The American President is Just a Servant!

The role of President in America, arguably the most powerful role on earth, is that of a Public Servant. And while I doubt a person fit for the role would forget this fact, I sense some of my fellow Americans have. Therefore, it is incumbent on me as a Citizen to re-introduce my fellow Americans as well as our nations’ enemies to this concept in both word and deed. It is essential that we all know and are comfortable with this concept; the leader of the free world is a Public Servant.

Some of you, friends and enemies alike, may be surprised to learn that the origins of American power are ideas that aren’t American at all! Even if they were originally conceived by an American, it’s a fools’ game to claim ownership of ideas that are the mechanics of successful society. Philosophy and some history books may reference the mind that conceived the notions of citizenship, human rights and democracy but these ideas belong to humanity and what is socially significant is that these ideas are actualized, in other words, applied to facilitate the greater good.

This work will demonstrate that American citizens, by sheer strength of will, successfully apply philosophical ideas to our society everyday. The full scope of my ambition with this work is in fact to demonstrate American power right here, right now. But if I do so without developing an appropriate context, you may mistake my ambition for arrogance and contempt for the Presidency of the United States.

The context is simple. Philosophers of old theorized relationships between people and their leaders, some abhorrent, others ideal. The best among them proselytized citizenship and democracy. The framers of our constitution were extremely familiar with these ideas. In fact, they were so familiar with these ideas that they were willing to risk everything, including their lives, to actualize what before then had just been… philosophy.

But that was a long time ago and with few exceptions, Americans and our enemies tend to think of the American Revolution in the Abstract, if they bother to think of it at all. But from that Revolution the role of the American President was born. The objectives of the American Revolution and the new leadership role it created were for the highest official in the United States of America to attend to the needs of American Citizens in their pursuit of liberty and happiness. This was a landmark moment in American and world history and its lessons are known best by the American leaders as well as the leadership of our enemies.

Today, most Americans are submerged in their own liberty and happiness, so fascinated by their own culture that their enemies get little if any of their attention. Some Citizens, also oblivious to their enemies, are experiencing American liberty but are unhappy for one reason or another and, unconsciously, become aligned with the politics and logic of their enemies. I do not blame the free and unhappy who take American history and the role of American President for granted. I do however blame those unhappy Americans who position the responsibility for their unhappiness and all unhappiness around the world at the feet of the American President without first considering that the President is their Public Servant.

The U.S. Constitution is clear on this point; Public Servants are NOT ultimately responsible for the liberty and happiness of our nation, Citizens ARE! The American Revolution established that the responsible parties in our Constitutional Society are American Citizens. As Citizens we are the true officers in our society who are duty bound to ensure the President of the United States serves our collective interests. To that end, the facilitation of our pursuit of liberty and happiness requires that Citizens give guidance to our Public Servants.

Abdicating the responsibility to provide quality guidance is an abdication of the power of the American Citizen. Simply suggesting a Democrat replace a Republican is no guidance at all and is absurd, particularly when the United States is at war. Both Democrats and Republicans have a vested interested in seeing Citizens of these United States succeed. To guide their chief Public Servant Americans should look at the obstacles to their liberty and happiness and derive tangible solutions to overcome them.

Ours is a nation for the people, by the people. In other words, the role of the American President is to speak on behalf of American Citizens. I am having trouble imaging how any President could perform such an act without our very clear contribution to his words. So that President George W. Bush has the requisite guidance to speak on my behalf, I’ve composed a draft speech below. While this act may not strike you as revolutionary it is an important if not the most important lesson Citizens should glean from the American Revolution.

Anonymous Citizens’ Draft Speech Prepared for THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

American Citizens, I speak to you today as your Servant and the Commander and Chief of the American Armed Forces. We are at war and have been for some time. Your enemy is unique to this war but similar to historical enemies of the United States in that this enemy is willing to kill Americans, kill our allies and die for their confused ambitions. There are Americans serving you in my administration who understand your enemy. They know your enemy’s motives and your enemy’s weaknesses in great detail but I am not before you today to discuss your enemy. I am here today to remind you of the cause of the American people and the efforts of your Public Servants who strive to maintain your quest for greater liberty and happiness.

War is nothing like liberty and happiness. War is torment and I am tormented by this war. I want it to end as soon as possible as I know you do but it is not over yet. The fight continues despite the great progresses being made. And while that progress is evident, so too are the sacrifices made to achieve those gains. All of this has been accomplished on my orders.

