What in the World Can Obama Do?

Dateline: July 4th

There's nothing like staring out over the clouds and Atlantic Ocean below en route home from Europe on the 4th of July to idyllically daydream what a President Barack Obama could do, I mean really do, to bring positive change to the world and restore international trust in what we stand for as a nation. When I speak of change, I refer to change that will transform our tarnished reputation from a nation that has seemingly lost its way to a nation that summons the best of America's spirit to embrace and promote change as positive force for global good.

As Winston Churchill once said of us Americans: "...Let them act to the level of their power and their responsibility, not for themselves, but for others, fall all men in all lands, and then a brighter day may dawn upon human history. I just (admittedly belatedly) read his book, and Barack Obama surely has that audacity of hope to reverse the tide of despair that characterizes the image of America abroad.

To the extent Americans have paid close attention, much of the give and take between Barack Obama and John McCain has been limited to current international travails and the residue of what Bush wrought on us abroad as well as the relative experience of each candidate. It has been less about how the next president is going to actually restore America's commitment to global leadership -- not the "in your face" attitude of the past eight years, but the hallmarks of leadership that had earned us a place of privilege and greatness as a nation when our leaders were revered rather than reviled. There remains a huge gulf between what is being expressed on the campaign trail and what may actually be changed to get the job done.

The world really cannot wait. The 21st century is less than a decade old, and already many of the dangers of the previous century have infiltrated into our daily lives: food shortages, nuclear proliferation, Islam's turbulent transformation, dependency on foreign oil, the melting of the polar ice caps, etc. And the multilateral institutions that were created after World War II, while serving us well in many instances, seem not up to the task to take on this century's challenges. They are in dire need of remodeling or removal to accommodate these new challenges.

If Barack Obama is going to summon the pent-up national and global thirst for change then I encourage his advisers to reach deeper into the realm of possibility. So many around the world depend on remedying what the past eight years have been wrought on them by the insatiable hubris of our current leadership.

What is truly possible vs. what sounds idealistic but impossible?

Here is a 30,000 foot wish list of several doable big-think ideas:

1. An Obama-led proposal to create a global food bank, that would help develop a new generation of nutrition-rich crops to combat malnutrition. Wealthy nations would be "taxed" to provide either logistical, financial, or food aid to deploy new food storage facilities in strategic regions around the world so that hungry nations can "withdraw" food assistance as needed.

2. How about a new global disarmament fund? This fund would challenge the leading industrial nations to commit to reducing their "offense" (not "defense") budgets each year by 0.5% in real terms. These "savings" would then be pooled into a new international humanitarian relief agency whose mission is to maintain and dispatch humanitarian relief for natural disasters and conflict that the United Nations seems unable to accomplish on its own.

3. Given my parochial interest in helping to restore the Muslim Middle East to greatness, I would like to see a President Obama propose that all Muslim members of the OPEC cartel (Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman and Libya (others?) create a Muslim Development Initiative Agency. Based on their respective oil revenues, each member would be encouraged by a President Obama to contribute 10% of their net oil revenues to the social and economic development of the more impoverished nations of the Muslim world. The U.S. and other countries would provide technical support to this enterprise whose principal goals would include job development, health and welfare programs, public school vocational training and revitalization of civil institutions.

4. So, Mr. President, what are you going to do to help leading oil consuming nations to collectively address the escalating price of oil? I would propose you develop an "Organization of Petroleum Consuming Nations" or (OPCN). OPCN would have three principal goals:

• OPCN members would commit to freezing the level of imported fossil fuels within 10 years, and substitute their post-freeze energy needs with conservation strategies and alternative energy investments, such as solar, atomic or wind, with incremental standards being set every two years to promote a reversal in consumption.
• A "Manhattan" style Project to develop emission reducing technologies that put teeth into the Kyoto emissions standards.
• Development of a new "International Environmental Organization" led by none other than Al Gore, which is responsible for developing global goals to preserve the environment.

