Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Second Chance…
Is the American World Service Corps Congressional Proposals our best second chance?
By
Will
On September 15th,
Zbigniew Brezinsky, former National Security Advisor to President Clinton,
discussed his new book, Second Chance, on
To this former
Peace Corps Volunteer, who has worked on several Habitat building projects and
learned first hand about different cultures, world wide needs, and our nation’s
ignorance of those intertwined complexities, I interpreted his book title to
mean now is the time for America to make a second, and smarter, entry into the
world.
Mr. Brezinsky’s
repartee with Jon Dailey did not change that perception. Americans are a “decent but ignorant” people,
Mr. Brezinsky said, in explaining how poorly they understood the world. He used terms like “disastrous… a calamity…”
and pushed Dailey’s vocabulary by defining the Bush administration’s swaggering
unilateralism as unhealthy ''neocon Manicheanism.''
Mr. Brezinsky reminds
us that when the Berlin Wall fell, most of the world admired us. Less than two decades later, our nation is ''widely
viewed around the world with intense hostility,'' its ''credibility in
tatters,'' its military bogged down in the Middle East, ''its formerly devoted
allies distancing themselves.''
Supporting facts and
figures are not hard to find. In 2007, the British Broadcasting
Corporation / PIPA Poll polled 28,000 people in 27
countries. It found the
Negative views are
particularly widespread in Europe (especially
For what it is
worth, those with positive majorities also had some significant working
relationships with Americans:
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The
Peace Corps
Volunteers (PCVs) working amidst them.
Might those PCVs have made a lasting impression on how
How do we reverse
the precipitous decline in respect for
Mr. Brezinsky’s
tart response was, “with humility and social responsibility.” It is with “humility and social
responsibility” that most of us, who have served conscientiously in
organizations like the Peace Corps, were trained to work.
Mr. Brezinsky sees the war in
In
closing his book, Mr. Brezinsky states, ''Nothing could be worse for America,
and eventually the world, than if American policy were universally viewed as
arrogantly imperial in a post imperial age, mired in a colonial relapse in a
postcolonial time, selfishly indifferent in the face of unprecedented global
interdependence, and culturally self-righteous in a religiously diverse world. The crisis of American superpower would then
become terminal.”
Regain
respect or terminate, that is the question.
To remain a superpower,
Those with
the more understandable cause and more resilient or flexible economy win most
long wars. Most winners also win the most
hearts and minds. We are losing on both fronts.
Enslaved
Roman Gladiator General Maximus was told, “Win the crowd and you will win your
freedom.” If we are to win what this
administration refers to as the “Long War,” and which some interpret as “Unending
War,” then we must:
1.
Contain the terrorists
2.
Cut our costs and
3.
Win the crowds’ hearts and
minds.
We can win the
crowds by fielding a cost effective, peaceful, productive army on today’s
battlefields of ignorance, poverty, social justice, and climate change. You can help field that army by supporting Peoples Lobby
citizen-initiated American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposals,
which will inspire a million Americans a year for a generation to voluntarily
serve in their choice or the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps,
Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, Red Cross,
International Rescue Committee, OxFAm, Mercy Corps
and State Conservation Corps. Sign
the on-line petition and push Congress ( 866-220-0044) to introduce and pass
the AWSC proposal. www.WorldServiceCorps.us
Executive Director,
Peoples Lobby
415-383-7880
415-419-4380 cell
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