Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face -- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand -- the ultimatum. And what then -- when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.
Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face -- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand -- the ultimatum. And what then -- when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin -- just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this -- this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
This is the reason that Barack took Bush’s statement seriously. He had been waiting for the attack for a week, but he expected it to come from McCain or Hillary, not President Bush.
Obama Fires Foreign Policy Adviser for Meeting With Hamas
May 09, 2008 7:57 PM
The Times of London reports that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has fired one of his foreign policy advisers — Robert Malley — for meeting with the Palestinian group Hamas, which the U.S. State Department classifies as a terrorist organization.
“He was one of literally hundreds of informal, outside advisors,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told ABC News, confirming the Times account.
Malley, a former official in the administration of former President Bill Clinton, is Middle East and North Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution group.
Ive never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people, Malley told the Times.
Malley has been a criticized in the past as insufficiently supportive of Israel — the New Republic’s Marty Peretz has defended Obama as pro-Israel but assailed Malley — though several Clintonistas have defended him from the charge.
He participated in the failed 2000 Camp David accords and said that Yasser Arafat was not the only one to blame for those talks breaking down.
**
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been attacking Obama over the fact that a senior member of Hamas praised the Democrat.
In an interview on CNN, Obama called the attack, “Offensive, and I think it’s disappointing. Because John McCain always says I am not going to run that kind of politics, and to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate, particularly because my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his. Ive said its a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We dont need name calling in this debate.
McCain top aide Mark Salter then took issue with Obama saying McCain was “losing his bearings.”
“First, let us be clear about the nature of Sen. Obama’s attack today: He used the words ‘losing his bearings’ intentionally, a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain’s age as an issue,” Salter write in a memo. “This is typical of the Obama style of campaigning.”
- jpt
Something like a “Me:; Them:” kinda thing would help in identifying who is who.
bookmark
Obama: "I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems, ....I will not weaponize space... I will slow development of future combat systems... I will institute a 'Defense Priorities Board' to ensure the quadrennial defense review is not used ..."
Then, there will be peace in our time without the evil republicans causing war!
My change is good for Muslims, Islamofascists, Black Racists, and Chrislims. $crew the Christians and real Jews!