Today's Topic: Resuming Diplomatic Ties with Libya

puhleese! diplomatic relations are a joke. why weren't we listening to our pals in syria when they had the skinny on plans for 9/11. and saudi arabia, our partners in peace? as long as you're not female, christian or outspoken you can enjoy all the benefits of their style of democracy. sorry, but it's the same as Australia's megasuck situation with Indonesia and it makes me sick.

the only terrorists to show any class since the world went nuts are the IRA. as despicable as they'd been they did NOT want to be associated with the madness that consumes the planet these days and surrendered their arms and sat down with a measure of reasonableness.

To the mourners of Lockerbie my heartfelt tears. As if anything said now could add or detract to the insult of being deprived of your loved ones. Yes. let's embrace Lybia, embrace all the fundamentalist muslim loonies we can. I'm sure Chamberlain felt the same way about Nazi Germany.

IWe have normalized relations with Libya, China and Viet Nam, but because it might annoy a large voting block in Florida we refuse to have relations with Cuba. And, exactly how does this fit in with our spreading democracy?

We restored our diplomatic relations with Japan, why not Libya ? If nations that were once enemies never found ways to overcome their past differences there wouldn't be two nations on the face of the planet that coexisited in peace.
We forgave the English for burning the White House to the ground in 1812.
Look at the histories of our strongest allies and you don't have to look all that far into the past to find a time when they were our enemies and we were theirs.
This isn't pro-wrestling, this is real life. We either find a way to move ahead, or we will be posturing for eternity.

Good points, George(s). France and Germany used to be mortal enemies and there are still a fair number of French people around who remember when Germany last invaded them. Today it's hard to imagine two countries that are closer or better friends.

If we don't want to talk to the Muslims, that's excluding somewhere approaching 1.3 billion people, Carolyn. Most of them, the vast majority, are law abiding people who've never hurt anyone. Are we supposed to punish them with economic exclusion forever because we don't like their governments? I'm not saying to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses by any means, but there comes a time when the best way to prove that our way is better is by including people in the global dialogue and exchange in such a way that their governments can't use grievances against the US as an excuse not to improve living conditions and social freedom. Anyway, when our government is willing to give Pakistan and Uzbekistan a chance, there really isn't much excuse to keep cutting out all the rest.

I say this as someone liberal enough (and proud of it) to be significantly to the left of most well known elected Democrats. The public and social policies of countries like Libya are about as far from my ideal, chocolate covered world as it's likely to get. But I don't see the solution being endless, petty antagonisms.

It's the people in these countries who suffer from long-term policies of exclusion, not their governments. After all, isolation hasn't gotten rid of the government of Libya in all this time, nor the regimes of Cuba, Iran, North Korea nor had any significant effect on China while we refused to communicate or interact with them. Policy by self-righteousness may feel good, but it has a poor record of results and that's what we need to focus on if we genuinely want to lift people up instead of just punishing them for being born in the wrong countries.

Does this mean that if Cuba blows up a passenger plane we will normalize relations?

The governments of every country on the planet and the citizens ( aka people ) of those countries are two separate things. To sanction a country never puts extreme duress on the governing body of that country. They have access to all the resources their country has to offer.
Sanctions may influence governments, but they do so at the cost of punishing the people of that country, not the government. Most citizens of any country have no power over the course their government takes. That does include this country.

Well, on a purely personal note, I lived in Libya for 5 yrs in late 1970s, and welcome the return of diplomatic relations. It's a very interesting country from a historical perspective - the Roman ruins are spectacular. Cyrene, Leptis Magna and Sabratha are certainly worth visiting, and I suspect tourists would be safer there than in some of the Egyptian tourist hotspots. Yes, you can see Peugeot pick ups with men riding in front & women, children & sheep riding in back, but you're not going to change that by isolating the government.