Green Berets of the Terror War
By
JFK proposed eradicating terrorists. Few listened.
Few listen now.
Instead, terrorists kill
Americans. Americans kill back. Terrorists paint Americans as spoiled, rich,
empire seekers. Americans see themselves
as tough, barn-building, good neighbors.
Although our superb military
must kill hardened terrorists, the side with the highest body counts will not
be crowned winner. The winner will notch
in the world’s hearts and minds a picture of who Americans are.
A few fanatics launched this terror war, but the dearth of visionary leadership planted its
seeds. Our Military Corps alone can’t win this war. It needs another Corp to rake away the seeds
of war.
Had we implemented John Kennedy’s cost-effective vision, we would not have had 911, Patriot Act, a humongous budget deficit and spreading world hatred. Would only a President rekindle the vision.
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you --
ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world:
ask not what
In
1961 our 35th President’s invigorated the world. Within a decade, even in
Charisma
alone didn’t captivate the world.
Admiration came from creative acts backing his energizing words.
From “… what together we can do for the freedom of man," Kennedy established the 1961 Peace Corps. His vision was larger than the life infused into it. The Peace Corps first Deputy Director, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and former Director of Americorps, Harris Wofford, said Kennedy told him he:
“…wanted
the Peace Corps to reach 100,000 a year. He said it would then be considered
serious. In one decade, it would reach 1 million volunteers."
The Peace Corps first Director and
Kennedy’s in-law, Sargent Shriver, saw the world as Kennedy did:
If the Pentagon’s map is more urgent, the Peace Corp’s is, perhaps, in
the long run the most important... What happens in
By 1963, with just two years of Corps’ successes around the
world, Kennedy outlined his reasons for enlarging it in a Congressional letter,
pointing out that emerging nations knew communism could never offer them
optimum freedom.
Their aspirations for a free society are being
stimulated by the presence of PCVs who have come not to usurp but to encourage
the responsibility of local people and not to repress but to respect the
individual characteristics and traditions of the local culture. “What is most
remarkable about
Earlier in 1963, while
“… constitute one third of all qualified secondary teachers in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Nyssaland; they have saved a three-quarter million dollar rice crop in Pakistan; they have vaccinated over 25,000 Bolivians; they are teaching in 400 Philippine schools; they have created a thriving poultry industry in the state of Punjab in India; they are teaching in every rural secondary school in British Honduras; they have contributed to the creation of a system of farm to market roads in Tanganyika. But these are only isolated examples.”
Note Kennedy’s words, when only 7,000 PCVs (Peace Corps
Volunteers) were serving in 44 countries:
“…they
have saved a three-quarter million dollar rice crop in
And
Shriver’s words:
“If the Pentagon’s map is more urgent, the
Peace Corp’s is, perhaps, in the long run the most important...”
One hundred years before Kennedy, another great President said, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
Now we are engaged in a great terrorist war, testing whether rogue, barbaric ideas can long endure.
Today’s war is a civil war,
testing how civilly people and nations will live. Yet, in many ways, this long war rages
because today’s budding
Have-not recruits man a chunk of terrorism’s army. They are lead by narrow-minded elitists, who blame their recruits plight on the world’s dominant power and resource devourer. The enemy’s recruits come from nations and peoples whom have-not -- had enough education, economic development, health care, women’s’ rights, healthy debate, protective justice. Their fodder and leaders come from those whom have-not -- had enough exposure to the sterling characters of Americans, which almost always surpasses that of its government’s policies.
The Special Forces needed for this terrorist war? PCVs.
Cheaply, with stealthy silence and perfect aim, Peace Corps volunteers attack terrorists’ supply chains. They are, as Shriver called them, the ”Punta de Lance” that slices and dices out terror’s heart. The Corps walks lightly, speaks softly, but talks their talk, walks their walk, educates in their villages, creates dialogue not monologue, works together with what’s available to strengthen, not drain, local economies, undermines poverty that causes injustice, and strengthens institutions of justice that promotes fearless growth.
In addition, veteran PCVs
educate
Sure, there’s evil, axis
and otherwise. Sure, we need the world’s
toughest and best-prepared military. But, in the long run,
Today’s smart military
leaders know this, as they try ‘nation building’ in an unprepared
A little history.
After the U. S. supported dictatorial Trujillo regime
was overthrown in the Dominican Republic in 1961, the Acting Foreign Minister
pleaded that 450
Peace Corps volunteers
be immediately sent to help build democratic institutions. They weren’t.
