The Website of Dr. Mark Goulston

“Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”
I am the responsible officer of the government
and that is quite obvious.

- John F. Kennedy, 4/21/61, regarding the failed Bay of Pigs invasion

JFK delivered that to a much more dangerous world. Forget pockets of terrorism, the Cold War was heating up to a boiling point during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The world is in a much less globally embattled state, with interdependence (i.e. they don’t want us to fail) and a capacity for empathy between the leaders of China, India, Europe and the United States.

The royal and perhaps only road to that is to replace our “go it alone” cowboy hubris with “we are in this together” global humility.

The best person to do that and place to do it is George W. Bush to the United Nations General Assembly.  After all he is looking more and more like a man without a country, so what does he have to lose. He has already become more authentic, transparent and non-political in showing his concern and worry for the economy and his endorsing the very non-Republican bailout.  He is also demonstrating an “open source” vs. “command and control” request to G7 members for cooperation.  He has gone half way to a “hat in hand” reaching out to the world.  To reach out fully this is what he needs to say:

“To our fellow nations and countries of the world. America needs your help.

It is not something you have to give us, but it is something I hope you will give us. As you all know we are in a crisis. We are in a crisis because of what I hope you will believe were innocent vs. cunning and malicious errors of judgment. Several of those happened during my watch as President of the United States when I made the best decisions I could given the circumstances and information I had at the time. I am here to take full responsibility for what has happened.

Having historically been the creditor and helper nation to the world, asking for help for America is venturing into uncharted territory, not just as the leader of America but as leader of our Republican party, which is not historically known for asking for help.

To make America’s and my case, I have done something that is long overdue and should have done earlier. I have put myself in your shoes and asked myself as you, “Why should we help you?”

If I were you, I think there are three things I would need to hear and see in order to trust and respect us once again.

First, I think you will need to hear and see Remorse. Remorse is not the same as regret. Regret is merely saying, “We goofed, we’re sorry, now let’s move on.” Remorse is more of an eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul exchange that needs to take place. It is about saying to you, “I am sorry, I was wrong in several of my decisions” with no excuses, finger pointing or blaming. It’s about taking the hit. Well, that is true. I am sorry, I was wrong in several of my decisions especially with regard to strategies both internationally and domestically.

Second, I think you will need some Restitution. Given the precarious position we find ourselves in, I’m not sure I know what that would be other than standing here in front of you and admitting something that no American leader or possibly world leader has ever admitted, except perhaps on their death bed. You know, “No dying man wishes he had been right more of the time.”

Finally, I think you will need to see Rehabilitation. By that I mean you will need to see America conducting itself differently and consistently into the future in a way that reinstills your trust and confidence…and hopefully in the long run earns back your respect. If I were you what I would need to see would be for America to come out of its state of denial that so many of you believe we have been in. On a personal note, I once had a problem with alcohol and it took the confrontation and eventual ultimatum based on love from Laura to break me out of my denial and get me back on the right track.

Before you would invest your money to help us, I think what you will need to see in this regard are a change in the American mindset, skill set and capacity to succeed.

Regarding mindset, I think we are currently seen as a country of excuse makers, blamers, finger pointers and dare I say, whiners. And that is not an erroneous observation. All you need to do is watch the presidential campaigns currently taking place in America. We are seen as staying mired in problems rather than as a “roll up your sleeves,” hard working country focused on solutions. We will need to make our default mode “Just do it!” rather than just complain about it. Also we talk a good game about cooperation and collaboration, but that only occurs during times of crises – such as this or immediately following 9/11 –and then sadly fades back to our tendencies to be self-centered and self-serving rather than community and global serving. I am sure you have seen us as that for a number of years, but kept your tongue because you either needed money from us or were afraid of us.

Regarding skill set, despite talking about how America leads the world in creativity, innovation and good old fashioned “American know how” truth be told, much of the world is already ahead of us technologically especially in the application of mobile and Internet technologies. Compared to the rest of world we are still a “bricks and mortar” siloed country and need to put both feet into the wired global community. As you all know, we are challenged currently with having our children and young adults embrace learning about math and science and per capita we have fallen behind most of your countries’ education in those areas. This will need to change or else our youth will not be in a position to even participate in their own future, much less be amongst the leaders of their generation globally.

Regarding capacity, I think you will need first and foremost to see us embrace the cooperative and collaborative, interdependent mindset I spoke about earlier. In addition to that, I think you would also need to see us building the proper infrastructure especially with regard to technology that you are ahead of us in. You will need to see us realigning our resources and manpower from what is not critical and important to yours and our shared future to what is.

We have always helped and invested in you and I am asking you to do the same for us. Regardless of your decision, I am committing to you that I and hopefully our next President will make these changes to begin to earn back your trust and respect which you will hopefully one day offer us.

As a final P.S. and reality check to you. I think many of you are seeing how democracy has much more to offer to you and your people than totalitarian regimes. I also think you are seeing how embracing a free market is giving many of you the chance to grow economically that we enjoyed during the last century. In order to be able to continue that, someone needs to serve as the not only the guardian of freedom necessary for those changes to occur, but also as the police against those who would destroy the world to further their own special and evil interests.

Given the current crisis that we find ourselves in, we are unable to do it alone. So if you believe that the need to keep the world free and open requires stopping those who would oppose that is essential to your future, I will also need your help in developing a unified global plan to do so.

Making the world safe for democracy is an idea whose time is already here. Our next joint and shared challenge is to make the world safe for humanity.

Thank you for listening. God bless all of you.”

People will forgive an honest mistake, but they won’t forgive you if you avoid responsibility for it and paying the consequences.

In JFK’s case we didn’t think less of him for his ownership of the Bay of Pigs debacle; we didn’t respect and love him in spite of it. We thought more of him, respected and loved him because of it.

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