5. Create a new "bipartisan" advisory board to the current National Security Council which would be composed of members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, as well as former Democratic and Republican national and foreign policy leaders. This new bipartisan board, empowered to meet no less than monthly, would be chaired by the president's national security advisor to help forge a bipartisan consensus on national security, foreign policy, global economic and trade initiatives.

6. Reducing the threat of terror requires a new international organization in lieu of the patchwork of national and international agencies that have yet to develop global strategies to combat this scourge at a time when states and sub state actors view the tactic as means to ends. This will require a new Global Counterterrorism Organization that has the talent, resources and global support to develop new programs and coordinated approaches to help nations neutralize the genesis of terrorism at its varied sources -- not just to develop better intelligence, but to develop new programs and policies to curb terrorism. Changes in policies are one thing -- pooling ideas and resources under one roof is another, and that is what is now missing from any international organization.

So, as my plane heads closer to North America, I realize that there are many more ideas that a few more clouds on the horizon may provoke. I would like a President Obama to take the U.S. and the world on a voyage of global change. Not every idea or every program listed here or promoted by his advisors will receive Congressional or international support. The naysayers will surely pounce. But this list is meant to challenge and to provoke so that we can aspire to the greatness that his candidacy is generating around the world. I know, I was just in Europe and the Middle East. People everywhere are audaciously hoping for change from a new American president whose roots are as much abroad as they are at home.

Comments

[Raymondf]

Let me say first I love this country. This country is spiraling out of control, and Has been since mid way of Clinton's second term. Then Bush is elected and it is still spiraling. Then 9/11 happens, and due to faulty Intel We attack the wrong country, and within 6 months we have the people of Iraq voting for a democratic government, Then AlQuida moves in and starts a civil war between factions until one faction that is truly for democracy turns on the other and starts helping the Americans fight Al-Quida out of the country. Then we have the surge and the violence quites down. You send a few troops home.
You have a few suicide bombers that don't care whether they live or die and don't care who they take with them. The only way anything will help, is to pull all troops out of Iraq, and put 50,000 fresh troops in Iraq just to protect the border between Iran and Iraq. Then you saturate the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and you bomb the mountains on the border until they are prairies.

[Raymondf]

There is nothing Obama, or McCain can do.

[THEhillbilly]

"6. Reducing the threat of terror requires a new international organization in lieu of the patchwork of national and international agencies that have yet to develop global strategies to combat this scourge at a time when states and sub state actors view the tactic as means to ends."

Reducing the threat of terror requires coaxing Islam into the "lifestyle" of two-digit centuries. As long as Mohammedans' children want to choose their own clothes, listen to music, and make friends with non-moslem kids; and as long as modern societies demand equality for all people regardless of plumbing, there will be fundamental conflict; and as long as their superstition promises rewards in a mythical paradise for murdering innocents, there will be demoniacal bombers--even worse than Barack's associates Ayers and Dohrn.. People who are taught that virgins are currency will always be in conflict with "the ascent of mankind." Endowing still more intelligence bureaucracy won't and can't stop all of them all the time.

Another issue the next president should address: The air can get stale as hell in an airplane. It could make you have strange fantasies or experience weird rapture-like episodes. Those already afflicted with certain kinds of thralldom are especially susceptible. We need to fix that.

[repearwo]

Guilt by association is a tactic without merit.

The flaw in all of the conflict in the Gulf states is that there is no philosophical foundation for Democracy. WE did not just wake up one day and create democracy, it was a long destructive process, in which we learned over time that an eye for an eye leaves us all blind. (Mahatma Ghandi).

To expect change in a foreigh land over night is ignorant, and to think that such change comes by force is insanity.

To expect friendship immediately is false hope, but a good starting piont ir to treat all of our brothers and sisters as so-inhabitants of this Island Earth and sek for them all the blessing of liberty that we sought for ourselves 232 years ago.

When Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal it was in the pursuit of American Liberty, but there can be no doubt his intent and hope was that all men in the world were created equal by God and one day would live in that equality. That is a trust passed to us in which we have failed miserably.

[MissDaphne]

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for raising the level of the conversation to one of possibility. We are capable of great things when the better angels of our nature are engaged--

[keepemhonest]

Campbell Brown of CNN is married to Daniel Senor - a Republican Strategist on FOX News & good friends with Karl Rove. Campbell Brown helps spread Rove's lies.

Andrea Mitchell from MSNBC is married to Alan Greenspan who publicly endorsed McCain and spreads Rove's propaganda like wild fire.

[lapdogs]

What Can Obama Do??

Well, first off, HIRE HIS OWN MEDIA, that does not do their work in fact checking of what either candidate has said and then just write or broadcast Pro Obama News!

If the current media had any brains and nerve to actually check the facts (imagine that) out of past speeches of Barack Obama vs what he is saying in the campaign today, they would find his words being the same and that the McCain claim that Obama is Flip Flopping a big lie by McCain!

But Obama does not own his own media. We lives with one that is rightwing that licks the butt of any republican they can report about. The Media is too damn lazy to do their jobs!

How many flip flops has the media reported about McCain? None! Yet I go to Brave New FIlms or Jed Report and see what the media is not reporting regarding McCain's flip flops along with the unpaid Calif house taxes for four years by the McCains and all his pie in the sky promises of staying in the war for one hundred years while cutting your taxes and balancing the budget.

And exactly HOW is this going to get done? I'm still waiting for ONE REPORTER to ask him that question!!

Does the media corpSE report any of this? Hell No!! They report the "important things" like the changed "green background" in the McCain Campaign.

That's why Obama needs to hire his own media.

[holeybuybull]

In a functioning democracy, the Fourth Estate would be responsible for exposing the propaganda of the government and protecting the citizens. With corporate ownership, the media is nothing more than a government lackey and propaganda tool, utilized to keep the masses ignorant of reality. Obama needs his own media?1? Like W has his own media - FOX. A better solution might be to have an independent media. Bullshit from either "side" should not be tolerated.

[egal]

Unfortunately, the corporate ownership doesnt just riddle the corpse of the 4th estate, but also of our entire government. We've really got to get private funding and lobby leanings out of the picture somehow.

[edwarvir]

1) End the war in IRAQ.

2) Work on Health Insurance

3) Start to build new and soild friendly relationships with the World.

[naluca]

You're going to need a person with real skill, judgement, and experience to carry these things out.
That's the problem with Obama.

[Peteyman]

Real skill and judgment yes, experience no.

[Sixtwo]

Revisit the history of prior Presidents' EXPERIENCE and look where its go us!!! Obama has unquestionable skills and thank God he does not have TOO MUCH WASHINGTON experience. Obama is well educated and he is smart and surrounds himself with smart people. He did not graduate near or at the bottome of his class as SEVERAL of our Presidents did---including the current President.

[cct84]

You know you're dealing with a true bureaucrat when the answer to every problem is more bureaucracy. With all due respect Mr. Ambassador, most of the problems you mention are the result of bureaucratic meddling in the first place. Point-by-point:

1) Your idea for a global food bank is simply another form of welfare, but on a global scale--stated frankly, it is income redistribution from productive nations to non-productive nations. The adage, "give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime," exemplifies a better approach.

2) Quaint idea, but has no grounding in reality. The difference between "offensive" weapons and "defensive" weapons is purely semantical; name a weapons system, and I can justify its necessity under either category. Additionally, the call for another international agency is simply more bureaucracy and serves to highlight the failure of the bureaucracy originally meant to address such issues--the UN.

3) I'm sure this will go over well in the middle east. It is analogous to having a stranger come into your home and preach that you're spending too much money on clothes, booze, and other luxuries and not enough on the needs of your children; and since you can't be trusted to do the right thing, they are going to develop a committee (more bureaucracy) that will make recommendations on how you should spend your paycheck...sheer arrogance!

