little swagger while you talk about it in front of a camera.

That's a huge and healthy step you just took, to acknowledge that those who disagree are not "enemies." That's also one large leap for civility that everyone should take.

Princella,

Call 'em what they are!

They certainly aren't America's friends!

We are fighting two wars... one with America's enemy in Iraq... and one with their Democrat supporters here!

As we've discussed before, America is already engaged in a low level civil war. It's time Americans wake up and understand that Democrats and their anti-American Liberalism are destroying America... as are their intentions!

We can't expect others to join the battle if they don't hear the call!!!

AAR

Mark, I believe that all Americans, no matter of political affiliation, want the same things. Everyone wants to have to best schools, the best healthcare, the best defense, and so forth. We just disagree on how to achieve them.

"There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

If you lay siege to a town,
you will exhaust your strength.

when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped,
your strength exhausted and your treasure spent,
other chieftains will spring up to take advantage
of your extremity. Then no man, however wise,
will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue."

SunTzu

Little new to the "blog scene", sorry if I am out of line. It seems to me that we all need to take a step back, close your eyes and think about the feelings you experienced on 9/11. Trust me I am not putting forth the normal "appeal" but seriously if everyone in this wonderful country of ours, especially decomrats, are going to continue to make this a major issue, then what would they have done different? I live in the heart land of this great country, and I am sick of hearing that Bush has done so much wrong for our nation. We existed in a false hope for so long that we were the "great union" the nation that could not be harmed by some outside force. WRONG. There is really no need to put more analysis into the Iraq situation than what it really is, an effort to secure our safety. Why do we put more into it than just that. Bush has put us in a position to secure our future, our childrens future. Do not take this as some ignorate insight, it is the simple common sense of what should be pushed and more publisized by the republician party. Make it simple, make it real, remember the lives the horrible images of that day, and ask yourselves, given our actions as A NATION, not a president, have we positioned ourselves to protect our people, to ensure our children do not witness the destruction and devistation we had to endure.

Bottom line from this citizen of the midwestern united states, I trust president Bush. We need to look at the real issues, put them forth into the media and get the reality out there the liberal press is going continue to force the one sided veiw of out actions into the american public it is time for the real america to be heard.

CRL

The worst president in the history of this nation is:

george w. bush.

He is so bad that he does not deserve to have his name properly captialized.

The Person elected in 2008 will already be above and beyond better than george w. bush.

If George H. W. Bush were to be re-elected (He still can under the constitution for 1 term) He would be 200% better than his son, george w. bush.

Ronald Reagan is rolling in his grave over the disaster that george w. bush has caused.

magmum this is the very thing that Mark has talked about. You have let your hate for George W. Bush blind you into not respecting the man. I have disagreed with a lot he has done, but I havent disrespected him. Also, magmum you must have forgotten those 4 years that we call the Carter Administration, now that was the worse presidency in my lifetime, maybe only as worse as James Buchanan ever.

AAR says, "We are fighting two wars... one with America's enemy in Iraq... and one with their Democrat supporters here!"

That's half of the country you're talking about. Get real. Wake up. As Mark says in the post above, "Stop hating - it won't help, it will hurt."

Vis-à-vis the debate update Mark, both you and I and most other conservatives felt Hillary’s answer regarding the tin-pot dictators was the correct thing to say (s’pose Bill was transmitting this info into her hairdo?) But, the majority of democrats believed that Obama’s pledge to talk to the worst of the worst in his first term is desirable; they actually believe that posing for propaganda photo ops makes the world safer. Hillary correctly stated that isolating the thugs is what will bring them to the negotiations. Obama believes that we can talk out our problems.

Mr. Bush has been proven correct on this subject; North Korea doesn't get a one-on-one meeting with the US until they comply with the 6 party talks. Putin is trying to re assert Russia as a major player before he leaves the stage (if he does), and China has their coming out party with the Olympics; they don’t want anything to spoil this. Russia and China are now primed for use to pressure Iran and Syria to negotiate a resolution. All indications are that this Administration is using every diplomatic carrot-on-a-stick to get Russia and China to work with us. The opportunity is fleeting; a US president meeting with Malamute I’m-a-dinky-dog of Iran and Babar Asshat of Syria without the other players would undo any chance we have with them. This is why Mr. Bush insisted that negotiations with North Korea included the other players in the region; Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.

This has a much better chance of success than photo ops, s'mores and pillow talk with thugs and murderers.

Vis-à-vis the debate update Mark, both you and I and most other conservatives felt Hillary’s answer regarding the tin-pot dictators was the correct thing to say (s’pose Bill was transmitting this info into her hairdo?) But, the majority of democrats believed that Obama’s pledge to talk to the worst of the worst in his first term is desirable; they actually believe that posing for propaganda photo ops makes the world safer. Hillary correctly stated that isolating the thugs is what will bring them to the negotiations. Obama believes that we can talk out our problems.

Mr. Bush has been proven correct on this subject; North Korea doesn't get a one-on-one meeting with the US until they comply with the 6 party talks. Putin is trying to re assert Russia as a major player before he leaves the stage (if he does), and China has their coming out party with the Olympics; they don’t want anything to spoil this. Russia and China are now primed for use to pressure Iran and Syria to negotiate a resolution. All indications are that this Administration is using every diplomatic carrot-on-a-stick to get Russia and China to work with us. The opportunity is fleeting; a US president meeting with Malamute I’m-a-dinky-dog of Iran and Babar Asshat of Syria without the other players would undo any chance we have with them. This is why Mr. Bush insisted that negotiations with North Korea included the other players in the region; Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.

