Proof that the U.S. Still Needs a Lesson in Diplomacy

Just reading the first few paragraphs of this column made me think about the exact reason why many nations hate the self-proclaimed "Free World."

Ed Rollins, a frequent contributor to CNN, states in the highlights of his column that Obama says "winning over U.S. foes isn't an important foreign policy goal."  He further goes on to state that President Bush and his team, while making some mistakes, was in office during 09/11 and kept this country safe throughout both his terms, and then explores what happened during the UN National Security Council meeting last week.

*Looking around* First of all, I thought we were past the "everyone play nice in the sandbox" negotiations.  Mr. Rollins, we're dealing with adult men here.  If they have power in their hands, they'll want the big toys that everyone else has, and saying "NO!  BAD LEADER!  PUT IT DOWN!" in your best Lewis Black imitation is only going to make them want it more.  Let's get real here.

At the UNNSC meeting, the 15 countries' representatives approved a six-page measure that would encourage a nuclear weapon-free world.  And who was gathered around that table?  China. France. The Russian Federation.  Britain.  U.S.  No one's giving up those nuclear bad boys.  Neither is Pakistan, Israel or India.  Furthermore, Mr. Rollins suggests that the real goal of the meeting should have been to admonish North Korea and Iran for creating nuclear weapons, and to stop and desist immediately.  France's Nicolas Sarkozy even went as far as calling the Security Council "weak" for not being more forceful about this, especially with Iran flexing their nuclear muscles by testing short- and long-range missiles during the same timeframe of the meeting.  Obama states:

How, before the eyes of the world, could we justify meeting without tackling them? ... We live in the real world, not a virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.

So, Obama is trying to figure out a way to negotiate and be the diplomat.  Something that Bush never really tried to do, even though he had some brilliant minds on his advisory team.  Every time that man opened his mouth, it was stubborn, tight-fisted "THERE ARE WMDs OUT THERE" that squandered whatever steam he had going for the revenge that this country wanted after watching thousands of innocents die at the hands of religious fanatics.

To be sure, I did not mind that we went to war.  Diplomacy in 2001 was not what we needed.  09/11 was an act of war, and we went in with guns blazing.  But eventually we strayed from the path while trying to find the rightful enemy.  We strayed from looking for who we needed to, tripped over our own feet, landed in Iraq and thought we could take this on, too.  Now Obama has a mess in Afghanistan to start all over, which is where we should have stayed in the first place to look for these people.

But I digress, as usual.  Let's get back to diplomacy.  Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Diplomacy:  "The art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states."

Nowhere does it say that it is a means to being chummy the enemy.  No matter how despicable these people are, if you want to talk to them, you've got to play a tiny bit nice.  Look what Bill Clinton did to release those two young ladies from North Korea - he went over there, posed for a picture with the Oriental Elvis (I'm trying to be nice but it's HARD) and got those girls back home to their families.  Kim Jong-il is a bastard and a nut, but that doesn't mean we can just brush them off over and over and shake our fingers at them, because it'll keep pushing them.  They have control over millions of people, and if we succeed at making them more angry at us, they'll keep going in the wrong direction.

For anyone who has kids:  Don't we need positive reinforcement more?  Granted, I'm short on that sometimes with my 4-year-old daughter.  It's easier to yell and say "KNOCK IT OFF" than to encourage them when they are being good and staying out of your hair.  Diplomacy is kind of like that.  We see these other leaders treating their people and countries like garbage, but bullying them relentlessly will not mend their ways.  As long as we haven't been dealt an act of war, we need to figure out a way to start talking to these people.  It's not pleasant, but diplomacy never is.  Dirty and hard work, that is.  But there is no diplomacy if no one is listening.

Let me be clear:  09/11 was an act of war, and I think the response was appropriate.  I think it was misguided as the war went on, spreading ourselves too thin, and I think Obama is right to focus back on Afghanistan and put Iraq to the side now.  But for Iran and North Korea, who have yet to bomb us, we have the power on our side.  We don't need to be bosom buddies with Ahmadinejad and Jong-il.  We don't have to share our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with them and tell them all our little secrets.  But we've got to find a way to keep communication open so that they will actually listen when we speak.  What is war, really, than a child who tunes out an ever-berating parent to do their own thing without regard for anyone else?  

