Is this frightening, or is this disgusting?

This article from CNN really pissed me off, and I hope you go to have a look-see over here so that you can get annoyed too.

Global goofs: U.S. youth can't find Iraq Wednesday, November 20, 2002 Posted: 11:33 AM EST (1633 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Young Americans may soon have to fight a war in Iraq, but most of them can't even find that country on a map, the National Geographic Society said Wednesday.

In addition, among 18- to 24-year-old Americans given maps:

87 percent cannot find Iraq
83 percent cannot find Afghanistan
76 percent cannot find Saudi Arabia
70 percent cannot find New Jersey
49 percent cannot find New York
11 percent cannot find the United States


I've known that my countrypeople tend to be a little dense when it comes to other places in the world. For example, our post office mistakes Austria for Australia so often, the Austrians have come up with at T-shirt that is sold in the tourist shops that says "No Kangaroos in Austria". It has a cute picture of a baby Kanga in a red circle with a line running through it. The most disturbing thing about this shirt is that it is printed in English! I mean, it is a direct jab at Americans, and who do you think is buying the shirt?

I can't help but wonder if our collective inability to find anything on the world map is a symptom of our hegemonic, self-centered policies on the environment and international politics and readiness to go to war? Or is the fact that Geography, and Foreign Languages and teachings of international current events just aren't taught in our schools the reason that so many Americans don't feel they have a responsibility to live in a viable community with the rest of the world?

It all boils down to hatred and prejudice. Hatred is most often caused by ignorance .Predjudice is caused by laziness - so many people would rather assume nonsense they hear on the media, than to do a little research on their own. We don't know anything about these people, never been to the countries, never bothered to meet any one of those a-rabs, so they MUST be evil.

What am I talking about? Back to the title of this article - I think all the interest in bombing the crap out of Iraq has nothing to do with Bin Laden, Al Quaeda or even Saddam "He tried to kill my daddy" Hussein. I believe it has to do with a deep seated national loathing of anything or anyone " different" (Confused? Check out our national history in regards to Africans, Asians and Indians). Because of the events of September 11, we are suddenly all SO SURE that all Arabs are Evil. Why? Because of prejudice and ignorance.

And well, because we don't like to share. They have the oil we want! Per capita, the US uses more oil than any other country in the world And this amount is growing. Rather than to admit that emissions from our overactive energy use are causing of global warming, pollution and war, we stick to our own eggheaded belief that we need all the oil, and that it
belongs to us. We need it to fuel our economy as well as our cars. Anyone who wants to impede our access to this black gold is gonna get the crap beaten out of them.

Who cares that there are actually innocent people living in Iraq? Who cares that in the bombing many of these people will die? I'll tell you who doesn't care. It is the man in the White House who made his first trip out of the country after he became president. It is the man whose children are protected by secret service around the clock. It is the man from Texas who has a personal stake in the country's disproportional dependence on oil. It is a man who has harnessed national fear, to remind us that the TERRORISTS of September 11, 2001 were men who were different. Men who lived amongst us, like normal people, but who are nonetheless different than you and me.

I just can't help but believe if the general public (myself included) knew more about the people whose country we are on the verge of annihilating, things would be different. I mean, who bombs their friends? It is easy to be trigger happy when you haven't even got an inkling as to where Iraq is and that actual people leading peaceful, productive lives inhabit the country.

(edited at 6.22pm - too many typos)