Ft Lauderdale—As a writer of spy novels, Bob Graham is no threat to Ian Fleming. As a statesman, the former three-term U.S. Senator and two- term governor is the best of the best.

Graham’s novel, Keys to the Kingdom, is the hail-Mary pass of a dedicated public servant working way beyond the call of duty and well outside his comfort zone to provide the world with the unvarnished, uncensored truth about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Co-Chair of the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, Graham became convinced that the Saudi government has the blood of September 11th on its hands.

Specifically, the Saudis created a social and financial infrastructure stretching from Sarasota to San Diego which made it possible for the 19 hijackers —who had no fluency in English, no ties to America and no visible means of support—to live in anonymity amongst us as they prepared to shatter our domestic tranquility. Graham is chillingly persuasive in making the case that this infrastructure is still here and remains capable of unleashing new horrors on American soil. Read all »

There are always moments amid the wreckage of what is worst in the human race, when we see clearly what is best in it. Even on 9/11.

There were those who walked toward trouble to allow the rest of us to walk away from it – the fire fighters, police officers, and in the case of 9/11, EMTs and Port Authority Police. They, like us on that day, had other concerns. . . kids to raise, bills to pay, oil to change. They put it all down and walked toward the horror to help strangers.

But of all the stories of human kindness following the terror of 9/11, one story in particular stuck with me.

About cows.

The Masai tribe of Kenya had raised money to send their native son Kimeli Naiyomah to medical school in the United States. He happened to be in downtown Manhattan on 9/11. He later returned to tell his tribe of what he witnessed.

“What happened in New York City does not really make sense to people who live in traditional huts, and have never conceived of a building that touches the sky,” explained Ibrahim Obajo, a freelance reporter working in Nairobi. “You cannot easily describe to them buildings that are so high that people die when they jump off them.” Read all »

On this day sixty-eight years ago, young Americans were fighting and dying on the shores of Normandy France. The soldiers made their way onto the beach that June 6th in Higgins boats, unique high-walled boats that carried 25 men, sort of a “floating boxcar.”

Conservative author Peggy Noonan wrote about D-Day, and about the Higgins boats in the introduction of her book “Patriotic Grace: What it is and why we need it now.” Noonan tells of one soldier, his fate intricately woven with the fate of the other men in his Higgins Boat, heading in high seas to a conclusion unknown… “it took [his] five little boats four hours to cover the nine miles to the beach:”

They were the worst hours of our lives. It was pitch black, cold, and the rain was coming down in sheets, drenching us. The boats were being tossed in the waves, making all of us violently sick.

Noonan reflects in the remainder of Patriotic Grace on the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in as a people today, and of the rise of the partisan hate-filled din. Says Noonan “we fight as if we’ll never need each other,” yet our very fate may depend on one another.

And so I came to think this: What we need most right now, at this moment, is a kind of patriotic grace-a grace that takes the long view, apprehends the moment we’re in, comes up with ways of dealing with it, and eschews the politically cheap and manipulative. That admits affection and respect. That encourages them. That acknowledges that the small things that divide us are not worthy of the moment; that agrees that the things that can be done to ease the stresses we feel as a nation should be encouraged, while those that encourage our cohesion as a nation should be supported. I’ve come to think that this really is our Normandy Beach… the little, key area in which we have to prevail if the whole enterprise is to succeed. The challenge we must rise to… We are an armada. All sorts of Americans, wonderful people, all ages, faiths and colors, with different skills, fabulous skills, from a million different places, but all here with you, going forward.

Like it or not, we are in each others’ Higgins boats. Our fate, almost certainly shared.

Given that circumstance, perhaps we might use today to consider how we will best keep faith with those young Americans who left their lives that day on Omaha Beach. It’s well-timed after yesterday’s angry Wisconsin smackdown. Today is a day to think bigger, move on.

Photo credit: Chuck Holon

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik apparently didn’t approve of a Norwegian version of a Pete Seeger song called “My Rainbow Race” because of its affirmation of multi-culturalism. On Thursday, as the trial of Breivik proceeded, Norwegians crammed into public squares across their country – 40,000 estimated in Oslo – to sing the song. The video shows Norwegian singer Lillebjørn Nilsen leading the Oslo crowd in song. When he finished, Nilsen proclaimed “it’s we who win.”

Imam Muhammad Musri, President and Senior Imam of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, former Co-Chair of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida, and former member of the Florida Governor’s Faith-Based Advisory Council (appointed by Governor Jeb Bush and reappointed by Governor Charlie Crist), will be TCFR’s next featured speaker.

Imam Musri will discuss Islam, Islamic law, ongoing transitions within the Middle East, Quran burnings in Gainesville, Fl and Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan (and other horrific developments including the massacre in Kandahar) both of which evoked highly critical comments by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Imam Musri also will discuss the role of moderate Muslims since 9/11.

WHEN: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 from 5:30 to 7:00 P.M.

WHERE: Hotel Duval, Opal Room in the Lower Level Lobby

415 North Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301

Light hors d’oeuvres will be provided from 5:30 to 6:00PM and the presentation will commence at 6:00PM. Please RSVP to tcfr.info@gmail.com at your earliest convenience if you have not done so already.

