Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

After several blogs on China and HK, it is time to go back to U.S, politics. Saw some of the Democratic debate on CNN/Youtube with ordinary people presenting questions. It was actually pretty good and I think it got the candidates open up a little more. The one thing that interested me was the battle between Obama and Clinton. When asked if during the first year of presidency would the candidate meet unconditionally with the leaders of rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, Obama answered that he would while Clinton said she would not. Later Clinton said that Obama showed his lack of experience in his answer. Obama fired back by saying that by refusing to meet with these leaders one would be continuing the failed policy of the Bush administration.

I am not sold that Obama has enough experience to be president but I agree with him here. A good president should not be afraid of meeting a rogue leader face to face. By meeting with your enemy you gain an understanding of that person and will be able to deal with him better. There is an old Chinese saying that if you know your enemy well then you will win every battle. George Bush has been using name calling as a way of diplomacy which is about the same as people like Kim and Chavez have been doing. Of course Bush has very little understanding of other leaders. Remember him saying he looked into the eyes of Putin and saw he was a good guy? Maybe with misjudgments like that he has to avoid meeting leaders other than those of ally nations.

I don't buy the argument that by meeting with these leaders you are lending them legitimacy. They are already leaders of their nations whether we choose to recognize them or not. By refusing to meet with them and calling them names it just makes it easier to arouse nationalism within their countries. None of these people are popular in their own country. But by having the U.S. as an enemy it makes it easier for them to get support. I mean if the greatest military power on earth is calling your country part of the axis of evil, wouldn't that arouse your nationalism? It would have been much better if you give your message to your enemy directly and see if he blinks. You will have a better idea what to do afterwards.