A CEASE-FIRE FOR AMERICA...AND THE WORLD
Citizens for Global Solutions President & CEO Charles J. Brown
Monday, November 13, 2006

"Good morning. My name is Charles Brown and I am President and CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions. Thank you very much for joining us for our annual meeting.

Before I begin, I should let you know that I might not be able to join you for the entire meeting over the next two days. In fact, I may not even be able to finish this speech. But I want to assure you that I have the best of reasons: my wonderful wife Molly is pregnant, and our first child is literally due any minute. So while I ask you to shut off your cell phones, I hope that you will indulge me if I leave mine on – and understand if I stop mid-sentence to take her call.

In any case, I’m here right now. Let me begin by saying that Citizens for Global Solutions is dedicated to the idea that we must work together to find solutions to those problems that no one nation – not even the United States – can solve by itself.

The theme of our meeting this year is “Building a bipartisan U.S. foreign policy for the 21st Century.” And if you think about it, that task is not very different from the job of parenthood. Both require patience, tact, clear vision, and discipline. Both work best when everyone involved works together. As is the case with parenthood, U.S. foreign policy is least successful when those involved advance their own agendas instead of making sacrifices for the common good.

Over the past few years, however, the Republican and Democratic Parties haven’t done a very good job of working together on foreign policy. And unlike new parents, they really have no excuse – it’s not like they haven’t been through this before.

The Republicans’ unilateral approach – at least the one pursued by the current Administration – has damaged our reputation, has exacerbated tensions, and has been incredibly costly in terms of both lives and treasure. And despite President Bush’s recent promise to work with Democrats, he has not yet pursued alternatives to his current policies in Iraq and elsewhere.

In response, the Democratic Party has offered us, well… not much at all. Mainly they’ve reminded us that they are not Republicans. I agree with those who said that last Tuesday, Americans did not as much vote for the Democrats as against the Republicans. The Democratic Party has offered no alternative path – or even worse, so many paths so as not to offer any real alternative at all.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy inaugurated his presidential campaign by saying that “we need a President who is willing and able to summon [us] to [our] finest hour.” His words still ring true today. But I can’t remember the last time our leaders called us to our finest hour – unless you think that going shopping is the best we have to offer.

These days, many politicians are afraid of saying or doing anything that might hurt their chances of staying in office. Instead, they check their polls and run focus groups. They test their principles like they were marketing toothpaste. Such tactics may help them get elected, but it does nothing to solve the real problems we face.

And sadly, many politicians have not hesitated to drag foreign policy into the gutter. I know that Arthur Vandenberg’s saying about partisanship ending at the nation’s shore has never been much more than a myth, but the reality is that we’ve never seen such viciousness before. We have a President who did not hesitate to suggest that support for his opponents is tantamount to support for those who would do us harm. And we have the most recent Democratic presidential candidate actually thinking that a joke about the President sending our troops into Iraq would be regarded by anyone as funny.

Foreign policy should not be a blood sport. If we are to return America to its position as a respected friend and champion of the values we all cherish, we need to work together to find real solutions – starting with Iraq, but extending to other challenges: preventing nuclear proliferation, forestalling terrorism, addressing climate change and energy security, stopping genocide, ensuring fair trade and sustainable economic development, and promoting democracy.

We need to stop succumbing to the temptation of attack politics and return to what Abraham Lincoln so brilliantly called the better angels of our nature. Fortunately, some of our elected leaders already are showing us the way.

On Darfur for example, Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, and Representative Donald Payne, a Democrat from New Jersey, have come together to push for an end to the killing. The President and the new Speaker and Senate Majority Leader would benefit if they were to take a similar approach on this and other issues.

So in that spirit, permit me to offer a Cease Fire for America – and the World: a five-point plan designed to move from partisanship to partnership. My proposal is by no means comprehensive, but I hope that it will help serve as a catalyst for debate.

Point One: We need to acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and internationalize the effort to find a solution. The President’s decision to act only with the help of Britain and a few other countries has meant that the rest of the world has had little stake in helping us find a resolution to the current mess.

Today, the President is meeting with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to discuss options. They should start by acknowledging we can’t solve this on our own. And the rest of the world needs to recognize that their attitude is making it harder for us to find a solution. If the Government of Iraq is unable to ensure the safety of its own citizens, the international community has a responsibility to protect civilians when their own governments cannot. This is not merely a U.S. problem, but an international obligation.

