War's Slow Learning Curve

The first recorded war in history occurred around 2700 B.C. This war between Sumer, an area now known as Iraq, and Elam, a portion of modern Iran, was fought close to Iraq’s main port city of Basra, a name familiar to Americans from the 1980’s conflict. In a region known by the Greeks as Mesopotamia, these sophisticated armies strategized and killed for age-old reasons – power and money, shown by claiming land and water rights and chiefly titles, settling ethnic and tribal rifts, stealing beautiful women animals (often equally valued), and raiding new technologies.

And so it remains 5000 years later.

We are apparently not one trial learners.

We have the terrible human flaw of preferring to be right at the cost of lives and land, families and famine, wealth and water.

At some point in each fight it becomes difficult to know what right is. Fights are not linear. They are circles that have no end. When fights begin the right and moral side may be clear; by the end, however, the very act of fighting leaves each side compromised. And for each compromised side, right is then a more apt description of their goals and former dignity than The Truth.

Smart negotiation and diplomacy says: these are our goals:

- To ensure that both sides of this conflict are treated with an unassailable dignity that is defined beyond our politics, nationalism and tribal expectations;

- To create a lasting peace that recognizes the equality of our countries, our people and our ways of life;

- To henceforth engage in conversations and activities that reinforce and enact the aforementioned goals.

Smart negotiation and diplomacy says, there is no way to finish this fight. While we may have started fighting 30, 20, or eight years ago, this war has an interminable history. And it is essential, even when one has been assailed, to understand the history of a people and a war before entering a conflict. How different might this America have been if we had understood the long history of conflicts in Central Asia? If we had known more about the strength of tribalism, ethnic and religious ties? Had we understood how topography and geography impact life and warfare?

Or, if we had said to ourselves: This time, let’s not respond as expected. With the world supporting us, we will rebuild our hurting families, cities and infrastructure against the possibility of this happening again. So God help you the next time. When you surprise bullies, they are stunned. When you do as they expect, they are thrilled and respond with their plans. As we have seen.

Smart negotiation and diplomacy asks what is fair? What do we want for our own children? What allows our country to survive and thrive? Whether developed, developing or underdeveloped, all countries share these goals for ourselves. We have often been cavalier about wanting them for the other guy. And even when our leaders are too out of touch to remember what basic needs are, some things make no sense: having filthy water and no electricity at the bottom of the snow-laden K-2 mountains in Pakistan. Having children orphaned by and infected with HIV/AIDS because life-saving medications are unavailable - in many parts of Africa, in some parts of the United States. Infant death from diahhrea. Death from starvation. Preventable if we declare wars to bring our citizens:

Clean water and air

· Healthy food

· Educated girls and boys

· Universal health care (including basic childhood vaccinations and assisted childbirth)

· Paved roads

· Sustainable forests

· Good relationships with neighbors

The US healthcare debate is stalled over what to include in its bills and how to contain costs. No one has thought long term. One need not be compassionate to figure this out. A mercenary mindset will get us there. If we want to remain a super-power, we must have healthy workers who are well-trained at their jobs. This requires well-educated people who are healthy enough to work regularly - universal access to health care and excellent educational and vocational opportunities get us there.

In developing countries, clean water stops child deaths from diarrhea. Assisted childbirth decreases the devastation and familial and community isolation resulting from obstetric fistulas. Educating girls enhances community life: smart girls increase economic productivity, make more independent choices, are physically healthier and become smart mothers who provide better opportunities for their children.

Having been rated the happiest place on earth among 30 democracies, Denmark seems to be doing something right. High taxes pay for all services, health care, disability services, parental leave, senior housing and free post-secondary education. Infants are so safe that they can nap outdoors. If life is good, high taxes are not to be feared. Keeping them low with bad roads, bad schools, no jobs and two wars seems like a bad deal. But the Danes, for all their recent happiness have certainly been warriors. They have a long military Viking history; their modern formation, the 2003 invasion of Iraq is the most recent example of the use of their military to assist one of their allies.

It seems, however, that smart countries such as Demark, all countries in fact, might recognize the importance of heeding Dr. Martin Luther Kings’ words: We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. In truth, we’ve somehow managed as fighters for 5,000 years. Clearly, were this to have been terribly problematic for the eons of those whom it has affected, it would have been stopped. Somehow, people have deemed it a necessary problem and have never ventured the possibility of asking what might happen if stopped caring who was right and worked out another solution.

It might be nice to sleep without wondering who is going to steal your wife, slit your throat, bomb your country, run away with your goats, rape your girls and women, detonate their bodies in your markets, make bombs of your planes, destroy your roads, deplete your water stores, create famine, turn your children into soldiers, terrorize…everyone, wreak havoc on your world, and make a mockery of the peace you thought you had.

War is over if you want it. War is over now.

After more than 5,000 years of war-induced bloodshed, it might be nice to actually learn something. And sleep with both eyes closed.