Jesus and the Crossroads

Every once in a while, I sit back and wonder if what I'm doing as a parent is really right.  What kind of impressions am I making on my daughters?  What good is coming of my parenting?  Are my anxieties, fears and mistakes that are permanently blemishing their newly forming minds that will screw them up as adults?  Things like that.  There is so much information available at our fingertips, so much to teach and know when those questions come from their tiny mouths, that sometimes I wonder if being left in the dark is better for our family... and yet, this is how prejudices are formed, when one refuses to accept learning as a lifelong journey.  And that is something I am very sure that I do not want my children to learn, especially if it's the last thing they DO learn.

I bring this up because parenting a family must be something like how a modern day clergy for any particular religion must feel.  Here they have a congregation, whether it's just a tiny community of a few families and friends, or a stately church within their own land with millions of followers around the world, contemplating how to guide their faithful in the ways of those in the holy texts that began it all.  In this modern age, I don't doubt that some of the moral decisions being made are not only challenging those beliefs, but also trying to make sense of when that information, that freedom of choice, that free will becomes more burden than benefit.

Take the matter of procreation.  This day and age, nearly any couple could be given the gift of a child even if their bodies are not supplied to do so - whether it's hormones or sexual orientation, the boundaries that used to restrict childbearing to those blessed by evolution are being broken with amazing speed.  While I do not want to comment on the moral, religious implications of IVF and surrogacy, you can't help but wonder if the religious authorities really, truly know what to do with this.

Now, coming from a Roman Catholic household, I know exactly what the Church has established with regards to procreation, and I can sum it up very succinctly for you:  Anything that is not completely, 100% natural is not permitted.  No hormones, no condoms, no surrogates.  Excluding adoption, the marriage of a man and a woman and their fruits of their physical love is the only right way to procreate.  It also seems to me that most Abrahamic religions (among them Christianity, Judaism and Islam) hold similar beliefs.  So it is interesting to me that this couple, who were implanted with someone else's embryo during IVF, consulted a priest about what to do with the child and how to handle the situation with the other couple (the genetic parents).  They say that it was not really a decision, that they knew that they must carry and give this child back to the genetic parents, but all the same consulted a religious authority about the decision.

To which I reply:  How the heck do you answer a question like that?  You've got to wonder if Abraham knew this kind of moral dilemma would plague future generations.  Granted, in this day and age, you usually don't get the finger shaken at you - "This wouldn't have happened if you didn't use IVF in the first place!" - but you wonder if they think that before trying to advise them on what to do now.

Some days, I wonder if religious authorities simply are trying to keep up with these kinds of moral dilemmas, which are popping up right and left.  Often I wonder how clergy are dealing with such things being shared, whether it's in the confessional or just among friendly chats, and whether they are actually providing more guidance than the heads of churches simply because they can't keep up.  It's kind of like the process of how the U.S. government passes legislation:  So bogged down by trying to do what is right, that by the time they get the legislation signed by the President, someone's already found the loophole.  But when it comes to religious law, the stakes are much higher - not dealing with earthly judgments but those of whatever afterlife they believe in, trying to do right in this life in order to be rewarded in the next.

I really can't say if this couple was right or wrong in pursuing IVF, because it's a decision I've never had to entertain.  Even though a third party helped them to pregnant bliss, would one believe that God still blessed that embryo with life?  Even though we're told that unnatural ways of childbearing is not right, is not God still involved in the process?  Doing right by the people who are the most defenseless - the poor, the unborn, the elderly, the sick, the unwanted, the wrongfully accused - still is the bottom line, no matter what kind of technology we can dream up.  So I do believe that they made the correct decision in light of the clinic's mistake by carrying the child to term and agreeing to give the child back to the genetic parents.

Still, it's a cautionary tale.  As we find more ways to use technology and medicine to resolve today's problems, the debate as to what is "right" and "wrong" becomes more arbitrary than based on rules.  When you see someone die from Alzheimer's, lose a breast to cancer, or experience the indignity of muscular dystrophy, it's easy to understand what drives us.  But we do have to be prepared for the debate of when such things go wrong, and especially when they involve an innocent, new, unblemished life.

A Criticism for Journalism, Now Complete with Sports

Michael Jordan was just inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame the other day, and his speech apparently was something to behold. Compare what Peter King of "Monday Morning Quarterback" fame and his parent company's Sports Illustrated Truth & Rumors column have to say about the speech.

Mr. King:

I think every future Pro Football Hall of Famer needs to get a copy of Michael Jordan's 22-minute induction speech Friday night at the Basketball Hall of Fame. Perfect. Just perfect.