This has a much better chance of success than photo ops, s'mores and pillow talk with thugs and murderers.

What better way to know thine enemy than meeting with them one-on-one as Obama has pledged? You seem to be simply strengthening his position.

Hillary FLIP FLOPS - In April 2007 she says the following...Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday criticized President Bush's foreign policy, and said if she were president she would do things differently, including beginning diplomatic talks with supposed enemies and sending envoys throughout the world. "I would begin diplomatic discussions with those countries with whom we have differences, to try to figure out what is the depth of those differences..."I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. You don't make peace with your friends -- you have to do the hard work of dealing with people you don't agree with,"...

Dasein:

Yeah, you certainly can't have that one-on-one meeting nonsense. It's too bad Bill Richardson didn't get to weigh in on the question during the debate.

Richardson was in North Korea to secure the return of American MIA remains. He was not there to negotiate with the North Koreans on any official capacity.

The North Koreans were denied one-on-one negotiations with the US on the nuclear issue; so desperate were they that they would take advantage of a visit from a useful idiot to relay a message to the Administration that they had already signaled through the Chinese in December 2006 after Secretary Rice visited Beijing.

Tim,
This isn’t a playground dispute; we’re not trying to decide who gets to be first in line for a potty break; these are dangerous people in a dangerous world. International diplomacy requires that all parties affected by international agreements are involved with those agreements; no problem can be solved until all parties agree that a problem exists.

Maddie Half-bright negotiated with the North Korean one on one and with no other players from the region; the Japanese and the South Koreans felt sold out, and resented the US for putting them both at risk with no say in the matter. When Il was found cheating on the agreement (by the Bush Administration) the rest of the affected in the region couldn’t aid the US with enforcement, because they weren’t party to the agreement.

Isolate our enemies, then we, along with our allies are in a better position if we speak as a group.

Dasein: Richardson was in North Korea to secure the return of American MIA remains. He was not there to negotiate with the North Koreans on any official capacity.

I'm sure about the first part. But I'm not at all sure that the first part wasn't a subterfuge for the second part. And the second part of your argument, namely...

The North Koreans were denied one-on-one negotiations with the US on the nuclear issue; so desperate were they that they would take advantage of a visit from a useful idiot to relay a message to the Administration that they had already signaled through the Chinese in December 2006 after Secretary Rice visited Beijing.

... does more to confirm it than deny it.

Can't sign into Typekey, this is starting to piss me off!

To paraphrase the non-ignoble Ric, let me see if I’ve got this straight.

The Administration sent Richardson, a vocal opponent of the US policy on North Korean diplomacy, to North Korea, as part of a non-partisan group ostensibly to reclaim the remains of US Servicemen, but secretly instructed him to listen to a North Korean nuclear negotiator when he (Richardson) is approached (and they knew Richardson would be approached) because he (the North Korean) wants to send the Administration a confirmation of a message the Chinese had already delivered to the US via diplomatic routes during the run-up to the six party talks because … okay, my eyes are beginning to cross … because they (the North Koreans) knew that the only way to negotiate with the US is through an American traveling in an official capacity but not the official capacity needed to relay the message? Is that your argument?

Conspiracy thread is over on another page. C-ya'

Dasein: ...okay, my eyes are beginning to cross … because they (the North Koreans) knew that the only way to negotiate with the US is through an American traveling in an official capacity but not the official capacity needed to relay the message? Is that your argument?

You're making the assumption that his capacity was unofficial vis-a-vis the nuclear issue. That is certainly how it has been portrayed. But after listening to accounts of his trip it's pretty clear to me that he did have authority to clarify the Bush administration's POV and to offer assurances that I find hard to believe he could offer if he were just some "useful idiot". Richardson has a long history with the North Koreans, and apparently they trust him. He did criticize Bush's earlier approach to NK, but that approach changed. So he seems like the perfect conduit. Additionally, Christopher Hill has also met a few times to discuss issues with them one-on-one.

Rico,
Let’s suspend reality long enough to believe that the Bush Administration sent a New Mexico governor to North Korea as a “conduit” (I can’t believe I’m buying into this delusion) to carry some secret information to the North Koreans that we didn’t want to send via the Chinese as was our normal diplomatic route. And let’s further assume that the North Koreans responded via Richardson acceptance of this secret negotiation. Wouldn’t we have to accept that the North Koreans would then sit with us at the six-party talks and never mention that we used back-door diplomacy because the Chinese, South Koreans, Japanese and Russians might just take exception to ex parte communications?

Lastly, and before I stick an ice-pick in my brain to vent the previous thoughts, Christopher Hill is Chief US negotiator in nuclear talks with North Korea; it is his job to communicate with the North Koreans. All meetings were done in conjunction with the six-party talks; our envoy has met separately with each player in the group, once the six-party format was agreed to.

Be any of that as it was, the issue and the point of the thread is the idea of a US President meeting one-on-one with tin-pot dictators as a first level of negotiations between the countries and the naïveté necessary to believe that one on one meetings with rogue regimes would yield anything more than a poke in the butt with a frozen rope.