The threat of “isolationism” looms over America, according to prominent politicians and pundits. Supposedly Americans don’t want to have anything to do with the rest of the world.
Carl Conetta disputes this in a recent lengthy study of current and historical U.S. public opinion polls on global engagement, military intervention and defense spending. He is the director of the Project for Defense Alternatives of the Center for International Policy.
He concludes that while there has been a decline in support for military intervention, “polls continue to show majority public support for U.S. global engagement and for a U.S. global role comparable to that of other major powers. Public dissent has focused narrowly on America’s recent wars and on the notion that the United States should assume a uniquely assertive or ‘top’ global role.
“Americans favor cooperative, diplomatic approaches to resolving conflict and they tend toward a ‘last resort’ principle on going to war. However, the U.S. public will rally to support a forceful response to violent attacks on perceived vital interests. Americans also support forceful action to stem genocide — at least in prospect.”
He notes that over many years, “polls show a chronic gap between elite and public views on military intervention and America’s global role. Foreign policy elites express a stronger preference for military activism and a dominant U.S. role. More common among the general public are selective engagement, cooperative leadership and isola tionist views.”
Many Americans engage in peopleto-people outreach to foreign countries. A prime example is the “Sister Cities International” program introduced in 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower at a White House conference.
The idea, according to the Sister Cities website, was for “individual sister cities, counties and states across the United States” to link up with the citizens of other countries in an effort to bring about “citizen diplomacy.”
Boulder didn’t get a Sister City until 1984 when a Friendship City Project (FCP) was created with the Nicaraguan city of Jalapa. This happened shortly after the people of Boulder passed a ballot initiative calling for an end to U.S. military intervention in Central America.
President Ronald Reagan portrayed Central America’s wars between impoverished peasants and wealthy oligarchs as Manichean clashes between Soviet puppets and freedom fighters. But international human rights groups released reports showing that Reagan’s freedom fighters were dictators and paramilitaries guilty of large-scale mass murder and torture.
Jim Adams, a Boulderite who was a draftsman for the University of Colorado Boulder and Commerce Department labs, went to Jalapa a number of times.
He says, “I traveled to Nicaragua in the 1980s for two reasons — to help build a school in Jalapa and to observe the effect of my government’s lowintensity conflict [the Contra War] on Nicaraguans. I was pleased to help build a school in Jalapa that directly benefited many kids. I generally supported the Sandinista program of providing nutrition, health care and education to poor people. The revolutionary goal was to raise a healthy, welleducated generation of Nicaraguans to run the country for the benefit of the poor majority, instead of for U.S. corporate interests and elite local collaborators.”
Francoise Poinsatte, a former Boulder city councilwoman, has been involved with FCP from the beginning and has been a member of the group’s board since 2006. She has seen the constructive impacts of FCP firsthand: “Impoverished families who had only contaminated filthy water from wells now have taps with clean potable water. Students who wouldn’t have been able to continue their education, now successfully graduated and entering universities. Families growing their own nutritious vegetables that otherwise were too expensive to buy.”
FCP is practical, humanitarian and non-political. Every month, people in Jalapa meet to discuss what FCP should do and they volunteer their labor on the projects. It isn’t a bunch of gringos bossing people around.
On Saturday Nov. 8, FCP is having a 30th anniversary celebration from 3–6 p.m. at the home of Carolyn Young and David Cook at 3003 Fifth St. in Boulder. The event is also a fundraiser for a new water project. FCP is an all-volunteer organization. The City of Boulder doesn’t provide them with any money Join in the fun. Help build world peace one piece at a time.
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This opinion column does not necessarily
