Hughes’ “People driven…” Public Diplomacy needs should lead to World Service Corps.

Dwayne Hunn

 

Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State and Director of Public Diplomacy, recently spoke of what she learned from her world wide “Listening Tour.”  Speaking over C-Span at George Washington University in October, she defined successful Public Diplomacy as being “People Driven.”

 

Sure, she admitted in her fast flowing words, she had heard some harsh words regarding America.  She was reporting what she learned on the listening tour directly to Condoleezza Rice and President Bush.  As she prepared for another tour, she was formulating ways to deal with the way America was being viewed.  Already, however, she had ideas about how to improve the image.

 

Americans need to “travel more… increase student exchanges… learn languages… spread our values of freedom and democracy…”

 

All of her points are right on.  They are exactly what we should be doing in today’s world where respect and cynicism for America’s policies are at an all time low.  Talking and listening conferences, documentaries of foreign students studying here, and using today’s electronic devices to convey better our message is not enough to erase cynicism and rebuild respect.

 

We need a massive assault on the spreading terrorists’ ideology that paints us as Ugly Americans.  We need an army of patriotic Americans that do everything Hughes wants done – and more.  We need to attack diseases, genocidal wars, poverty, devastations wrought by catastrophes.

 

Karen, the most cost effective means to win that war and therein establish successful Public Diplomacy lies in enacting the citizen-initiated World Service Corps proposed congressional legislation.  www.worldservicecorps.us

 

What would that do?

 

If enacted this year, each year for the next six years approximately 130,000 Americans would voluntarily choose to serve in their choice of the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, or the Red Cross, International Rescue Committee, OxFam, Mercy Corps, State Conservation Corps, etc.  By the seventh year one million American World Service Corps members, or .6th of 1% of those aged 20-60, would be annually serving at home or abroad for at least the ensuing 20 years, whereupon Congress could consider sun setting the WSC legislation.

 

Why would so many Americans voluntarily choose to serve the world and improve America’s public image?

 

Because Americans are willing and anxious to serve.

 

And because upon completion of two years of service, WSC members would receive two years of community plus two years of state college tuition, equivalent educational loan pay off, or equivalent investment in Medical or IRA Accounts, which would be transferable to family That cost amounts to about $15,000 per volunteer.

 

Is that too much to pay for “People driven public diplomacy?”

 

The 2006 Defense Budget allocates a soaring $442 billion to cover the costs of our 1.4 million military personnel.  Add supplemental costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan war,  Vets costs, off-budget war related items,  tax payer subsidies underwriting corporate hired mercenaries, and our per military personnel costs exceed $500,000

 

Now add our soldiers’ generations spanning post-traumatic distress disorder costs.

 

In 2005, $8.8 billion was lost in the Iraq-Bremer-Halliburton pipeline.  Had we deployed auditors to save that amount from being lost or stolen, we would have enough to pay the financial incentives of the first 440,000 WSC serving in America and the world.

 

Ask and then listen to world citizen respond to who does more for America’s public image, Halliburton or 440,000 can-do Americans?

 

A 2005 Rand Study states that for the Army to have soldiers spend no more than one in three years overseas, it will need SEVEN more heavy brigades, representing 24,500 - 28,000.  The start-up cost for 26,000 soldiers is $10 billion.  Operating seven extra brigades would cost an extra $2.5 billion.  That combined per soldier cost equals $480,769. 

 

During the Eisenhower administration, when America was generally admired, an experienced wartime leader reminded us:

 

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

                             President Eisenhower

 

President Kennedy fashioned the Peace Corps as his Punta de Lance to drive a dagger into the communist ideology.  From Latin America to the slums of Bombay, Kennedy and his “Peace Army” adorned the walls and minds of the poor and struggling.

 

President Bush consistently reminds us:

 

“In order to defeat terrorists, in order to defeat their ideology of hate, in the long run we must spread freedom and hope.”

                        President Bush

 

Well, Karen, the best way to do that is, as you say, to put out more citizen ambassadors.  And, as you also point out, our “best resource is our American people.”  So let us put a peaceful, productive Army of can-do Americans out there through the World Service Corps.

 

 

 

Undersecretary of State and Director of Public Diplomacy, Karen Hughes, wants us to send abroad more citizen ambassadors, increase student exchanges, travel more, learn more languages, and thereby spread freedom and democracy.  The best way to do all that, while also addressing poverty, is to enact the cost effective, citizen-initiated World Service Corps Congressional proposals.