I haven't written much about being back at work with FCNL where I'm again lobbying for more attention and resources to help prevent war. But that's not because there's nothing to say. In fact, I'm amazed at how much people are talking about preventing deadly conflict in Washington now.
When I started this work seven years ago it was like banging my head against a brick wall just to get people to understand what we meant when we said we wanted to shift U.S. policy away from military reaction toward peaceful prevention of crises. Three years ago, just before I left Washington, there were a few people here and there beginning to work on conflict prevention but it was still a pretty lonely conversation. Now that I'm back, though, it seems like everyone is all about preventing deadly conflict! (ok, maybe not everyone, that failed $700 billion bailout is getting a wee bit more attention)
Yesterday I went to an event organized by Oxfam where all the speakers made pitches for creating early warning capacities and increasing U.S. capacities to prevent conflict. Today I was at a meeting with some 20 other organizations working on different aspects of prevention and protection of civilians to talk about how we could move those issues forward in a new administration. Then I went to a State Department briefing on Sudan where the representative not only got my question about prevention by actually had a real answer about what they were doing about it. The other day I even found reference to conflict prevention in President Bush's 2006 National Security Strategy! And Defense Secretary Gates has become the number one spokesperson for investing more in civilian peace capacities like diplomacy and development.
Wow! How things have changed while I was away. So, the lesson for the day: If I really want to make progress lobbying for peace, apparently I should leave Washington more often.
1 comment:
That's great to hear! Now if we can get Obama elected President, just imagine how much more progress you can make!
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