They both have the same outcome of undermining the power of the executive branch.
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No more GWOT. Ha.
- Thread starter BrandonJ1780
- Start date
I think fools were made of all of them. To tell you the truth I could care less about what party affiliation they claim, might as well be one of the same these days. Obviously the administration cooperated with the trip, the political fallout would be too great for the administration if they decided to take any hardline approach. Bottom line in my book is that any politician who smiles and shakes hands, take photo ops in fancy rooms, et al with people who want nothing but total submission of the west or death is not good policy.
That would have made all the Cold War summits difficult. Kruschev, Andropov, Breznef etc etc etc. There is a time and place, I will not comment on my opinion of current elected officials or their conduct.
Roger that, Im done
Sounds like hypocrisy to me, however you want to rationalize it. President Assad is no Saddam. Saddam killed millions, most with poison gas (a definite war crime). Yet we were still prepared to negotiate with him. If you don't know what advantage we'd gain from talking to Syria I'd suggest you should read the Baker-Hamilton plan.
Besides, Ms Pelosi made a fact finding trip, not a diplomatic visit. Also, there's not much to undermine since the President, and not Congress, controls the State department and is therefore responsible for diplomatic relations with other countries, or the lack thereof.
The president has dictated foriegn policy since the revolutionary war. The reason behind this was that its simply too fragile a system to have Senators from differnt states deciding what is best for the country as a whole in the relm of diplomatic relations. Quite honestly Senators and Congressmen have little to no buisness in dealing with other governments. We have ambassadors for this exact reason.
Nothing in the Constitution about that. A strict constructionist would know that.
Speaking of senators, what about Senator's McCain's laughable trip to Baghdad's Shorja market? He did more damage to our foreign relations and his own credibility than Speaker Pelosi could have done with a hundred trips to Syria.
I didn't laugh at it, it's a valuable piece of propaganda... No matter how stupid an idea, if you say it enough times people will believe it, against all evidence.
In what way does it even remotely resemble hypocrisy? You have to remember the context and times in which policy was made WRT Iraq in the 80s. Yeah, Saddam was a bad guy then and we knew it, but we dealt with all kinds of minor and major dictators during the Cold War in an effort to balance and check the power of the Soviets. So, it's easy for the unsophisticated to throw out terms like hypocrisy, but all you're doing is exposing your own lack of understanding about what our policy priorities were at the time. Drawing parallels to Pelosi's recent trip is equally ignorant, but I'll listen to your argument if you have one.
Brett
I am unsophisticated--I eat my dessert with the wrong fork all the time; I drink orange juice out of the carton; I don't always cover my mouth when I cough. Why don't I just give up.
But even with the benefit of hindsight, my unsophisticated opinion is that Saddam was a turd. He was a turd when Donald Rumsfeld shook his hand; he was a turd when when we supplied intelligence to him so he could gas thousands of Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War; and he was a turd when we still negotiated with him after he gassed thousands of Kurds. So it seems disingenuous to my unsophisticated viewpoint that we are incapable of even discussing the idea of negotiating with the Syrian government. After all, we have relations with "General General" of Pakistan; and President-for-life Mubarak; and royal family of Saudi Arabia (whose biggest critic is Osama bin Laden no less).
What were our policy priorities back in the eighties? Is that relevant? What our policies priorities now? What do we have to gain from talking to the Syrians? You answered that question yourself--to stop the flow of foreign fighters across the Syrian-Iraqi border to start. Since you understand the region so much better than my unsophisticated mind can comprehend, please tell us. I'm willing to entertain your argument if you have one.
I already told you - Cold War. Turd or otherwise, Saddam was a useful angle to exploit vs. Iran and the Soviets. So, again, where's the hypocrisy? People love to hold up that image of Rumsfeld and Saddam and imply some kind of wrongdoing. I just don't see it. As for our current policies, I think we should be talking with Syria (even though that may not be on the administration's agenda). What I object to is when Pelosi starts freelancing US foreign policy - no good can come from that. Regardless of whether you think the administration is doing a good job or not, it is the responsibility of the Executive Branch to carry out foreign policy as they see fit.
Brett
You're right--people do love holding up the image of Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands because it implies more than wrongdoing! After that handshake, we supplied him with the materials he needed to make
chemicals weapons, arms and intelligence which he used to kill millions; that lead him to bankrupt his country and lead to Gulf War I and II and our present situation. And, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of the statement and photo of Ms. Pelosi pandering to our enemies in the previous post (and the absurdity that Saddam was our "friend" while Assad is our "enemy"). It is debatable how "useful" it was to aid Saddam, Cold War be damned. Which begs the question--how is this relevant?
What point are you trying to make? You ask the rhetorical question of what we have to gain from negotiating with Assad when he, as you claim, is sending Jihadists to Iraq. Then you claim you believe we should be negotiating with Syria. What do you believe?
Ms. Pelosi is free to make fact finding trips all she likes. She obviously didn't go there representing the administration or making promises that only the President can deliver. There's no law saying she can't go to Syria (or visit any head of state). Whether you agree with Ms. Pelosi or not, she's only doing what she was elected to Speaker to do--end the War. That means going to Syria on a highly visible trip to shame the administration by showing their absence from negotiations called for by Baker-Hamilton. She's just pandering to the 60 percent of the American public that wants to end this war.