Over the next few years a
trio of governments came and went -- from former
At the next uprising and
1965 American military intervention, there were 108 PCVs serving. Then Peace
Corps Director, Jack Vaughn, met the former 1961 Acting Foreign Minister who
said of the toppling of the embryonic democracy and successive failed
governments: “If we had gotten those 450 volunteers (in 1961), this might not
have happened.”
Democracies don’t happen
overnight. Powerful governments can’t
just proclaim them. Democracy starts as
a seed, or as a child in a nurturing household.
Planted, it must be nurtured with education that promotes logic and
debate, security that protects genders, classes and tribes, and decent housing
that allows children and a middle class to grow with a sense of pride and
drive.
In addition to the Corps,
Kennedy created the
What’s
happened?
When Kennedy said in the early 60’s, “There is not a place in the world that is not of concern to all of us…. We are responsible for the maintenance of freedom all over the world.” He did not envision maintaining that freedom 40 years later by shipping our idealistic, high-teched soldiers and reservists along with off-budget mercenaries to 120 countries as targets for a growing clan of American haters.
What happened?
After
Lacking
JFK’s farsighted approach to world development, President Johnson appointed
Thomas Mann, an advocate of business interests in Latin America, to head the
LBJ
then curbed the
What’s happening
today?
The administration that ushered in the 21st century ridiculed ‘nation building’, down zoned ‘alliance building’ and painted ‘good neighbors’ and ‘progress’ in simplistic black or white. Is today’s Texan Uncle Sam knowledgeable enough to know what is best for the world’s myriad colors, cultures, religions, interests and economies?
In
1992 today’s Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, and Cheney's Staff
Chief, Lewis Libby, wrote
the draft Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) paper. That DPG led to today’s Pax
Americana policy -- using
If
Mann’s policy kicked Latinos in the butt, today’s Pax America is kicking
For much of the world, Pax America is Pox America, dumbly seasoned with American blood and dollars.
To
protect our stressed middle class work force, their kids, their morals and
world safety,
The
last time…
The last time a
PCV worked in
The last time a PCV worked
in
The last time a PCV worked
in
The last time a PCV served
in troubled
A PCV has never served in
spheres of “evil”, such as
In all of North Africa and
the Middle East, they have only served in
If you want to win the hearts of the troubled world, you must work their mean streets and arid fields.
Today’s Peace Corps has
only 7,733 serving in 71 countries(1-2005). In 2002
President Bush proposed doubling it over five years to rival its 1966 peak of
15,556. However, as Peace
Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez says, “The rate of growth for the Peace Corps has
slowed and will slow because the funding levels we requested for doubling have
not materialized."
Since 1961, 178,000 have served (1-2005 + trainees), a long way from the yearly million-person Peace Army Kennedy wanted deployed by the 70’s. During our Vietnam War years of 1965-74, 2,075 times as much was spent on the Pentagon’s map than on the Peace Corps.
Each soldier in
Silly, pie-in-the-sky commentaries?
If you are the planet’s strongest power, control its podium, and preach the Peace Corps vision over and over, people just won’t turn the other cheek. In time people hear, players come. And you don’t have to pay Americans much. They love good service on difficult frontiers. They like helping build their neighbor’s barn.
A smart government can give Americans the thrill of service, teamwork, barn building, nation building, and world adventure without bleeding battlefields that multiply our enemies.
Preachy politicians too often lead by repeating their myopic policy proposals. Even when flawed, it too often works for waging war. Why not for peace?
Why not
and when?
John Kennedy visualized saving the world from bloody fights against communism, or future ‘isms’, by building a massive Peace Corps. Perhaps his vision grew from his favorite Edwin Markham poem:
Why build these cities beautiful,
If man unbuilded goes.
In vain we build the world,
Unless the builder also
grows.
Kennedy’s vision reverberated with the ‘Peaceful Warrior’ of his era:
“I have a dream that one day …”
And Martin Luther King warred for the same peaceful attack on virulent ‘isms’ during his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance:
I believe that even amid today's motor bursts and
whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that
wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations,
can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of
men.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples
everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture
for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe
that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I
still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be
crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill
will proclaim the rule of the land.
"And the lion and the lamb shall lie
down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none
shall be afraid."
Three billion people – hungry, uneducated terrorist fodder -- subsist on $2.00 a day. Smart bombs won’t deplete their ranks. A million PCVs, sowing the Field of Better Dreams for “all of God’s children,” will.
“To those peoples in the huts
and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we
pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is
required…
“The energy, the faith and
the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who
serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.”
John Kennedy’s January 20, 1961 Inaugural Address
2475 words
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