Posted by
http://madirishmaninc.blogspot.com on Thursday, May 15, 2008 11:11:47 AM
Folks:
The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama is reacting defensively to
an utterance in Pres. Bush’s speech today.
This seems like an appropriate time to refresh our memories as
to Sen. Obama’s stated desire to meet with the heads of terror-sponsoring
nations without preconditions.
Heck, one of his senior advisors already had private
meetings with Hamas … around the time Hamas endorsed Sen. Obama,
interestingly.
Ed Morrissey and Jim Geraghty are on the case.
Patrick
I wonder where he got that idea? Oh, yeah!
posted
at 10:20 am on May 15, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/15/i-wonder-where-he-got-that-idea-oh-yeah/
Both
CNN and Barack Obama sound outraged that George Bush might conclude that Obama
wants to offer a program of appeasement to Iran, North Korea, and other
dictatorships. Speaking in Israel on the 60th anniversary of that
nation’s independence, Bush warned that people still have not learned
that negotiations with genocidal lunatics produces nothing but more genocide.
Hitler proved it in 1939, but 69 years later, some still live in a pre-Munich
mindset:
In a
particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush
suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of
“appeasement” of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased
Nazis in the run-up to World War II.
“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,”
said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to
calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks
with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We
have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said in remarks to the
Israeli Knesset. “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.”
Team
Obama wasted no time in twisting its own knickers over the speech:
“Obviously
this is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil,” Obama
Communications Director Robert Gibbs told CNN’s John Roberts on American
Morning Thursday, adding that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had been quoted
Wednesday making remarks about dialogue with Iran that were similar to the
Illinois senator’s.
“Let’s
not confuse precondition with preparation,” said Gibbs of any talks with Iran.
“Obviously these meetings would be full of preparation. But we’re
not going to sit down and engage Iran, unless or until they give up
their nuclear weapons program.[”]
Really?
Let’s go back to the tape, from which Obama has run the last few weeks:
And
as Allahpundit noted, from Obama’s own website:
Without
preconditions. That means without Iran guaranteeing anything, let
alone the big prize of their nuclear program. Gibbs’ statement makes
absolutely no sense in context of Bush’s remarks or Obama’s
previous statements. If Iran
gave up its nuclear weapons program today, Bush would open diplomatic contacts
with Iran
and might even consider a summit. He’s made that very clear over the last
few years, holding out WTO sponsorship and normalized relations in exchange for
just that concession.If Obama now says he won’t meet with Iran
until they surrender their nuclear-weapons program, how exactly does that
differ from Bush? And how does that fit with his previous statements about
having talks “without preconditions”?
Beyond
that, Obama has never explained how talks with Ahmadinejad would convince Iran
to stop being, well, the lunatic mullahcracy that it is. Instead of supporting
the grassroots efforts at real reform, Obama would simply give credence to the sham
“reformers” the Guardian Council approves as part of its oppressive
control over the political process in Iran. Meeting with Ahmadinejad, who
has held regional conferences extolling a world without Israel or the US, would give the hard-liners a
boost in stature while reducing our credibility with Iranians looking to rid
themselves of the mullahcracy and establish real representative government.
They don’t want us to bomb Iran into submission, but they also
don’t want us to abandon them for a Neville Chamberlain-like illusory
diplomatic exchange that changes nothing.
If
Gibbs wants to eliminate the confusion on these points, then he needs to start
with Barack Obama, who apparently has no clue what preconditions mean. Maybe he
should have learned that before running for President.
###
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjM5YjQ3NDJhNjI1OTA0ZTQ4MmZmZjEzZDgyNmU5ZjM=
Obama: I Won't Negotiate
With Terrorists, Just Their Sponsors
Obama's statement on Bush's speech at the Knesset:
"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to
the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a
false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies
that have strengthened Iran
and failed to secure America
or our ally Israel.
"Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do
what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power
— including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy — to pressure
countries like Iran and Syria.
"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."
Indeed, Obama does not support engagement with terrorists,
just the regimes that financially sponsor them.
And while Obama has never met with Hamas (despite their
praise and public expressions of hope that he will win), it is only his
advisers like Robert Malley that actually meet with terrorist groups like
Hamas.
###
ROBERT
MALLEY
Robert
Malley, Middle East Program Director For The
International Crisis Group, Is An Informal Policy Advisor To Obama:
Robert Malley Is An
Informal Advisor To Obama. “And the campaign's wider circle includes two people, a former
national security adviser to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and a
former President Clinton aide, Robert Malley, who have come under wider
scrutiny. … As for Mr. Malley, the campaign says he is not a formal
adviser, but has provided advice.” (Eli
Lake, “Obama’s Brain Trust
Taking Shape,” The New York Sun, 2/21/08)
Malley Has
Been Criticized For Urging More Extensive Engagement With Hamas:
“Mr. Malley, In Any
Event, Is A Problem Because He Has Been An Advocate For Engagement With Hamas
And Defender Of Yasser Arafat Even In The Post-Oslo Period. And He Is Bidding
For A Job In A Democratic Administration Again.” (Editorial,
“Much Ado About Malley,” The New
York Sun, 2/19/08)
- “Mr. Malley Called For Embracing Hamas When It Won
In January 2006 Palestinian Legislative Elections In Which Violence Was
Used To Intimidate Voters And In Which No Free Press Was Operating.”