The war’s critics therefore need to recognize that if a near-unilateral invasion was the worst possible thing we could have done, a unilateral withdrawal would not be much better. Like it or not, Iraq is a problem that cannot be solved by walking away from it. Any solution will require some sort of action – whether it is American or international – to stabilize the country and stop the killing.

It’s also important that we stop looking at Iraq in isolation. The reality is that the entire Near East – from Darfur to Delhi – is fraught with challenges that are connected to one another. For example, the world’s shameful inaction on Darfur is a direct consequence of both domestic and international paralysis on Iraq. We need a new approach, one that looks at the region holistically; one that helps put together a grand bargain to solve the range of challenges in the region.

That leads me to point two: make the United Nations a more effective institution. You often hear two very different portrayals of the UN. One paints the world body as a great institution that does a lot of terrific things. The second claims that it is in fact a deeply dysfunctional institution with real problems. In reality, both of these perspectives contain some truth. We need to recognize and praise what works – and acknowledge and fix what’s broken.

America needs the United Nations. Over the past several years, the Bush Administration has asked for its help in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Lebanon, Burma, and elsewhere. We have sought its assistance with crises ranging from the tsunami to HIV/AIDS and bird flu. Sometimes it has done well, and sometimes it has not, but then again, the same applies to the United States. And we would have been a lot worse off had it not been there to help.

Our leaders need to stop finding ways to make the UN fail. They have to recognize the significant strides that the UN has made to meet the threats and challenges of a new century. They should work with our allies to finish the job of making it the kind of institution we want it to be.

Point three: return to our core values. When the terrorists attacked America on 9/11, President Bush said that they hated us not for who we are but what we stand for. But in the five years since, we have chipped away at some of the same values. Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, and rendition – the list of things we now tolerate as a nation would have been mind-boggling only a few years ago.

We can fight the terrorists without sacrificing our core principles. A good place to start would be with the establishment of a National Commission on Detention and Prisoner Treatment, modeled after the 9/11 commission, to look at our current policies and find alternatives that confront terror without sacrificing our freedom on the altar of fear.

Point four: find solutions to the challenges of poverty, trade, and economic development. Prior to last week’s elections, both parties used these issues to scare people. Republicans talked about waves of illegal immigrants stealing our livelihoods and Democrats talked about evil corporations moving jobs overseas.

Such a cartoonish approach gives Americans the impression that economic issues are somehow a zero-sum game – that any benefit to anyone else is somehow a loss for Americans. But the world doesn’t work that way. We need to stop pitting people here at home against people in other parts of the world.

The whole world is our backyard now – we can’t pretend otherwise. And if we want our global neighborhood to be a safer, saner place, we must spend more time and effort solving the challenges of global poverty and economic development. That means building alliances rather than finding scapegoats.

One way Congress could demonstrate leadership is by agreeing to cut significantly agricultural subsidies. Yes, there will be short-term costs, but the long-term benefits for people here at home and in the developing world will in the end help raise everyone’s standard of living.

In fact the cost of removing these subsidies could be offset by the rapidly expanding demand for biofuels. Although U.S. crop yields could not provide for all of our needs, it would dramatically reduce our energy dependence.

This leads me to point five: energy security. President Bush said in his last state of the union address that America is addicted to oil. But it’s not just our own dependence that is at issue. China, India and other growing economies are making their own demands. Petrodollars are propping up dictators and bankrolling terrorists. And our use of fossil fuels is causing changes in our climate that may dramatically alter the way we live for generations to come.

In response, a lot of folks are talking about energy independence. But let’s face facts. We’re all in the same boat – trying to build our own ship is not an option. Energy independence is a convenient fiction that works at the polls, but America cannot extract itself from the global energy marketplace. Rather than trying to solve this problem on our own, let’s use our ingenuity and our capacity to develop and implement technologies that will benefit everyone.

As the world’s largest energy consumer, we have no choice but to lead. Our own security – and that of the world – means moving away from dependence on oil and toward alternative energy solutions like biofuels. In the process we will enhance our own capacity and, to the degree that we still have to rely on overseas sources, shift our dollars from repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia to democratic governments like Brazil.

I could go into much more detail on all of these issues – and address others like climate change and nuclear proliferation. But you did not come here to listen to me. And Molly may call at any minute. So permit me to conclude by saying that I hope the next two days will help us start to identify some solutions. We have a terrific roster of speakers, and I think they have a lot of good ideas.

I hope that the end result is that we begin to explore a more effective approach to foreign policy, one that that achieves our common goals and works within our shared values. One that helps to bring us together as a nation and as a global community.

Now that would be a mission well worth accomplishing.

Thank you very much."

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