Meanwhile, the concept of national security needs to be broadened.
As Genghis Khan, conqueror of China, is reputed to have said as a
frightened Chinese empire, at extraordinary financial and human cost,
constructed the Great Wall to fend him off, “A wall is only as strong
as the people behind it.”
One need only drive through any American city today and view the
bombed-out neighborhoods, the crack dens, the pot-holed streets, the
decrepit transit systems, the shamefully overcrowded and prison-like
schools where any teaching and learning that goes on is an accident,
one need only visit ignored and forgotten rural areas of America where
unemployment is the norm and healthcare is half a day’s drive and half
a year’s income away, one need only drive through a suburban
neighborhood and look at all the “For Sale” and even more pathetic “For
Sale: Reduced Price!” signs in front of houses, to see that what lies
behind America’s walls, like the ridiculous one being built now along
parts of the border with Mexico, is incredible weakness. (At the rate
things are going here, it won’t be long before Americans will be
scaling that wall to find jobs in Mexico!)
The folly of conflating national security and foreign policy, and
of imagining that a mindless willingness to resort to force and
bullying is the sine qua non for being “presidential,” has
been made painfully clear not only in the screams of wounded children
in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the cries of hungry children in
America. The United States does not need a man of war in the White
House. It needs a wise advocate of peace.
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback edition). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net
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