When Talking Makes Cents

November 2, 2008 @ 10:16

The Iraq war is costing the United States of America roughly 12 billion dollars a month, and by the end of the year it will have cost the country one trillion dollars.

It's an expenditure that can't be sustained and it provides an extremely valid reason why Barack Obama wants to "sit down and talk."

During the current American election campaign Obama has been vilified by the right for even suggesting that talking to America's enemies might be better than bombing them.

It's an interesting phenomenon.

As children we're told not to fight. We're encouraged to communicate and resolve disputes through the spoken word, not the broken bone. But for some reason, those rules change as we get older.

There's no doubt there are several "wing nut" countries throughout the world and several barbaric organizations like Al Qaeda. Some will argue that you can never negotiate with these people and surely never reach what the vast majority of us want - world peace.

But what's the alternative? Under the current plan, by the time the United States pulls out of Iraq and Afghanistan they will have spent three trillion dollars and from all accounts, they simply can't sustain such expenditure. It will literally cripple the country and we've already seen evidence of that.

There's an element in the United States that prefers to write Barack Obama off as some kind of a socialist crack pot.

Is he that, or is he a realist?

To remain adversarial may or may not have prevented terrorist acts in the United States over the past five years, but we'll never know. And it's that unknown that nagging.

It's not Republican policy to sit down and talk, or to show any kind of weakness or conciliation when it comes to the so-called bad guys, so if John McCain becomes president we can expect more of the same. More war and more billions spent.

However, if Barack Obama becomes President, then maybe, just maybe the United States has the chance to change direction.

To stand up in the United States of America and propose "talking" to the enemy is dangerous territory. It's not the American way. Crushing things is the American way.

But Barack Obama doesn't care and to me that doesn't show weakness, it shows immeasurable strength.

Category: Politics

18 Responses to "When Talking Makes Cents"

Right Uppercut
November 2, 2008 / 15:13

"Talking" with Hitler; as British PM Neville Chaimberland did prior to WWII, (remember his boast "Peace in our time,"), certainly did not prevent the largest war in history.

Rather; it gave that Austrian mad-man with a moustache more time to build up his armed forces... and we know where that led to.

Modern-day nut-cases have to be shut down; or history will repeat itself.

Yes; the cost is high... but it is worth it!

The estimated cost of WWII in the trillions of dollars, (and those were mid 1940s dollars), prevented us from having to goose-step to work.

Just ask any war veteran who fought for freedom... and think about our veterans who gave their lives in doing so.

Those soldiers came from not only the U.S., but Canada, the U.K., France, and other allied nations; so fighting is not 'just the American way.'

Playing pat-a-cake or tucking tail and running from today's threats is not the solution.

"Speyside Phil"
November 2, 2008 / 16:48

Right on Right Upper Cut!! Fred you dissapoint me with this position.Next thing you know we'll all be voting for Layton.Nothing else to add to Uppercuts comment, he said it all.

Buffalo Boy Mike
November 2, 2008 / 20:56

Right on Fred and as for Phil and Right Upper Cut, imagine where we would be if Kennedy didn't talk us down from the Cuban Missile Crisis and instead just pressed the button, or Reagan and Gorbachev didn't sit down and talk. What kind of a mess would that have resulted in.

you two brought up the most extreme example. No one was going to talk to Hitler and Hitler didn't want to talk.

Mike from Lowville
November 2, 2008 / 21:20

It may sound corn..e but I like to think, make love not war. Talk can sometimes clear the misunderstandings.....better than the attitude, "drop the bomb...let God sort them out!

non sibi sed patria
November 2, 2008 / 22:19

I wouldn't listen to this dirty, rotten neo-con spouting off about his trickle down economic nonsense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdXrfIMdiU&eurl

B B Mike

Chamberlain talked to Hitler and Hitler fooled him, just like North Korea fooled Bush, and just like Iran is going to fool Obama.

As for Kennedy, the world came closer to nuclear destruction than at any point before or since, and Reagan just kept talking, waiting for the Soviet Union to collapse.

Ian S
November 3, 2008 / 08:19

Every situation is different and calls for a careful analysis. Bombing the crap out of Lybia worked, talking to Hitler didn't; kicking the Argentines out of the Falklands worked, the French and the US in Viet Nam didn't.

The point is, you need the right people in charge who will look at all the options and you hope they're smart enough to choose the right one.

Buffalo Boy Mike said that Kennedy acted properly regarding the Missle Crisis, Yes, but he was way wrong when it came to the Bay of Pigs.

Mike from Lowville
November 3, 2008 / 08:28

non sibi sed patria if Kennedy was a neo-conservative than I'm a Republican!!!

Horace Mann
November 3, 2008 / 12:33

The war has profited Bush and Cheney's friends who have stock in the war machine.

Anonymous
November 3, 2008 / 13:24

Horace Mann
November 3, 2008 / 12:33

The war has profited Bush and Cheney's friends who have stock in the war machine.

DO you have proof?

LEW
November 3, 2008 / 13:38

Anon - Haliburton