The State Department is Beginning to Make Sense

I heard an interview on the BBC this morning with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Affairs, James Glassman that gave me hope.

For years, the Peace Network has been saying that our government needs to listen to the people of other nations and to understand that we cannot use force alone to resolve the hostility others feel for us. My favorite sound bite line has always been – who will be the next terrorist, the father whose son we feed or the son whose father we kill – and Glassman sounds like he might understand what we have been talking about.

He spoke July 15 at a foreign press briefing about the new emphasis on the "war of ideas", and his position is much more in line with the thinking of PNO than anything else I have heard out of Washington since the days of JFK. It's all about laying some solid groundwork for the next administration.

You can read his speech at http://fpc.state.gov/107034.htm, but I also recommend that you Google the BBC and listen to this morning's broadcast of World Update. They interviewed Glassman, and what he said was much more direct that this speech and it gave me hope that he might actually bring a needed sensitivity to American foreign policy development. It’s not world-shaking at this point, but after eight years of listening to saber rattling as the only expression of American foreign policy, it is definitely a breath of needed fresh air.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR