The largest hydrocarbon emitters, we derail the Kyoto Accords. We take our ball and go home when it comes to setting up a International Criminal Court if US peacekeepers can't get immunity. The richest nation in the world, we still slap petty steel and banana sanctions against the EU. We make a poor effort at trying to understand other cultures and beliefs, demanding that things be done the 'American' way. We paint the colored world in black and white, good and evil, with us or against us; alienating many potential supporters. The most often heard phrase from locals as I travel, "We love Americans but not your government." America the Beautiful Don't get me wrong. I love America and in my travels see very little to entice me to live elsewhere on a permanent basis. We do a helluva lotta things right and a lot of things very well. What country rallied to defeat totalitarian nations in two world wars? What country has landed men on the moon? Who invented the internet? Which country in just over 200 years of existence, from nothing, is the richest, most diverse, and freeest place in the world? Any local I met abroad, whom I queried, "if you could live in any country other than your own, where would you go?" The resounding answer, of course, they all want to come to America. Return to the Desert Thirteen years ago, I emerged from the black oil clouds shrouding the Al-Wafra oilfields in Kuwait from the sun. As part of a column of coalition military might, I helped to liberate Kuwait in a five-day, one-side war against clear Iraqi agression. America faces two related short-term problems, the war on Iraq and the war on terrorism, the latter also a longer-term problem. In my mind, we will be at war with Iraq in weeks. Inevitable. We will defeat Iraq quickly, but the postwar scenario ranks much more important and difficult than the campaign itself. Its installing and maintaining a democratic government in Iraq and preventing any possible instability from arising and spreading that will demand willpower and determination. As Thomas Friedman, NY Times, puts it: "What all this means is that when it comes to building democracy in Iraq, the Europeans are uninterested, the Americans are hypocritical and the Arabs are ambivalent. Therefore, undertaking a successful democratization project there, in a way that will stimulate positive reform throughout the region, will require a real revolution in thinking all around ・among Americans, Arabs and Europeans. If done right, the Middle East will never be the same. If done wrong, the world will never be the same."
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Grave New World (Dis)order
September 11th ushered us into a grave new world of insecurity, suspicion, and fear.
Terrorism is not new, nor is it unbeatable. But while we cut off the heads of the hydra, the important objective remains to kill the animal itself. This may be impossible.
Ultimately, terrorism gets managed, not defeated. There will always be the Mohammad Attas and Tim McVeighs. The task is to minimize their opportunities for success and minimize the tools available to them through political, economic, social, law enforcement, and preemptive action.
The longer-term task calls for us to minimize the number of people who want to be the next Atta or McVeigh. Tougher task, but again not impossible.
The dilemma is how to balance a free-society, and limit government intrusion into our privacy whilst accomplishing the above tasks. I am confident that our nation and the Western democracies will find a balance. Its inevitable that terrorist successes will bring overreaction in protective measures, but in the long-run, common sense should win out.
Brave New World
The next longer-term plan calls for us to loudly and consistently use our bully pulpit to push for the things we stand for. Democracy. Human rights. Free markets.
The West need to call on, cajole, and sometimes strong-arm governments, both friend and enemy, to move towards democratic systems where citizens control their own destiny.
Compassionate Capitalism
The developed and 'rich' nations need to use our wealth of resources to assist the poorer nations. In addition to the intangible 'software' of human rights, democracy, and free markets; we must assist in the 'hardware' building wells, sewers, schools, hospitals and power plants. To fail in this amounts to negligence.
We must offer hope.
If a Palestinian teenager thought about the upcoming school prom, borrowing the family Honda, playing Nintendo, and attending college; he would not be anxious to strap TNT to his torso and blow up a bus in Israel. Imagine if 10% of our defense budget, say $40 billion went to assist developing world in this manner; doubtless, in the long term, the global benefits would equal ten times that amount.
This last part really embodies 'draining of the swamp' of the short-term terrorism problem. Ameliorating the conditions that breed hopelessness and soften ears to the voices of extremisism and intolerance, the siren song of violence and terrorism.
This cannot be accomplished overnight. This may tkae more like 25 years - a REAL long-term objective. Sadly, the US and the West tends to do poorly in these type of long-tailed undertakings. In our attention deficit world, we prefer those problems quickly and easily solved with an application of political, economic, or military power.
The Pepsi Challenge
This problem lies in the lap of our generation. That's us, the post baby boomers, Gen-X, Why and Zee; and maybe AA. The world we shape will be the world that surrounds us for the next quarter century.
Do we bury our heads in the sand and hope for a dot-com resurrection so we can continue consuming away and the other 94% of the world's population can suck our heel dust? Or do we step up to the plate and take up the mantle of this monumental task?
We are by far the most pluralistic and open-minded generation thus far; comfortable with hetero, homo, black, white, brown, Christmas, Haunakah, Kwanza. Yet we are stuck in pluralism and its shadow, a divisive tribalism. You can see it in the streets, the inability to integrate and synthesize a new order from all the parts. Instead, each special interest group clamors for its 'due,' each group feels owed or entitled to something.
Our challenge is to rise above such pettiness. We've made the tent bigger, the first step. But can we now get everyone singing the same tune, or at least pulling in the same direction.
Can we see the new potential whole of all these beautiful parts, unique in individual identity, but with similar needs, and with much in common below the surface. All these parts complementary and with the potential to form a whole which exceeds the sum of its parts.
A grand transendence.