Monday, February 19, 2007

Great line of the day

From The Poor Man about diplomacy vs war:
One school of thought has it that all war represents a failure of diplomacy. Our current smart set on the Right, on the other hand, presupposes that all diplomacy represents a failure to go to war. “Negotiating doesn’t work” is truth so basic to this world view that it is never questioned, even when all evidence points out that, yeah, it actually does. It is a fact that the North Koreans are irrational, disagreeable, and enjoy making trouble. While this makes it a real bother to negotiate with them, it also makes it necessary, because these are precisely the sort of people who should not have the bomb. And it is also a fact that the North Koreans have very little in common with us, and have many goals which are entirely at odds with ours. This also makes negotiating hard, but, then again, there isn’t much point in negotiating with people who agree with you on everything. While it might seem a lot simpler to just invade and be done with it, this course of action would kill hundreds of thousands of people, and, in the ensuing chaos, put DPRK’s nuclear arsenal up for grabs. And, not to nitpick, but it is customary for invasions to involve these things called “armies”, and ours is currently bogged down in Iraq, a result of the last time we decided that diplomacy was for pussies. There’s probably a lesson there.
Emphasis mine.

No comments: