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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (19694)	7/30/2001 5:26:35 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

My argument is that, when the government shifts direction, some diplomacy to smooth the feathers of the international community is required. And the change of direction should be explained to the citizenry, to which the Administration is accountable Shift? What shift? It has been many year since the US Government officially countenanced racism. JLA

To: Lane3 who wrote (19694)	7/30/2001 5:29:20 PM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 82486

An interesting post on the UN. Message 16146362 JLA

To: Lane3 who wrote (19694)	7/30/2001 5:39:24 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

My argument is that, when the government shifts direction, some diplomacy to smooth the feathers of the international community is required. And the change of direction should be explained to the citizenry This is consistent with your statements in regards to my questioning the seemingly nonsensical attitude of betrayal coming from some European leaders over the Kyoto treaty. Of course in that situation I was not calling these negotiations an expensive farce (more like an expensive mistake). The Kyoto situation was at least a high profile news item. The particular UN conference that jallen and you are discussing is a relatively minor item. If the US government issues some big press conference about why we are not attending then it only draws more attention to something that the current administration apparently feels is either unimportant or perhaps actually negative. Attending or not attending such things is not normally something that the government would spend a lot of effort explaining, or that most people would be likely to demand an explanation for. There are lots of ways to skin the proverbial cat. One way of getting other people or other nations to raise their standards is to bring them into the group and influence them from the inside. It may feel better to exclude those whose behavior we disapprove, but it obviates the opportunity to cajole them into changing. That's a pretty good argument to go to the conference, but on the other hand sometimes it is easier and more diplomatic not to attend a conference where you know there is going to be a lot of disagreement and hard feelings, and where your cajoling would only provoke hard feelings and harsh statements. All of my statements here are speculative or hypothetical or about general ideas that might apply because I don't know two much about the specifics of the conference or why we have decided not to attend. That in a sense is itself some support for your idea that there should be an explanation. One guess that I have is that in many of these conferences there is an attempt to equate Israel's continued existence as an example of racism. If we go and support that idea we would be attacking an ally. If we go and fight the idea or have a big press conference about why we are not going then it will focus more attention on a marginal conference that isn't going to achieve anything practical and may focus an attack on one of our allies. The thought might be that if we just don't go but don't talk about it much the whole event might fail to attract much attention. Tim