RE: House Panel Approves a Record $48 Billion for Spy Agencies
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer, May 4, 2007

$48,000,000,000. $48,000 million. $48 billion. In contrast, in 2006, the Department of State spent $16 billion. The Agency for International Development spent $10.5 billion (and 85% of our foreign aid had to be spent on purchases from US corporations). What if we saved some of our spy money and used it to create venues where we could ask people around the world what troubles them, listen to what they have to say and facilitate issue-based global problem-solving? There are many tools for productive dialogue, deliberation, problem-solving and even conflict resolution under high tension. It would be much cheaper to use these tools, than to “invest” millions of dollars each year in people like Ahmed Chalabi , an Iraqi exile paid tens of millions by the U.S. government for “intelligence” that proved to be false. (He manufactured statements to serve his personal ends and lead gullible US leadership into war.)

Spies or Ask-Listen-Work together. It does not need to be either/or; we just need to do some serious adjustment for effective balance.

When I was in Iran in 1968 on a Lewis & Clark College overseas study program, the Iran-America Society was a big-deal hangout in Teheran. The Iran-America Society offered classes and cultural programs and a place for people to meet and talk across cultures. One could easily sit down with Iranians of many ages, ASK what was important to them and LISTEN to their viewpoint. The Iran-America Society was a place where people of each culture could come to know each other better. Such a venue could have been used to facilitate dialogue and deliberation on significant issues, were it still there.

We’ve come a long way away from building goodwill and better friendships with our tax dollars. It would be interesting to know what, if any, funds have been spent over the past 10-20 years on cultural exchanges and building international friendships. Have any funds been spent on gathering people together with professional facilitators to ask, to listen and to problem-solve? The chance is negligible in this administration, since there do not appear to be any individuals at the top who are even aware that facilitation, mediation and negotiation are teachable skill sets and that there are experts in the field.

There are great databases of conflict-resolution, dialogue and deliberation, etc. resources at www.wiserearth.organd at www.thataway.org.