Our immediate priority is to continue developing and diversifying TCFR’s membership base: individual, corporate and institutional memberships. For those who have not had the opportunity to submit your inaugural spring season membership dues, please do at your earliest convenience so that we may show strong numbers to our Washington counterpart. Also, please let us know of individuals and/or business entities you think might be interested in joining.

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About the Tallahassee Committee on Foreign Relations (TCFR):

A private nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization (501(c)(3) status pending), TCFR’s mission is to help facilitate a more robust local dialogue on international issues, including trade, economic development, foreign policy, security and humanitarian issues. Membership is open to the general public and includes active civic, business, government, academic and political leaders interested in engaging in discussion with top U.S. and international policy makers, and other influential officials. TCFR is a chapter of the American Committees on Foreign Relations, which was established nearly 70 years ago as a program of the Council on Foreign Relations. While there is no longer a formal relationship between the Council and ACFR, the emphasis remains substantially similar to serve as a vehicle to engage at the local level.

The Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences & Public Policy
announces a public lecture by:

Robert W. Hefner
Professor of Anthropology, Boston University

The Question of Islam and Democracy Reconsidered

Thursday, February 23, 2012
3:30 to 5:00 pm

The Pepper Center’s Broad Auditorium
636 West Call St. on FSU’s Campus

Sponsored by the
Ruth K. and Shepard Broad International Lecture Series

Parking available at no charge on the top level of the parking garage
located at the corner of Call and Macomb Streets.

Download a program flyer HERE.

SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN ISSUES IN THE AMERICAS
OF RELEVANCE TO FLORIDA TO BE FOCUS OF JAN. 23 LECTURE

MONDAY, JAN. 23

12:30 – 1:15 P.M.

FSU COLLEGE OF LAW ROTUNDA

425 W. JEFFERSON ST., TALLAHASSEE

U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Steven Ratti, the United States Southern Command’s director of plans and operations and a Florida State University alumnus, will discuss security and humanitarian issues within the Caribbean, Central and South America, as well as the situation in Haiti two years after its devastating earthquake, at Florida State University on Monday, Jan. 23. Read the entire release here.

Former Foreign Service Officer and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State to discuss energy policy within the international arena as it may bear upon Florida at kickoff event for Tallahassee’s new chapter of the American Committees on Foreign Relations

MONDAY, JAN. 23, 2012

5:30–7:00 P.M.

Hotel Duval

415 North Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301

Molly K. Williamson, a dynamic speaker affiliated with the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. and former Foreign Service Officer and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State, will discuss international energy policy as it may bear upon Florida, a topic of significant interest at the national, state and local levels. Read the entire press release here.

This op-ed written by Joe Nocera in Saturday’s New York Times speaks volumes about who America is now and who we were after WWII when a young Army combat engineer named Harold Burson covered the Nuremberg trials for the American Forces Network. Nocera writes of Burson’s coverage:

There was another aspect to Harold’s scripts, one I found quite endearing. They have an earnest, idealistic quality that reminds you just how full of hope America was after World War II. Though we had fought a brutal war, we were determined to act generously to the vanquished. That even applied to the Nazi brass who had committed reprehensible crimes against humanity. “G.I.’s have one stock question,” reads Burson’s very first script. “Why can’t we just take them out and shoot ’em? We know they’re guilty.” Read all »

(Photograph: Lunch under the mango tree in Fissel. Village Vice President Alpha Faye talks with University of Florida Professor Leo Villalon. First District Court of Appeal Judge Nikki Clark is at left.)

(FISSEL, Senegal) – July 20, 2011 - The Village of Fissel is more than 3 hours southeast of Senegal’s sprawling, car-choked capital, Dakar. Sitting in plastic chairs in a bare meeting room with no electricity, about three dozen citizens of Fissel gathered Wednesday afternoon for a mid-year report on the community’s budget, covering 42,000 people spread over miles and miles of African bush who live mostly off farming with hand tools and mule-drawn plows. Read all »

Recently, as he promoted his “Restoring Courage” event in Jerusalem in August, Glenn Beck recalled the moving, meaningful and important movie Schindler’s List. His guests shared stories of courage in saving lives of Jews during WWII.

The safety and security of the Jewish people and the state of Israel is one near to American hearts for deeply human and compelling reasons, even if you sidestep the loaded topic of biblical history and prophecy that Beck is invoking.

Sandy Tolan’s The Lemon Tree tells part of the history of the Jewish people during the establishment of the State of Israel and the central conflict in the Middle East through the very personal history one home in Ramallah, built by an Arab family who was later forced by events to leave it.

It tells the story of a Bulgarian Jewish family who fled Europe after the war to Israel with nothing but the dream of returning to their ancient homeland after the horror they had endured. In the tumult of politics, people and their imperfection, Jewish families were allowed to claim homes that had been left by fleeing Palestinians. Read all »

From Allan Katz: A Year in Lisbon

Allan Katz was welcomed back to Tallahassee with open arms and lots of “your Excellency” jokes Monday night as he spoke about his work as United States Ambassador to Portugal, a job he took on in early 2010. The hour-and-a-half presentation was a fundraiser for The Village Square, an organization focused on building constructive dialogue and founded by Katz and Bill Law. “One of the things that makes the job so good is there are very few typical days,” said Katz, responding to a question by Read all »

“Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” — Romans 12

(Photo credit: Clarissa)