(Editorial,
“Much Ado About Malley,” The New
York Sun, 2/19/08)
Malley And Former PLO
Advisor Hussein Agha Encouraged All Sides In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
To “Cast Aside Their Dysfunctional, Destructive, And Ideologically Driven
Policies.” “Hamas and Israel
will need to achieve a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, albeit mediated by
Abbas. And Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will need to negotiate a
political deal with Abbas, who will have to receive a mandate to do so from
Hamas. The current mind-set, in which each side considers dealmaking by the
other two to be a mortal threat, could be replaced by one in which all three
couplings are viewed as mutually reinforcing. For that, the parties' allies ought to cast aside their dysfunctional,
destructive, ideologically driven policies.” (Hussein Agha and
Robert Malley, “Middle East Triangle,” The Washington
Post, 1/17/08)
- David A. Harris, Executive Director Of The American
Jewish Committee, Criticized Malley’s Comments.
“Hussein Agha and Robert Malley want allies of Israel and Hamas to
drop their ‘dysfunctional, destructive, ideologically driven
policies’ and push all sides to negotiate…What a neat
symmetry! The only problem is that it is totally misplaced. Putting Israel
and Hamas in the same boat is absurd. Hamas, a terrorist group whose
stated goal is the destruction of Israel,
is primarily backed by Iran,
which also calls for a world without Israel. Israel, meanwhile, has
withdrawn from the Gaza Strip and speaks of the need for a two-state
solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.” (David A.
Harris, Letter To The Editor, “Misplaced Hopes For Hamas,” The Washington
Post, 1/23/08)
Malley
Warned Against Isolating Hamas Or Cutting Off Palestinian Aid; Attributed
Hamas’ Electoral Victory In Part To Resentment Of Israel:
Malley Urged Funding For
The Hamas Government. “An inflexible
approach to the PA would carry other perils. Hamas, searching for a substitute
source of funds, might turn to Iran or, convinced that it is being set up for
failure, drop its political gambit and return to the familiarity of armed confrontation.
Without the leverage of Western funding, without the responsibility to ensure
it keeps flowing, Hamas will be less constrained and freer to revert to past
practice.” (Robert Malley, Op-Ed, “Making The
Best Of Hamas' Victory,” The [Baltimore]
Sun, 2/19/06)
Malley Attributed
Hamas’ Victory To Flaws In Israeli And U.S. Policies. “But
more than that, and more important, the vote expressed anger at years of
humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion,
Yasser Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's incursions, Western lecturing and, most recently
and tellingly, the threat of an aid cutoff in the event of an Islamist
success.” (Robert Malley, Op-Ed, “Making The Best Of Hamas' Victory,” The
[Baltimore] Sun, 2/19/06)
Malley Has
Been Accused Of Revising The History Of The 2000 Camp David Negotiations To Put
More Blame On Israel And The
U.S.:
Malley Faulted The U.S.
And Israel For
Arafat’s Unwillingness To Accept The Proposals Offered At Camp David. “A
junior staffer during the Oslo II negotiations, Mr. Malley offered, in the New
York Review of Books, the first revisionist history of the failed parley. In
Mr. Malley's view, Arafat was not
really the cause for the failure. Mr. Malley reckoned Arafat was understandably
suspicious of American and Jewish motives and felt unduly pressured. The terror
Arafat launched in the wake of the failed negotiations was more a
‘tragedy of errors.’” (Editorial, “Much Ado
About Malley,” The New York Sun, 2/19/08)
Agha And Malley: “For
these reasons, Camp David seemed to Arafat to
encapsulate his worst nightmares. It was high-wire summitry, designed to
increase the pressure on the Palestinians to reach a quick agreement while
heightening the political and symbolic costs if they did not. And it clearly
was a Clinton/ Barak idea both in concept and timing, and for that reason alone
highly suspect. That the US
issued the invitations despite Israel's refusal to carry out its earlier commitments and
despite Arafat's plea for additional
time to prepare only reinforced in his mind the sense of a US-Israeli
conspiracy.” (Hussein Agha and
Robert Malley, “Camp David: The Tragedy Of Errors,” The New
York Review Of Books, 8/9/01)
Malley Was Criticized For
Placing More Blame On The Israelis For The Failure Of The Camp
David Negotiations.
“[M]alley contended that blaming the collapse on Arafat was ‘a
disservice to the cause of peace.’ … ‘I knew it would
be the first contrary view to break the unanimity and consensus, and I knew it
would upset former colleagues,’ Malley said. He found himself at the
center of an international furor, receiving biting criticism from Israelis and
American Jews.’” (Nora Boustany, “Ex-Adviser Sees Rare
Opportunity On Mideast Front,” The Washington Post,
12/3/04)
Malley’s Views Were
Contradicted By Fellow Obama Advisor And Camp David
Negotiator Dennis Ross. Ross: “You have to
understand that Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel
was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it
wasn't available, achievable was
because Arafat wouldn't accept
it.” (Fox News’
“Fox News Sunday,” 4/21/02)
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