In your service and on my orders soldiers and civilians have embarked on an historic mission that, through sacrifice, will cement a change in the region that will lead to a new age of peace and prosperity for those nations who see the value of liberty.

We will memorialize the names of those who have fallen after this war ends, not to glorify this war but so that we never forget our tragic losses. Your culture, American culture, is about life and exercising your lives to their fullest potentials. There may be no better example of individual liberty than a human being who knows that there are no obstacles to reaching their full potential. You need not be reminded that your culture of life is inextricably rooted in your diversity. Social cohesion in America is based on mutual respect for individual liberty, not a specific gender, race, religion or language.

There is incredible power in this fact! Make no mistake about it – the power of the United States is directly proportional to your collective experience, wisdom and greatness. For this reason I ask you to share your experiences with my administration. I encourage your constructive criticisms and progressive suggestions so that I and future Presidents may better represent you at home and abroad.

In conclusion I would like to emphasize that the future belongs to those willing to define it. I have supreme faith and confidence in your future successes because our America today has been forged by the blood, sweat and tears of your American families. When I meet my fellow Americans, every day, I feel that strength. May God Bless You and God Bless America.

HO CHI MINH – THE DAYS OF AUGUST – 329, 330

Clearly, in Ho Chi Minh’s mind, the United States could play a key role in fending off the challenges from other world powers, and he had sought to exact every advantage from the tenuous relationship he had established with the OSS in the spring of 1945.

President Roosevelt endorsed the idea of moving COI to the Joint Chiefs. The President, however, wanted to keep COI’s Foreign Information Service (which conducted radio broadcasting) out of military hands. Thus he split the “black” and “white” propaganda missions, giving FIS the officially attributable side of the business—and half of COI’s permanent staff—and sent it to the new Office of War Information. The remainder of COI then became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on 13 June 1942. The change of name to OSS marked the loss of the “white” propaganda mission, but it also fulfilled Donovan’s wish for a title that reflected his sense of the “strategic” importance of intelligence and clandestine operations in modern war.

But Ho must have already sensed that his efforts had borne little fruit. Sometime in mid August, he had written one final letter to Charles van, his friend and associate with AGAS who is now preparing to return to the United States.

The Air Ground Aid Service (AGAS) coordinated a number of different efforts to recover Allied fliers, primarily American, supporting various guerrilla groups who did so on the Allies behalf.

It was good for everyone, he remarked, that the war was finished, but he felt badly that his American friends would be leaving him soon. “And their leaving,” he said, "means that relations between you and us will be more difficult."

Although in retrospect, his remarks appear prophetic, they were fully in character with his understanding of that nature of the world in the future policies of the United States. As the Pacific war came to an end, he viewed the United States as a crucial but enigmatic factor in his country’s struggle for national independence. As a capitalist country, it represented a potential opponent of the future world revolution. On the other hand, President Roosevelt had emerged during the Pacific war as one of the most powerful and vocal spokesmen for the liberation of the old west peoples of Asia and Africa from colonial rule, and Ho apparently held out the possibility that Roosevelt’s policies would continue to shape the U.S. attitudes after the close of the war.

Ho’s dual vision of the United States as a beacon for human freedom and a bastion of global capitalism was graphically demonstrated in the resolution issued by party’s central committee at Tan Trao in mid August. On the one hand, Ho felt that U.S. dislike of might prove useful to the parties struggle to prevent the return of the French to power in Indochina. On the other hand, it changes rose between the capitalist powers in the USSR, Washington might decide to make concessions to Paris in order to enlist the French and an effort to prevent the spread of communism.

President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, 18 January 1918

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

Monroe Doctrine, 02 December 1823

He argued and finally won over the Cabinet to an independent policy. In Monroe's message to Congress on December 2, 1823, he delivered what we have always called the Monroe Doctrine, although in truth it should have been called the Adams Doctrine. Essentially, the United States was informing the powers of the Old World that the American continents were no longer open to European colonization, and that any effort to extend European political influence into the New World would be considered by the United States "as dangerous to our peace and safety." The United States would not interfere in European wars or internal affairs, and expected Europe to stay out of American affairs.

Although it would take decades to coalesce into an identifiable policy, John Quincy Adams did raise a standard of an independent American foreign policy so strongly that future administrations could not ignore it. One should note, however, that the policy succeeded because it met British interests as well as American, and for the next 100 years was secured by the backing of the British fleet.

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