February 12, 2009

The group met at Larry Roeder’s home on Saturday, February 7^th and agreed to meet again at the same location on Sunday, February 22 at 1pm.  The address is 26128 Talamore Drive, South Riding (Chantilly), Va 20152.

After introductions, the first part of the discussion focused on what people wanted to do with the Working Group and how it would be managed.

The group agreed to take an “adopt a country or issue” approach to foreign affairs. Under this approach, interested members make proposals to the larger working group for subgroups that study the nature of specific countries or issues and then recommend action at the local and national level.  Always being supportive of the Obama Administration, but not being a rubber stamp, this means finds ways of advancing Obama initiatives when we agree with them, or recommending constructive criticisms when we don’t, even advancing our own initiatives when we don’t feel the Administration has the same priority.

Membership can be anyone interested in supporting the Obama Administration, without regard to residence or party..

At a local level, the “adopt a country or issue” approach was seen as a tool to build better understanding, making us more effective supporters of the administration, but also better to defuse cultural differences based on misunderstanding.  There was a consensus that given the multicultural nature of the region with its rich number of international institutions and Embassies, this would be very effective and a possible model for other regions of the country.

Deliverables were also discussed which included position papers and community discussions for the most part  but could anything upon which the working group agreed.

Some discussion of how to communicate with each other and the outside world also took place; however, other than wanting to be sure that ideas were fully fleshed out, this aspect may need more work.  One exception was a strong desire to ask experts to share their insights with us.

How the group will be coordinated will be handled at a later meeting.

The following three major topics were agreed to.  In each case, the facilitators will develop a one page proposal on their approach to be shared with the larger working group in advance of the February 22nd meeting.  The proposals are to articulate narrow, well defined issues and approaches at the initial stage, then over time as the group develops an understanding, more issues and approaches will be developed.

1.     Somalia (being facilitated by Mustafa and Zahra Omar)

Several questions were raised.

·         Why does Somali matter here in Loudoun County?

·         What is the nature of the conflict?

·         What is Somalia?

·         Why does Piracy exist?

·         What hopes do Somalis have for t heir homeland?  Unified nation, something different?

·         To what extent is the US or other nations the cause for the conflict?

·         Why is Ethiopia in charge of Somali affairs in Fairfax County?

Each of the topics is supposed to examine what we think America should do at the national level and what this means at the local level.  One suggestion was to proposing a set of discussions that explain to non-Somalis what the "country" and "people" are all about, give us a foundation to understand the questions before developing proposals on piracy, nationhood, etc.

2.    Afghanistan (being facilitated by James Hickman)

Several questions were raised.

·         What is America’s purpose in Afghanistan and how do we define success?

·         Does the Obama Administration agree with our point of view?

·         What do Afghans want and what will it take to give them that?

·         Are Afghan desires compatible with our needs?  Does it matter?

·         What does this mean for us in Loudoun County?   Are there local Afghan Americans and what do they think. 

·         Are there things we in Loudoun County can do that directly improve Afghanistan?

Each of the topics is supposed to examine what we think America should do at the national level and what this conflict means at the local level.  Each could be a huge body of work. One project might be a set of discussions that explore these questions, propose some reading material and invite in experts with different points of views, including Afghans.  Perhaps the Afghan Embassy?

3.    What is America Project (being facilitated by Tim Buchholz)

Several questions were raised.

• Did we lose our moral compass during the Bush years?  Why?  How do we get it back?
• How should we approach other countries, especially those we don't get along with or have competing interests?
• Who sells America and should it be improved?  The government, industry, ordinary citizens?  How well is our message coordinated?
•  How do we explain ourselves to ourselves?  Who does that?
• How should we handle immigration?
• Do we oversell the concept of Democracy or should we continue to insist on it, as the UN does, but be more flexible on types of democracies?
• What does this mean for us in Loudoun County?  

Each of the topics is supposed to examine what we think America should do at the national level and what this conflict means and what we need to at a local level.  Each could be a huge body of work.  One project might be to a set of discussions that identify what we think our core values are and how they were violated?  Like the debate between people like Cheney who seem to think torture can be ok and others who think torture is never ok.  One project might be to host discussions for our group to research and discuss how the Obama administration intends to explain itself to America.  A project might be a tour of rural high schools in the county that explores values in foreign affairs and how to achieve them.  This could be a fall project that is developed between the LCDC and the White House involving some round tables with people from our group and the Administration.