Bill Clinton in Seattle: Five principles for security through global cooperation
Tuesday evening President Bill Clinton spoke to a packed house at McCaw Hall (the newly remodeled Opera House). Entitled “Embracing our Humanity: Global Security in the 21st Century,” Clinton’s speech distilled his world view into five major points supporting his larger thesis that the world must move from mere interdependence to an integrated global community. Clinton’s view of international cooperation contrasted sharply with domestic and foreign policies of the Bush administration.
Clinton illustrated his first point, that security must be internationalized, with the examples of Iraq and Korea. In Korea, a state with nothing to trade with the world except weapons, the United States must work with other nations in the region to allow the North Koreans to achieve both their goal, survival, and our goal, stopping their export of arms and development of nuclear weapons. For Iraq, he advocated using both the United Nations and NATO to increase security and reduce the burden on the United States.
“I still think in the end we’re going to have to internationalize this effort. We’re going to have to bring the U.N. in. I think there’s a way we can do it and still have a very big hand, Clinton said. “The U.N. can have NATO be the security force. We’re the dominant power in NATO. We can have a lot more countries sending their soldiers in and lot more money coming in from other sources. The nation building can be done by the U.N. It would be much less expensive for the U.S.”
Secondly, Clinton advocated doubling the modest amount of foreign aid now given by the United States (which ranks last in foreign aid out of 22 major nations). This doubling of foreign aid, he asserted, would amount to only one-sixth of the increase in the defense budget for 2002.
“If you live in an interdependent environment and you cannot kill, occupy or jail all your adversaries, you have to make a deal,” he said. “You have to try to create an environment where you have more partners and fewer terrorists. And that is actually much less expensive to do and may have greater returns.”
To summarize his third point, Clinton said, “We need more institutionalized cooperation. We have to build in the habits of working together so people perceive that there’s always more gain in cooperation than in conflict.”
To illustrate this, he deplored the actions of the Bush administration in the area of international treaties, stating, “They renounced the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, Global Warming Treaty and the Ballistic Missile Treaty to boot … And, this a very serious thing … They don’t want anybody tying our hands. The problem is, if you won’t let your hands be tied, you can’t very well be sanctimoniously demanding that other people tie their hands.”
Clinton’s fourth point emphasized that strength of the domestic economy actually reinforces U.S. power abroad. Clinton criticized the Bush tax cut as not only unfair and damaging to the domestic economy but also damaging to U.S. security.
“We can’t be strong and effective around the world unless we can be stronger and more united here at home,” he said.
The fifth and final point advocated the promotion of values and attitudes conducive to working toward a more secure and integrated world community.
“In order to build a world that is moving from interdependence to an integrated community, you have to have certain habits of mind and heart,” he explained. “You have to believe certain basic values, and here they are, whatever your religious faith or background: you have to believe that everybody counts. Everybody deserves a chance. Everybody has a role to play. We all do better when we work together. Diversity is important; it makes life more interesting, but our common humanity matters more.”
Proceeds from Clinton’s appearance went to the event’s sponsor, Foolproof Performing Arts, for the reconstruction fund of Seattle Hebrew School (which was damaged in the 2001 earthquake) and the Seattle Center Academy.