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Howard Schultz on War & Peace
Starbucks CEO; independent candidate for President until July 2019
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Strengthen NATO alliance to fight Russian cyber-attacks
NATO is the strongest and most successful military and political alliance in the history of the world. It helped contain and defeat the Soviet Union. It came to the defense of the United States in the wake of the September 11th, 2001, attacks.
And it has led the international effort to secure and stabilize Afghanistan.But President Trump has questioned this essential alliance. He has criticized it, and he has weakened it. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of America's role in the
world. We must stand with our allies.
We must support the alliance's efforts to transition resources to the increasing threat from cyber attacks around the globe--most especially from Russia. NATO needs even more fortification to fight this growing
menace, which may soon become the gravest threat facing the American people.
As NATO looks ahead to its next 70 years, the United States must continue to be a leader for peace and security. And we must do so in concert with our allies.
Source: 2020 Presidential Campaign website HowardSchultz.com
, Apr 4, 2019
1972: Didn't protest in streets, but anti-Vietnam War
On February 2, 1972, the U.S. government held its fourth draft lottery during the Vietnam War. The drawing, broadcast live, would determine the order in which American men born in 1953 would be called to serve in Vietnam.In my family home in Bayview,
there was a palpable anxiety not only in our apartment but throughout the projects. I was [not] the only young man awaiting fate to reveal itself through a random drawing. Despite her patriotism and love for her country, my mother prayed that my
birthday, July 19, would be paired with a high draft number. She was not alone in her prayers. By 1972, so many young men were still dying for a war whose purpose and mission were unclear and unsupported. Those who did return, even if wounded,
were often met with indifference or saddled with a nation's rage.
I shared the country's antiwar sentiment and distrust of government and was vocal in my stance against Vietnam among friends and family, but I did not protest in the streets.
Source: From the Ground Up, by Howard Schultz, p.101-2
, Jan 28, 2019
Vietnam War did little to combat spread of Communism
[As a young man awaiting my Vietnam draft lottery number], I was as confused as the rest of the country. Whatever the initial justifications were for the war, they'd been obscured by years of grisly warfare and untrustworthy reports coming out of our
nation's capital. I understood the fear of communism's spreading in Southeast Asia, but I had no sense that we were succeeding at combatting it. No voices out of Washington, D.C., moved me to want to go and continue the fight. Not from President Richard
Nixon or, before him, from President Lyndon Johnson. I had joined my mother in her support of Robert F. Kennedy when he was running for president on a platform that included a pledge to pull the country out of Vietnam if elected.
Bobby Kennedy was the voice of reason for me and a lot of other people in my generation, but after his assassination in 1968, his rousing compassion and steely purpose found no successor, at least not to my ears.
Source: From the Ground Up, by Howard Schultz, p.102
, Jan 28, 2019
Page last updated: Apr 30, 2021