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What Do The Olympics and Tribal Arts Tell Us About National Security?

What Do The Olympics and Tribal Arts Tell Us About National Security?

February 16, 2010

By Joe Rothstein
EINNEWS.COM

Sarah Palin got a lot of media attention at the Tea Party convention and afterward for savaging President Obama on national security. Among his other "failings" she was appalled that the President devoted what she estimated to be only 9% of his State of the Union address to national security.

Setting aside for a minute why anyone should spend 10 seconds of attention considering what Sarah Palin thinks on this subject----which she's never studied or experienced----her comments raise an interesting point. Which is: Is national security measured only in military might, willingness to waterboard suspected terrorists and to take liberties with individual rights of privacy at home?

That was the Bush-Cheney formulation of national security, and judging by all the current hard breathing about closing Quantanamo, and terrorist trials in the U.S. most Republican leaders apparently are still there.

We tried it the Bush-Cheney way. Boy, did we ever. Those Abu Ghraib images will haunt us for years to come. There are still high profile investigations and cases going on in Italy, the U.K., Spain and elsewhere over U.S. sponsored torture and rendition. Cheney and Rumsfeld can't travel to many countries in Europe for fear of being arrested as war criminals. A trillion dollars in war spending charged to the nation's credit card is a huge obstacle to our ability to recover from this recession.

When Bush and Cheney vacated the White House North Korea and Iran were deeper into their nuclear programs than ever, our military was frayed, along with alliances long in place with traditional allies, and the U.S. was considered by most people of the world a bigger threat to peace than Russia or China.

Now we're trying it Obama's way. We don't know whether this way will be more successful at defusing North Korea and Iran than the Bush-Cheney way. That's still a work in progress. But we do know that the highest ranking Taliban leader yet captured is in custody thanks to unprecedented cooperation with Pakistan. We've seen the recent Pew poll of middle easterners who more than in past years tend to favor moderate, rather than extremist leaders and movements.

Today our NATO allies are stepping up to the plate to help defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan, confident that there's enough popular support at home now to allow them to share common cause with the U.S. Without question, those frayed alliances with allies are being mended.

There may be no better evidence that the Obama way is working than the progress being made on a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, and Russia's cooperation with moves to isolate Iran over the nuclear issue.

Foreign policy isn't a 30 minute TV reality show. Relationships among nations take time to develop and mature. One year into the Obama presidency doesn't tell us much. But there are plenty of positive signs that the hostility generated through the bullying years is easing and that a heightened environment for cooperation is having some success.

For most of human history warlike tribes fought to the death for possession of the next water hole. For most of human history monarchs could and did plunder and make war as their moods and ambitions suited them. That's not where we are today.

Where we are today is closer to what we witnessed on the opening night of the Vancouver Olympics. Athletes from 82 nations marched under separate flags, but clearly in step with the common bonds of humanity. The Olympic village where they live during the games is an apt metaphor for our economically competitive, but socially cooperative societies.

Where we are today is evident in the world's reaction to humanitarian crises such as Hurricane Katrina, Indonesia's tidal wave, Haiti's earthquake. When disasters strike the strong seldom pounce on the weak. They lend a hand. Nations that once exercised colonial power over others now band together to provide health services, food assistance, and other help to those they once ruled and exploited.

I've just returned home to Washington, D.C. after spending some days at San Francisco's Tribal Arts Show. This is annually one of the richest displays of tribal culture to be found anywhere. Wildly graphic textiles created 2000 years ago in Peru. Delicate feather headdresses being made today in Cameroon. Centuries-old guardian figures from Borneo. Masks, textiles and jewelry from Oceanic Islands, the Middle East, Central and South America, Africa, Polynesia, Indonesia, Asia and North America.

We read so much about the wars that have shaped our civilization, and we read so little about the cultures that did even more. There's no denying the violent character that has defined the human race. But just as defining has been the search for depth and beauty. Those water jugs of ancient Egypt would have served as well if just left as plain clay. But ancient Egyptians molded them, painted them and gilded into beautiful expressions of soul. The spirit that moves people from the utilitarian to the sublime has been evident for at least 10,000 years.

More important than the track of war through human history has been the track of culture. Culture fed by learning and insight. The Incas of Peru owed much of their strength to their creativity and skill at building a road system that extended 25,000 miles at altitudes as high as 15,000 feet. Rome achieved greatness based as much on its roads and water aqueducts as on its armies.

The U.S. is more secure because it has devoted resources to the classrooms and educational systems that produced the laboratories and the research centers that developed the weapons our military can field. And, all one has to do is look at the names of many of our best research scientists, names that spring from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas to understand what a rich return the U.S. gets from being an open and welcoming society.

So, I beg to differ with Sarah Palin. When President Obama delivered his State of the Union address, he spoke a lot longer than 9 minutes about national security. Our security depends on our systems of education, health, transportation, finance, commerce, industrial capacity----as well as the people who wear our uniforms and the weapons we provide them. It's the whole package.

And if we have a glaring weakness as a nation today, it's our inability to see that clearly and to continue doing all those things needed to keep us secure.
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