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Superbowl and 'The War on Terror'...· Feb 5, 09:52 PM
Hi All!
Well, it’s my last morning on Koh Phi Phi… and even though I liked Koh Tao better, it’s been nice here.
You can see in my pics that I was able to watch the second half of the Superbowl (but no cool commercials – dull international version). It was probably the most enjoyable Superbowl ever for me. Just hanging out with a few other Americans and looking in on a very American sport from across the miles. It’s a new level of appreciation.
You know, everywhere I go, I’m still surprised at the almost complete absense of American travelers. On a popular tourist island like phi phi, I talk with plenty of scandinavians, brits, germans, australians, kiwis, canadians…french…dutch…the list goes on… but not many americans at all. The consensus is that Americans have it too good at home to want to travel…and, I think, we’re sometimes too career oriented as well. So…to the folks back home: there are pros and cons to long travel…but if you have any interest, I’d certainly recommend it as an amazing learning experience!
I’ll use that reflection on Americans as a segue into the introduction of my most recent read, “The Pentagon’s New Map”. After the last few years of ‘the war on terror’, I found myself a little confused…and actually a bit critical…of what the US was doing in Iraq and with ‘the war on terror’ in general. “The Pentagon’s New Map” has been a very helpful read in terms of explaining the US strategy in a way that the gov’t, so far, has failed to do. I won’t get into detail, but I’ll give you a decent quote to sum up the book:
“As a 2002 UN report noted, ‘The Arab region has the lowest level of access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) of all regions of the world, even lower than Sub-Saharan Africa.’ Thanks to that stunted connectivity with the outside world, the Middle East’s deficits of freedom and economic development have only gotten worse in recent decades. They come together to diminish expectations of entire generations. Recent opinion polls in the region suggest that roughly half the young people wish to emigrate to other countries – half! How can you build a future when half of your young people would prefer living elsewhere? This is a region desperate to connect to the rest of the world.
Those diminished expectations generated the hatred that expressed itself on 9/11. Strip away the religion and the rhetoric, and 9/11 was nothing more than an act of desperation: the Middle East simply does not work for the vast bulk of the people who live there. The bin Ladens of that region blame the ruling elites there and the West for this sad state of affairs, and are convinced that greater disconnectedness is the answer, allowing these societies to go their own way, which they define as moving away from all that Westoxification.”
So, basically, this author defines the “enemy” as any regime that promotes disconnectedness from the world….because they do this at their own people’s expense in order to build their personal wealth and power. Their people then, in acts of despairation, strike out violently rather than expressing their opinions through the proper channels that exist in a democratic society. There’s a lot more that’s explained…but, for that there’s Amazon.com One more ad: I’m now in the process of figuring out how this concept knits in with my faith…or if it’s just more static on top of the real answer.
OK, enough’s enough! