A MOMENT OF GUARDED OPTIMISM: Secretary of State John Kerry & Secretary of Defense Chuck Hegel

Posted on Mar 2, 2013 in Global Law Politics | 1 comment

   While watching Good Morning Vietnam the other night, I was struck by a striking incongruity. There were American troops fully armed with M-16s, 50 caliber machine guns, helicopter gunships, napalm and burning villages.  The guarded and often terrified civilians, women and children were not of the same ethnic, cultural or religious backgrounds as the troops.  The question raised was why were these obviously foreign troops trying to conquer this country. To this day, after perhaps million Vietnamese and 50,000 American deaths, there is no satisfactory answer that has ever been offered.

    In a like manner, we see now every day American troops, fully armed “patrolling” among an indigenous populations literally on the other side of the world.  The locals are of an entirely different cultural, religious and experiential background. America is once again trying to singularly force its cultural mores and values on extremely resistant populaces.  This is still a fools mission.

    One common thread tying these two disparate wars together are the two veterans named above.  Each were involved in combat in Vietnam such that they have real life experiences with war and its effects. Respectfully, their experiences are radically broader then so many of the war mongering neocons.  We know that if the military industrial complex had remained in power, America would likely have continued its policy of war, invasion and “nation building” where it was neither wanted, needed nor prudent.

    That having been noted, the question for the near future is whether Kerry and Hegel, along with Obama, will choose shape America’s foreign policy in a less belligerent manner?  Kerry’s offer recently of aid to Syrian rebels of just food and medical supplies was a very limited and careful offer. 

    This bodes well, if it is indicative of the beginnings of a considered approach. The world is a complex place. How the Afghanistan war resolves and ends, if it does, will be telling. Whether, in the next four years, America chooses and is able to shift its self imposed burden of being the world’s policeman off its shoulders and onto that of the global community is an important question.

    With these two men, with their backgrounds, life experiences and the lessons they have drawn from them, there may be Hope. I am “guardedly optimistic”.