Communication Skills

Senator McCain agreed with President Bush that "talking to 'terrorists and radicals' was no different than appeasing Hitler and the Nazis." (New York Times 5/16/08) This was in response to Senator Obama stating that he would engage in discussions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the democratically elected President of Iran.

I'll be the first to acknowledge there's a lot I don't know about international relations, diplomacy, and politics. But it seems to me that there is a difference between talking to someone and agreeing with them.

Isn't it possible that we can engage in coversation with another party without caving in to every one of their points? Isn't that what happens when we have political debates? Does allowing someone to talk automatically mean that you agree?

As soon as you plug your ears and start yelling "la-la-la-la-la, I'm not listening to you" you have effectively cut off and eliminated any opportunity to learn. The more you get them to talk, the more you learn about their vision, their plans, their motives, what makes them tick... That knowledge is power, not a weakness.

Oh, yeah, we're Americans, we don't need to learn anything from anyone else, they should just learn from us. Why is it that the rest of the world hates us? Freedom? More likely arrogance.

I'll cut this short and just leave you with this clip of Senator McCain calling for talks with Hamas