In yet another excellent discussion over at Blog Catalog, techfun asked the question What Is A Valid Reason For War? And after some excellent back and forth the discussion came around to What Do You Do When War Comes To You? Which led me to the following post quoted directly from the discussion. The linked discussion of Gary Geddes’ Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things was first published in my books blog, The Thin Red Line on June 8, 2007 and is posted today on my new political rants blog capitaL eLs and cross posted to TTRL.
I can’t begin to imagine what it would feel like to be living in a country that is suffering a war on their own turf which they have no choice but to in whatever way resist or fight one day at a time as they Can. What frightens me about all of this is that most of us Americans seem to perceive very little about the realities of life in other parts of the world and thus are easily led to conclusions we would see are patently false if we actually knew something about the place and people we are told lies about.at the risk of shameless self promotion go read my discussion of book called Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things
blog.libdrone.org/2007/06/kingdom-of-ten-thousand-things.html
and pay particular attention to the information about everyday life in Afghanastan just before 9/11 and the much repeated vow to "bomb them back into the stone age". We Americans fail to perceive the reality of life in other parts of the world at our grave peril.
on 
on 
Entries (RSS)
October 11th, 2007 at 4:08 am
You wrote: ‘What frightens me about all of this is that most of us Americans seem to perceive very little about the realities of life in other parts of the world’
Americans are often clueless about things that happen beyond the realm of the US. I remember how shocked so many people were that some people loathe us when the whole 9/11 attacks happened. They were walking around in a bubble thinking everyone loved us.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I remember reading about an internationally administered geography quiz from, I THINK, the National Geographic Society. Forgetting for the time being about knowledge of other cultures and societies, the US scored near the bottom on just knowing where other countries were and who their neighbors are.
The key telling point of the study was that after over a year of military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, over 75% of Americans tested could not find either country on an unlabeled map of the region that only showed national borders.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
War came to me when I was five.
The Swansea Blitz (South Wales) left an indelible mark on my life, yet this was as nothing to what children of my age suffered in areas under German control.
So-called leaders, or should I say - deciders, enter so lightly into war with never a thought for the helpless.
Terrible as 9/11 was, if it had happened in any other part of the world… well, what do you think would have happened?
A.