...What made Jordan's speech so perfect was the overarching story of his career -- this insane motivation he derived from everything -- and the fact that he told stories. Story after story after story... About longtime assistant Tex Winter trying to prevent Jordan from bighead syndrome by telling him there is no "i'' in team, and Jordan responding, "Yeah, but there is an 'i' in win.''

...Humility is all well and good, but there's a way to make Hall of Fame speeches compelling and relevant, and Jordan gave every big star the how-to book on them.

T&R:

Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech turned into a roll call of all the people whose insults, real or imagined, made him the competitor he was. He saved a high-powered flamethrower for former Bulls general manager Jerry Krause. Krause has denied he once said that organizations, not players, win championships, but that infamous quote or non-quote led to Jordan's sharpest remarks of the night. "Jerry's not here," he said. "I don't know who'd invite him. I didn't. I hope he understands it goes a long way. He's a very competitive person. I was a very competitive person. He said organizations win championships. I said, 'I didn't see organizations playing with the flu in Utah. I didn't see it playing with a bad ankle.'"

Hmm. Interesting takes on the same speech, to say the least. I don't think it matters what I think of Mr. Jordan, but I think Mr. King is blowing sunshine. But I digress.

The real reason I was inspired to blog about this was a particular comment by someone named "BonusEruptus" on T&R. While most of those around him (her?) argued about whether Jordan was/is the best basketball player of all time, and whether it gave him an excuse to say the whole "I in win" quote, he delves down to the true point of the debate, very similar to what we had to do on our English classes, tests and critical reading portions of our SATs (comment #26):

The point is not whether Jordan was "right"...he is. The point is whether a HOF acceptance speech is the proper time and place for one man to punch another man in the mouth. I would say it is not. Are there no tabloid reporters in North Carolina? Jordan can **** and moan about Crumbs Krause all he wants to on the second Tuesday of any month he desires. But there was no good reason that I can see for taking a punch at someone who could not defend himself on what was supposed to be a celebration of your accomplishments, not the kill-list of all the foes you slayed and enemies you assassinated on your bloody rise to the top.

THAT is what was less than classy...not what he said, but that he chose to say it at all given the time and place.

Generally, I don't like people who comment on threads. They are nasty, they are biting, they are shallow. I can find many faults in all of them. (That's another reason why I can't stand the stupidity on commenters - I already have a bias against them, myself included, because I know they are not truly being the person they really are when anonymity acts as their Invisibility Cloak. Harry Potter fans, you're welcome.) Additionally, they don't take the time to read others' comments and just comment on the ones that piss them off the most - a derogatory descent into why the word 'civility' is becoming more a curse word in this society. (I had to remove a post of mine on Facebook because I kept getting the same answer over, and over, and over again because people would not READ the comments above theirs answering my question.)

I digress again. What really got my attention was that this seemed to be a critical thinker and someone who tried to steer the conversation back to where it was supposed to be. The T&R articles are usually fodder for huge arguments and insults to increase the traffic on si.com, which is fine by me, but I was surprised to find someone who knew where the real argument was. When others would comment back, he'd pick up the conversation and enforce his opinion, staying on subject, not wandering off into the periphery about Jordan's field goal percentage and arguing about how big is ego is (it's huge).

This was probably the single hardest thing for me to learn when I was in college. As you can imagine, being an English major meant a lot of critical reading and writing. I probably typed upward of one million lines during those four years - no joke. Out of all those critical papers, maybe half of them were satisfactory enough to earn an A for staying on subject. My thesis, while I would write some good stuff, most of it would get erased because I would stray into the misty margins of the "stream of consciousness" crap that courses through our heads all the time. It was hard to organize those thoughts and arrange them coherently for someone else, even if it made perfect sense to me.

The Internet is not a place where critical thinking and writing is appreciated, no matter if I'm blogging, social networking, Tweeting, commenting, instant messaging or texting. But it is refreshing to see that it still exists in tiny alcoves among the plethora of absolute junk that has snarled itself across the online environment. It's kind of like wondering where God is finding that one worthy soul on this earth that prevents him from destroying it (but when I looked at my newborn daughters, I had a pretty good idea.)

Digression again. Sorry, folks. Let's give a hand to BonusEruptus for some good, constructive, on-topic criticism, not admitting that he is high or drunk, and putting my faith back into this country's way of handling controversy without personal insults or blatant prejudice.

When Gmail is down...

... you can bet this is me. NSFW and NSFK (not safe for kids).