It is probably fair to say that a primary preoccupation of Americans at the moment, whether as parents, grandparents or students themselves, is the question of in what form they should receive instruction this fall.
I feel that I have a right to have an opinion on that subject, having taught at the secondary and university level, having been deputy commander of the U.S. Army War College and vice president of the National Defense University, and currently having a daughter who teaches elementary school and several grandchildren in the American education system.
It is also fair to say that, just as in comparison with other developed countries with whom we are and will be in competition in the future, if as a result of the coronavirus our offspring end up with ghastly gaps in their education as a result of decisions we make now, the monkey will be on our backs for those gaps that make it harder for them to meet the varying challenges they will confront. These will include global climate change, a towering national debt, wars that we or someone else may have started, possible further pandemics and whatever not-easily-fixed damage has been done to our and the world economy.
The trouble with this issue is that there are competing, perhaps incompatible, goals inherent in it.
There is the health and safety of those directly involved in it. In my case, there is not only the daughter who is an elementary school teacher, but also a son who is a physician assistant in three busy emergency rooms and two daughters-in-law who are nurses.
If one of them or one of my grandchildren were to fall victim to coronavirus, I would hold responsible the brain-dead alleged leadership of this country that wanted to pretend that the virus would just go away and thus far underplayed America’s response to it, leaving us now with a continuing high rate of cases, deaths and damage to our economy. This response also leaves us behind other amply resourced countries in the world. So much for American exceptionalism and any supposed leadership in the world.
One point of view is that pouring new blood into the economy by sending the students back into the schools is necessary for the economy. Just wait until we do that and some of them die.
Repairing the damage to the U.S. economy is the job of Washington, not something to be redeemed by the blood of children. It is close to unbelievable that Democrats and Republicans in Congress could not come to agreement on continuing relief to Americans hurt by the impact of the virus.
I certainly feel the pain of the storefront businesses and the cafes that I can’t sit in to drink a cup of coffee and watch the people go by, but it certainly isn’t worth the life of anyone to achieve that type of prosperity, or the election or re-election of anyone.
So even though I am fully aware of the relative value of face-to-face education, I wouldn’t want any of my past students or present family members to risk their lives to achieve it. And that goes for overseas as well. The vaccine needs to be found and administered widely before we proceed to face-to-face learning.
And let us not imagine that taking care of Americans is all that we need to do. It is generally agreed that the virus originated in a “wet market” in Wuhan, China, and has now infected 5 million Americans and killed more than 160,000 of us. If the idea of a southern-border wall has not already been abandoned as moronic and un-American, it should be after the rapid, insidious spread of the coronavirus. We all do live in one world.
Two last notes. The location of and carnage caused by the Beirut explosions reminded me that when I served in Beirut, I lived near enough to the port that I used to sit on my balcony and watch the Syrians shell the harbor. There is some reason to believe that if I had been present there during the current tragedy, it would have been the ballgame for me.
The death last week of former National Security Adviser Gen. Brent Scowcroft caused me to reflect on his record of speaking truth. At a meeting of American ambassadors to African countries and their Washington-based lords and masters, I asked him what were American strategic interests in Africa. He said, contrary to the wishes and aspirations of virtually everyone in the room, “We don’t have any.”
Would that his successors and the current team, which have us messing around in Libya, Somalia and West Africa, had the same clear perception and were as ready to stand up and express it. Maybe then there would be enough money around to turn back full force the virus assault, with necessary testing, tracing and lockdowns. The virus counterattack is existential, not a luxury item.
Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a columnist for the Post-Gazette (dhsimpson999@gmail.com).
First Published: August 12, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
