Talking to our enemies: wisdom of the ages

Nations had enemies long before George Bush ascended to the Presidency and declared that talking with them is a bad thing (even though his father and a President named Reagan did an awful lot of it). So here's what some others (and other cultures) have had to say about how best to deal with one's enemies:

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."
Moshe Dayan

"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."
Abraham Lincoln

"We must always seek to ally ourselves with that part of the enemy that knows what is right"
Mahatma Ghandi

"The greatest conqueror is he who overcomes the enemy without a blow"
Chinese Proverb

"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy"
Friedrich Nietzsche

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
Sun Tzu

"Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."
John F. Kennedy

"No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account."
Winston Churchill

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilized us."
Thich Nhat Hanh (Zen master)

"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you."
African Proverb

•  strange

  for some reason, it is considered treasonous to speak with certain groups.

  On a current wingnut site, they are up in arms that Obama actually spoke recently with a Muslim....in Dearborn, Michigan.

  not. kidding.

  by PRESSmUP on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:32:15 PM PDT

•  Say, is that an enemy in your pocket,

  or are you just happy to see me?

  by Lepanto on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:33:19 PM PDT

•  So in what way does Bush consider himself

  the second Lincoln?

  by flor de jasmim on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:35:21 PM PDT

•  Great quotes. It just shows you how far out of

  sync with human history George W has taken the country - Demonizing rational behavior.

  by Virginian in Spain on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:35:36 PM PDT

•  I wonder if part of it

  is that Bush and the GOP and projecting how utterly inflexible and uncompromising they themselves are onto people like Iran, and then declaring that it's useless to talk since they won't compromise anyway, since that is how they themselves operate.

  by FleetAdmiralJ on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:38:57 PM PDT

  •  You bet it's projection.

    That's what they've been doing all this time, and they're not going to change until Obama calls them on it ;)

    by cotterperson on Sat May 17, 2008 at 03:04:07 PM PDT

•  American foreign policy as always been

  schizophrenic (for lack of a better term) on this issue.  There are some people who can't be reasoned with.  Like schoolyard bullies, the only thing they understand is a punch in the nose.  Most people don't fit into that category, though, thank goodness.

  by browneyes on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:40:07 PM PDT

  •  most schoolyard bullies

    aren't running a nation, either, though.

    by FleetAdmiralJ on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:41:25 PM PDT

    •  Again, thank goodness. ;-)

      by browneyes on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:42:57 PM PDT

      •  except ours, of course

        unfortunately

        by FleetAdmiralJ on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:44:42 PM PDT

•  Even Tony Soprano says,

  Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

  by Clyde the Cat on Sat May 17, 2008 at 02:44:29 PM PDT

•  real nice quotes .. thank you wayne204

  by abarefootboy on Sat May 17, 2008 at 03:41:39 PM PDT

•  and don't forget the good book...

  Luk 14:31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

  Seeing that GWB claims to be a Christian and all... maybe his bible omitted this part...

  by awesumtenor on Sat May 17, 2008 at 04:24:57 PM PDT

•  Here are a few more ....

  Buddha
  "If you want to understand your past, look at your current situation.  If you want to understand your future, look at your current actions."

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  "The non-violent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor.  It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it.  It gives them a new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had.  Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality."

  St. Francis of Assisi
  Lord, make me an instrument of Your Peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light .... Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand...

  Note:  I have always found it interesting that St Francis did not pray for God to give or bring Peace but rather asked God to make him an "instrument of Your Peace".  For some reason, as a Nation that preaches our Christian values, we always seem to miss this important point.

  by gershwin on Sat May 17, 2008 at 04:47:47 PM PDT