[Cerek]

Originally Posted by Azred "Relations with the rest of the planet" is irrelevant. Some people are going to hate us for a variety of reasons, including those who dislike us for no reason other than we exist. That being said, I concur that a Palin presidency would be one heck of a circus.

Relations with the rest of the planet are important - at least keeping good relations with other governments. I'll agree it doesn't really matter if the general population of other countries like us or not, any more than it matters how we feel about other countries.

Our allies did stand by us (for the most part) when GWB was POTUS, even though he managed to take the universal sympathy from ALL countries (including those that traditionally did not like us) of 9/11 and piss most of it away in just 18 months. That was a truly epic fail in diplomatic relations.

So, it is important to foster good relations with other countries. You never know when you will need allies for different situations. There are definitely some countries (or rather, gov't leaders) we should not be concerned with pleasing; Qaddaffi/Libya, Kim/North Korea, etc. While it would be nice to maintain at least a neutral relation with them, any sign of "reaching out" will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by them. I liked Reagan's response to Qaddaffi much better. You want to declare "war" on the U.S.? Seriously? OK, here is just a taste of what you can expect. Two bombing runs on his HQ and one of his palaces and, suddenly, Qaddaffi decided it was best to go back under his rock and keep his mouth shut for the next two decades.

There is a time for good relations and there is a time to show piss-ant dictators they do NOT want to mess with us. The only reason Qaddaffi is rattling his sabers again is because we are stretched too thin with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and he (and others) know it. We need to get our troops back home and consolidate our power again. Iraq and Afghanistan will never have the type of democratic gov't GWB wanted to establish and we need to just leave them to their own design.