International Diplomacy Quotes
The Arab World is made up of many small states who usually vote as a bloc. In addition, most of the other Islamic nations vote with their Arab co-religionists. Since its founding Israel has developed rapidly while the Arab nations have not and some have regressed. Their governments are embarrassed by their lack of progress and blame Israel to mollify their citizens.
Truman had been briefed on the number of Japanese who committed suicide rather than surrender—including civilians—in Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and other locations where United States troops had invaded. He and his experts agreed that the Japanese would not surrender unless there was a new dramatic factor that was outside the usual thinking—the atomic bomb. He was proved right about the warning. Not only did the Japanese ignore it, but they did not even surrender after the nuclear devastation at Hiroshima. It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to motivate the surrender. So even a demonstration with all those Japanese casualties did not cause the surrender until it was repeated.
When Nixon and Kissinger went to China in the midst of the cold war, there are many American right-wingers who objected and thought that it was a betrayal of America’s fundamental principles At the same time, the extreme left wing, hard line Communists objected for the exact same reasons to China allowing the visit. This quotation is an excellent example of the latter.
At first reading, this quotation appears to have been made in 2013 with respect to the American-led Coalition in the Afghan War in 2013. But this was 133 years earlier. Little had changed.
