September 8, 2004
DA:
Putin's Misdirected Rage (Jim Hoagland, September 8, 2004, Washington Post)
Vladimir Putin directed an angry question to Western visitors this week that world leaders are likely to glide past in the interests of diplomacy. That would be a mistake. The Russian president deserves a full and candid response, particularly from the Bush administration as the third anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches."Would you invite Osama bin Laden to the White House or to Brussels and hold talks with him and let him dictate what he wants?" Putin snapped, according to journalists and foreign policy analysts who were invited to his country residence outside Moscow on Monday night. He quickly added: "But you tell us that we should talk to everyone, including child-killers."
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 8, 2004 10:34 AM
The middle picture seems misplaced. When did ANC guerrillas shoot up a school full of children?
Posted by: Joe at September 8, 2004 1:06 PMMaybe not that exactly, but many that seem equivalent:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=19085
Posted by: PapayaSF at September 8, 2004 3:11 PMLeaving to one side the tactics of the ANC v. the PLO v. the IRA, Mandella had one saving grace the other leaders don't have: He was willing to take yes for an answer.
Posted by: David Cohen at September 8, 2004 3:53 PMWhen was the last IRA bombing?
All three situations essentially ended with the Cold War, when they ceased being important military-geographical positions. We could afford to have blacks run S. Africa. Russia stopped aiding the IRa because it no longer needed to threaten Britain. And Israel seemed to become expendable, though the current conflict with Islam disproved that, for the moment.
Posted by: oj at September 8, 2004 4:35 PMThere's a reason why AI couldn't list Mr. Mandela,
as a 'prisoner of conscience'; probably the same
reason that our man in Joberg, Millard Shirley,
helped nab him in '62. Of course, Putin could talk
to his senior colleague Primakov, or inquire about
Gen Sakharovsky (Arafat's patron in the GRU, as to
the acceptability of terrorism)