EXCERPT:
"The world is more interdependent than ever, and the challenges it faces today require multilateral answers. Only countries acting together can effectively share intelligence on terrorists, regulate the flow of refugees, facilitate the growth of legitimate trade, reduce global warming, counter global organized crime, stop the spread of pandemic disease, limit the arms trade, manage the interdependence of the world economy, stem the influx of counterfeit goods and illegal immigrants, and ameliorate the desperate poverty of over a billion of the world's people. Every time we announce a new military doctrine-such as preemptive war, however intellectually defensible in the new world of terrorism and advanced technology-without consulting our traditional allies, the more frayed and strained becomes an alliance that was once rock solid. America can continue to act unilaterally, but the more we do so, the less we'll be able to accomplish, and eventually even we will be unable to do as we like in an increasingly chaotic, uncooperative, polarized, and angry world."
Q: The dark side of globalization is terrorism. In The New American Story, you say that "we have declared a war on terrorism but have been given no clear definition of terrorism." What do you mean by this, and what policies should the United States pursue to combat the global terrorist network?
We need to destroy terrorists wherever they are. In this effort, intelligence, police action, commando operations and targeted military strikes are more important than armies of occupation and shock-and-awe air campaigns.
What we face today is the terrorism of Islamic extremists. If we want to turn the terrorists of today into the pirates of the 19th century and deny them safe haven, we need one thing: allies. Every foreign policy decision we make should consider the effects on our ability to retain our allies in this war on terrorism.
We also need to do something about the sea of non-terrorist Muslims who are poor and uneducated and who often give the terrorists cover. Reaching out to them for help requires that we respect Islam and understand its pluralism.
Q: You write that, through the war in Iraq, we seem to have "fallen into Al Qaeda's trap" -- how so? What do you think about the war, and going forward, what role should the United States play in Iraq's future?
The Iraq War is the biggest foreign policy mistake that I have witnessed in my lifetime. Internal Al Qaeda documents show that the terrorists think they will benefit from direct U.S. military involvement in the region. Iraq is a magnet that draws terrorists from many places. Televised images of the war help recruitment and the war itself offers training to Al Qaeda's soldiers.
Iraq has diverted our attention from Afghanistan, the real front in the war on terrorism. It has also siphoned off time and resources from our attention to Russia, nuclear non-proliferation, Chinese-Japanese hostility, and even Venezuela. The U.S. needs to leave Iraq. We have to face the fact that there will be no pretty ending to our occupation of Iraq, whether it comes next year or in five years. The British found that out the hard way in the 1920s. We will find it out now. So it's time to cut our losses and leave. Few senators would have voted for the war if they'd known we would have been thrust into a civil war in which the sides are trying to settle grievances that go back over a thousand years.
Q: As you say in The New American Story, the key to America's future, and our role in the world, is a combination of three principles: "global cooperation, global responsibility, and our special American role." What do you mean by this, and how can Americans adopt and enact these principles?
We need international cooperative agreements on how to deal with international issues such as nuclear weapons proliferation, combating terrorism and stopping genocide. In particular, the world needs to come together on how military power will be deployed, under what circumstances it will be used, and which country will do what.
In addition, America needs to take the lead in breaking the world's addiction to oil. We need to lead the world by the power of our example, with the realization that imitation by others will be more successful than intimidation of others.
Q: You write that the "American president is also a leader of the world." What qualities do you think will be especially important in our next president, and how will that influence the next election?
The next president must have a vision that is big enough so that the story he tells about the world allows a farmer in Indonesia, a teacher in Brazil or a lawyer in Tokyo to see that if the president's vision is realized, his or her chances for a better life will be enhanced too.
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Comments: 8
I read your work and wanted to congratulate you on a book well written. I know that your book focuses primarily on the need for our nation to develop new global strategies, but I'm not sure I can trust the current administration to make the right choices.
What can we as individual citizens do to help enact the changes you outline in your book?
I am inspired by the New American Story you have given us, and want this to be the kind of world in which my children live.
Thank you,
Laura Cushing
But by far the most deadly of all sins is that we allowed professional politicitians to control,direct, and define what a successful war is.
Explain to me why we have Nuclear weapons but are afraid to use Nuclear Energy, Why are we spending Billions of dollars each year to give rides to astronauts in shuttles in low earth orbit? We have wasted trillions to stay exactly where we were in the 1960's .
America must change the way its government opwerates that is true but until we relearn to let warriors fight wars and to destroy those who would destroy us all we will continue to do is elect men with ambitions that do nothing for the nation.
"We also need to do something about the sea of non-terrorist Muslims who are poor and uneducated and who often give the terrorists cover. Reaching out to them for help requires that we respect Islam and understand its pluralism."
This is based upon the false premise that terrorists, their organizations and recruiters and supporters are poor and uneducated. This assumption, and the espoused "solution," bare little, in fact, no, relationship to reality. Most if not a huge percentage of identified islamic terrorists over the past 8 years as identified by various US government agencies, are in fact not poor and uneducated - in fact they are middle to upper middle class and tend to have a higher education than the average american middle class person. I would recommend reading the book "Understanding Terror Networks," by Marc Sageman for a thoroughly enlightening examination of the facts. Sagemen is not just an academic, but was in the US foreign service stationed in Islamabad, and I would recommend it not just to Gather members, but to any politician before they rush to make comments and recommendations about things they know nothing about.
They all have a plan to make owr country great and all of their plans require us to believe their lies and allow their lust.
Can you hear us Nancy Pelosi?
If Mr. Bradley wants to show us a different direction I for one will gladly look upon his road but I doubt if its scenery is much different .
None of them get deep enough into the basic philosophy of truth, the essence of the very way we all think and how 'that' needs a change for the better. There IS a spiritual component to everything that is being very much disregarded. IT changes the duality of (+/-) into a Trinity of (+=-), IT is a 'joining' factor (=) of 'uniting' rather than the 'divisive' (/) factor of dualism.
The peace we all seek must begin withIN each of us with the recognition and utilization of our own personal and jointly shared spiritual aspect. The needed improvements must come from the basic truth of the universe which is the (+=-).
It is not likely to happen soon, but it could be solved in the reading and understanding of this BOOK , Peace, j.
Senator Bradley,
What is needed you state well . In what ways has the United States failed to act toward achieving those aims? I think the educated citizens of most countries, whether allies or not, would provide very similar answers, with detailed examples.
Since 1991 our foreign policy has become more unilateralist, in the name of an ideology that sees our just role is be the sole superpower. We are now perceived as acting primarily out of greed , having lost our moral compass. We can't hope to play a leading role among nations until we act in ways that convince others we are not the greatest threat to world peace and the planet.