“Cross of Iron”

I came across a blog post today that examined Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 speech, titled Cross of Iron.

What struck me a bit was the similarity of his message and vision to that of the Dalai Lama when he was at Rutgers a few weeks back.

In particular, the following excerpts mirrored the the perspective
of the Dalai Lama with regards to war in the modern, globalized world:

“First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for
all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and
justice.

Second: No nation’s security and well-being can be
lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with
fellow-nations.

Third: Any nation’s right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.

Fourth: Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

And
fifth: A nation’s hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any
race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest
understanding with all other nations.”

In his lecture at Rutgers, the Dalai Lama
expressed that, in today’s world, as we are increasingly dependent on
other nations in one way or another, it doesn’t make sense to label
countries as enemies and wage war.  In doing so, in a sense, a
nation wages war against itself.  This is true on many levels with
the US as we have seen our soldiers die, our funds sink into a hole as
a (very expensive) natural disaster hits our shores, and our reputation
damaged for the near future.

Gonna have to read the rest of that sometime later today.