Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

120. Carter,Chomsky, Clinton,Buber,Roosevelt, Robinson

          Multilateral cooperation is the form of discourse which President Carter used in the Middle East Peace Talks, and the format he is encouraging in his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (Simon & Schuster 2006). This type of dialogue is what Jewish theologian Martin Buber described as the only method for resolving international conflicts in the future. According to Linda Robinson in Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces (Public Affairs 2004), "The indirect approach is aimed at preventing or mitigating threats by working with local allies and using a variety of tools under the umbrella terms of unconventional warfare."  Quoting President Clinton, in his address to the United Nations on September 27, 1993, and William Cohen's Annual Report of 1999,   Noam Chomsky writes in Hegemony or Survival (2003): "Contempt for international law and institutions was particularly flagrant in the Reagan-Bush years--the first reign of Washington's current incumbents--and their successors continued to make it clear that the U. S. reserved the right to act 'unilaterally when necessary,'  including the 'unilateral use of military power' to defend such vital interests as 'ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources.' "  Isolationism is not the answer in the today's world, and this reality is an appeal to the current  Administration to recognize that fact.

             Responsibility is the key. The United States  must recognize its traditional role as an international peacekeeper. Historically, this is an integral part of the American legacy. As President Carter suggests, In spite of the obvious need to resolve differences, the peace effort does not have a life of its own; it is not self-sustaining. The United States will always be preoccupied with Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and other strategic responsibilities" (Carter 4). On the subsequent page of the text, the President further explains, "Strong support for peace talks must come form the United States, preferably involving representatives of the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia. Until recently, America's leaders were known and expected to exert maximum influence in an objective, non-biased way to achieve peace in the Middle East. In order to resume this vital role, the United States must be a trusted participant, evenhanded, consistent,l unwavering, and enthusiastic--a partner with both sides and not a judge of either. Although it is inevitable that at time there will be a tilt one way or the other,in the long run the role of honest broker must once again be played by Washington" (Carter 16). Multi-lateral cooperation, not isolationism, is clearly the key.  As Madeleine Albright avers in THE MIGHTY &  THE ALMIGHTY (Harper-Collins 2006), "The policy of dominance is at odds with America's self image and a poor way to protect our interests. Its application in service to what our leaders believed were 'sound principles and high ideals' -- applied most obviously to Iraq--has proved to be a deadly drain on American resources, military power, and prestige. Let this be a lesson. American exceptionalism owes its long life not to the power of the United States but to the wisdom and restraint with which that power has most often been exerted--including the use not of military might alone but of all the assets that can contribute to our security and good name" (Albright 288). Eleanor Roosevelt expressed  the importance of America's image in a similar manner in "Freedom and Human Rights" : "It depends on what each of us does, what we consider democracy means and what we consider freedom in a democracy means and whether we really care about it enough to face ourselves and our prejudices and to make up our minds what we really want our nation to be, and what its relationship is to be to the rest of the world. The day we know that then we'll be moral and spiritual leaders" (Roosevelt Courage in a Dangerous World 1999).

                                                                                             Works Cited

Albright, Madeleine. THE MIGHTY & THE ALMIGHTY. Introduction by President  Bill Clinton. New                 York: Harper-Collins, 2006.

Carter,  President James. Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003.

Robinson, Linda. Master of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces. Public Affairs, 2004.

Roosevelt, Eleanor. "Freedom and Human Rights."Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political                  Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt. Edited by Allida M. Black. New York: Columbia University                    Press, 1999.