Sometimes, the unanticipated political legacy is a positive one. In 1936, for example, Adolph Hitler's plans for demonstrating Aryan athletic supremacy were eviscerated by the heroic performance of Jesse Owens. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Berlin games was the repudiation of European claims of racial superiority -- and the aligning of America's identity with that of its citizens of African ancestry.
More often, however, the surprise political legacy is a negative one. In 1972, the Munich Games were intended to replace memories of 1936 by featuring an enlightened post-war Germany as the world's host. Instead, images of AK-47 waiving Black September terrorists, inept German security forces and eleven murdered Israeli athletes will forever define the XX Olympiad. This legacy would serve as precursor to an age of expanded Middle Eastern terrorism.
Not unlike Munich, the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta were expected to convey a certain sense of reconciliation by introducing the world to "the new south" in the first ever Olympics to be held in a formerly segregated southern U.S. city. Again, however, violence determined the Games' legacy, as the Centennial Park bombing reiterated the Olympics' vulnerability to the most senseless of violence and served notice of the possibility of future terrorism on America's own shores.
And now, as the XXIX Olympiad draws to a close, its legacy again threatens to have nothing to do with the games and everything to do with the violence accompanying them. While these Olympics were touted as New China's "coming out" party, their most profound significance may instead be for the role they played as a distraction for Russia's military invasion of its neighbor Georgia. Although political pundits may have logically predicted that if the Games were to be marred by violence, it was most likely to be Chinese violence on pro-democracy or Tibetan protestors, they would have been wrong. Instead, the Olympics have surprised us again -- it is the unforeseen Russian violence, timed to coincide with the Games, which may prove Beijing's legacy.
In part as a result of the world's preoccupation with the Olympics, Russia has received relatively easy treatment from international media and seemingly, the public at-large. At least in this country, people seem more interested in Jamaica's domination over the track and field events than Russia's domination over Abkhazia. The UN has been a non-factor.
And while the Russian Government has described the invasion of Georgia by its "peacekeepers" as a result of Georgia's ill-advised effort to re-occupy its internationally recognized province of South Ossetia, all indications point to a premeditated Russian attack - as evidence at least in part by pre-invasion cyber-attacks that dismantled Georgia's technology infrastructure by notorious Russian hackers. Coupled with the coordinated blitz from Abkhazia and South Ossetian irregulars, it is beyond reasonable doubt that Russia's attack was not pre-planned and intentionally executed during the Olympics.
The most worrisome aspect of the Beijing Games' legacy may thus be the lesson that aggressive regimes of the future will take from it -- Namely: attack your adversary while the world is glued to the Opening Ceremonies... and do as much damage as you can and get out in two weeks.
Read more HuffPost coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
They attacked South Ossetia, remember?
There was nothing American or NATO could do about Russia.
Chew your tie on that.
This is really an abominable thing that the Americans have done, breaking the Olympic truce like that. It must not be forgotten. And we must make sure that the US doesn't get the Olympics again, at least not for a very, very, very long time.