As for the remaining ideas...more bureaucracy.

[chombo]

Well, there's one nayayer pouncing. Yawn. Ever get tired of saying it won't work?

[zahavi]

cct84 did not merely say it wouldn't work, he said the ambassador has the wrong approach. This seems to be worth more than a yawn. An approach that dismantled some of the cold war institutions like NATO would be more innovative than piling new programs atop the old.

Z.

["Teach a man to fish and he will lie for a lifetime"]

[RobtBrock]

1. End the War in Iraq

2. Fund the Manhattan Project to Provide Energy Other than Oil

3. See Number One

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

Ambassador Ginsberg,

I applaud your list of things that President Obama needs to do to begin the process of restoring America's reputation abroad, which has been so badly damaged by eight years of George Bush's corrupt and bumbling incompetence ---

I would like to propose another list consisting of things President Obama needs to do to restore the American government's reputation, credibility and trust with the American people, after eight years of lies and gross criminal negligence here at home. I will make the first suggestion and i invite your readers to add their own ideas for restoring a strong America back to "We the People."

=== ====== =========

#1 --- The Iraq War Veterans Health & Works Administration

Establish a national support program to provide medical care, mental health care and good jobs for our Iraq War veterans as they return home and begin the difficult process of transitioning out of military life and back into American society and family life.

It is no secret that America's infrastructure of roads, bridges, power grids and water management systems is disintegrating under our feet thanks to eight years of massive underfunding and neglect by a president intent on war at the expense of all else. A national program to put Iraq vets to work on the vitally necessary work of inspecting, repairing and modernizing the nation's crumbling infrastructure could potentially be a huge "Win / Win" undertaking for our Vets and the nation.

=== ====== =========

#2 --- ????????

#3 ---

[Novista]

America should pull its head in; lead by example by first setting its own house in order. A foreign policy that creates enemies instead of friends is not worth having. A 'strong dollar' pulling down the rest of the world is a bad bargain for everyone. Domestically, one example: a Dept. of Education that since 1980 has worsened public education standards, compare U.S. student scores against foreign students -- it's not worth keeping.

'Free trade' that isn't free but disadvantages foreigners in the guise of 'help' is a joke.

Corn-for-ethanol that contributed to the world food crisis was always a Bad Idea. Nonetheless, only special interests pursue that policy.

An intelligence community that has grown to 17 (?) agencies delivering so little value is a joke.

Nixon's 'war on drugs' has consumed one trillion dollars in 37 years, yet drugs are more available and better than ever (or so I'm told.) And made the U.S. the world's Number One jailer.

737 overseas bases?! How much wasted money will continue to swell the national debt?

[dadw5boys]

ROLL THE U.S. GOVERNMENT BACK TO PREE- REGEAN/ BUSH NONSENSE!!!!

GET THE EQUILTY BACK FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!!

COLLECT THE ROYALITIES FROM NATURAL RESOURCES TAKEN FROM PUBLIC LANDS!!!!!!!!!!

[e2008usa]

America will never again be the World Super Power if its People are not able to understand what you are talking about in Your article because your message should inspire more than 300 million American Peoples but the US have peoples like McCain and fellows with idea of 100 years old strategy ready to use in the 21st century and with such Peoples following such leader are dangerous to the all Nation because they only care for themselves in the eyes of the world.....So not all American Peoples realize that if the US (not China) should be the World Super Power... then the US foreign policy shall be one of the biggest challenges for the USA in order to remain the Nation, father of all nations in this universe.

[tbone99]

How bout instead of telling others what to do we beg for help on creating a viable universal health care
plan, day care for working mothers, improve our graduation rates in math and sciences, teach us about sustainable agriculture and creating innovative and low impact energy projects. Perhaps we could invite scholars from other countries to advise us since our experts seem to be enthrall to corporate lobbyists.