The United States seems poised to begin peace talks with the Taliban, and that worries Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Last week Karzai’s chief of staff declared that his government must be involved in negotiations and would oppose any secret deal between the Taliban and the Americans.

It is easy to understand Karzai’s desire to be part of any negotiated settlement of the conflict in his country, but what about the U.S. interest? Might secret, backdoor negotiations with the Taliban be useful for the United States?

The experience of an earlier war may shed light on this question. Forty years ago the United States was trying to end the long and unpopular war in Vietnam. Although the conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan are very different, one aspect of the Paris Peace Talks at the end of the Vietnam War is similar to the problem facing American negotiators today: how to work...

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Hunger is on the rise in America. The Conference of Mayors recently reported that 86 percent of surveyed cities have seen increases in the need for emergency food aid. These findings coincide with a Feeding America reportthat 20 percent of children in the United States are hungry.

To turn the tide, we need to rekindle the passion and innovation of those who started the fight to end hunger in America more than a century ago.

In 1908 a Cincinnati school teacher, Ella Walsh, saw that her students were struggling. They looked pale. The students were not getting enough to eat. This obviously had serious health as well as educational repercussions. They could not learn on an empty stomach.

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The country is experiencing a Teddy Roosevelt moment.

The most recent example is President Obama’s decision to deliver an economic policy speech -- featuring several TR quotations -- in Osawatomie, Kansas, the site of Roosevelt’s 1910 “New Nationalism Address.” Roosevelt’s resurgence, however, started several years ago, with the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and the resurrection of the term “malefactors of great wealth,” Teddy’s label for corrupt corporations and businessmen. Three years later the phrase is still popping up in blog posts and op-ed pieces.

Theodore Roosevelt’s views on controlling big business and protecting the environment play well with modern progressives. Democratic politicians also like the fact that he was a Republican. By reminding Americans that Roosevelt fought to rein in corporate excesses, they slyly rebuke the modern party. Roosevelt’s unabashed zest for war fits poorly with today’s progressive views, but conservatives admire his eagerness to project American power abroad.

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The holiday season is upon us. It’s a time to give thanks and, thanks to Black Friday, to shop. But it could also be a season when Americans take the reins of their country’s foreign policy . . . and build peace in the new year.

Can ordinary people, not someone in Washington, be in charge of American diplomacy abroad? It may sound impossible. But it has been done before.

In 1947, before the U.S. government launched the famous Marshall Plan, everyday Americans spent the holiday season fighting hunger in Europe and helping those countries recover from World War II. There was a train that traveled across America, stopping in cities and towns to collect food that would be shipped overseas. The Friendship Train was a powerful symbol of American humanitarianism and peacemaking.

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