How knowledgeable about the Middle East area are we Americans?

I am not sure of the answer the more I listen and read and use my prior education, civilian and military.

Forget TV in all its media means.

Most of my fellow citizens are just as well intentioned as I am, and often come to different conclusions. I suspect the reason is mostly personal experience. The other main reasons I suspect is their homework and their sources of information.

I also suspect this friction and dichotomy is as old as human history. It could be as short as American history.

Now I get to live the history during my life. I think most of the people reading this article are well informed and educated to their satisfaction. It is the rest of our citizens I will guess about.

Our nation has a long history of isolationism and withdrawal from the old world. FDR dealt with it, and this national instinct is still alive and well today. Now we will deal with it. Between our oceans’ protections and our new world principles, the idea is that we are better than the rest of the old world, and let the rest of the old world sort it out, without us. Another way it is expressed is “give peace a chance” and “diplomacy” first. Another way it is expressed is in terms of national strength, that is, we are simply too weak to do much about things without a national mobilization.

On to the latest old world problem that affects us USA types. On 9/11 we were attacked out of nowhere, and 3,000 people who simply went to work died just for being Americans in America. Somehow the oceans were no longer a simple defense, assuming we needed a defense.

Now I read and sense the political cross currents of those analyzing the people who killed 3,000 American citizens, and why and how. In this process, I evaluate how much information those who are still alive know and use. I also recognize the political aspect of all this, in that politicians and maybe media types will taint the information to promote their cause and be obtuse to the rest of us citizens, who vote by the way.

The preceding is a fancy way of saying politicians and media types can be disingenuous. We all know this.

What I think is that we American citizens are smarter than many politicians and maybe media types. We all know directly or indirectly the difference between Sunnis and Shiites; and Persians, Arabs, Kurds, Jews and the other polyglots of groups; Bathists and other dictatorial groups; and lastly nation-states and tribes. And we are familiar with all their frictions.

I just wish the oncoming Democratic head of the Intelligence Committee in the House knew as much, and he is a good guy.

Then there is the appalling (to me) ignorance and perceptions about our military, based mostly on lack of experience by those not trained in this most ancient and noble art. Yes, few of us are born to anything; most of us have to be trained. When I hear armchair generals describing why and how we can’t even subjugate a little country like Iraq, I wish they knew to look to their civilian leaders (both elected and appointed) first. And when I read about using nukes in Iran as a regional version of MAD, I often wonder if these proponents have thought about the tom foolery of Iran’s enemies, or the down range fallout pattern effects on Pakistan and India. Last on this subject, military experience is no guarantee of good judgment. Kerry and Rangel come to my mind.

The Middle East is a caldron of competing histories, ideas, religions, frustrations, and expectations. The USA would normally use our trained State Department in the old days to deal with this area. The 9/11 attacks changed everything, and now when we go to bed at night we often think about our USA security for us and our children. Often when we wake up, many go to their news to see what atrocity has occurred in the rest of the world while we were sleeping.

It is to our advantage to learn as much as we can, assuming we are starting from scratch. Then keep learning. And I think most of us are way past “scratch” in determining America’s national interests and America’s path to going forward.