Dear Mr. President Posted by Shawn Brimley

Sir, I thought you should be aware that your conflation of diplomacy with appeasement continues to undermine America's position in the world. The definitions of both words follow:

Diplomacy: The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements.

Appeasement: The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace.

The exercise of diplomacy is not a concession, and does not constitute appeasement.

Respectfully, Shawn.

Comments

[angeranddespair]

Paying off so called insurgents and militias and claiming it as "surge" success. Now that is appeasement!

[Greg Sanders]

Well said.

I'd even go so far to say that the occasional concession to potential enemies isn't necessarily a bad idea under all circumstances even if there isn't necessarily reciprocity. It moves into the consistently a bad idea camp when the concessions are large in scale such as allowing annexation of large chunks of other countries.