MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO:
"A Cease-Fire for America and the World"

The 2006 elections are over now. The end result was mostly good for those who want to see more globalists in Congress – in fact 90 percent of those candidates endorsed by Global Solutions PAC won their races.

But the election was not without bad news – some of our most dedicated champions, like Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, were defeated. In fact, while the overall number of globalists in Congress rose, the number within the ranks of the Republican Party declined. That’s a worrisome trend, one that bears careful observation over the next two years.

So now what? Some in Washington already are turning their eyes to 2008, and the presidential election, but here at Citizens for Global Solutions, we’d actually like to see some governing in the interim. There
are a lot of global issues that literally cannot wait for the next president.

But that will require cooperation. If we are to return America to its position as a respected friend and champion of the values we all cherish, Congress will need to work together to find real solutions. They will 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.

So how can we help make this happen? Let me offer a starting place – what I like to call a five-point Cease-Fire for America and the World:

1. Acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and internationalize the effort to find a solution. The president’s decision to act with the help of only Britain and a few other countries has meant that the rest of the world has had little stake in helping us fix the current mess. Some 1,400 days after the president announced “mission accomplished,” we’re no closer to solving the problems.

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.

At the same time, the war’s critics have 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.

2. Make the United Nations more effective. You often hear two very different portrayals of the U.N. It’s either a great organization that does terrific things or a deeply dysfunctional institution with real problems. In reality, both of these perspectives are true. We need to recognize and praise what works – and acknowledge and fix what’s broken.

Here at home, our leaders need to stop finding ways to make the U.N. fail. They need the U.N. They need to start recognizing the strides the U.N. has made to meet the challenges of a new century. They should work with our allies to make it the kind of institution we want it to be.

3. 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.

4. Find solutions to the challenges of poverty, trade and economic development. In the last election, Republicans talked about waves of illegal immigrants stealing our livelihoods and Democrats talked about evil corporations moving jobs overseas. Such fear mongering gives Americans the idea that anything that benefits anyone else is a loss for us. But the world doesn’t work that way. We need to stop pitting people at home against the rest of the world.

One way Congress could lead on this is by cutting significantly harmful 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. And the impact of removing these subsidies could be offset by the rapidly expanding demand for biofuels.

5. Promote real energy security. As President Bush has said, we’re addicted to oil. But it’s not just our own dependence that’s a problem. 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 that’s a convenient fiction. 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.

So there you have it – five real solutions. But they’re only a beginning; we also need to tackle climate change, nuclear proliferation and global health threats, among other issues. But before we do that, we have to start working together. Only then will we achieve our common goals and work within our shared values. Only then will we come together as a nation and as a global community.

Now that would be a mission well worth accomplishing.

- Charles J. Brown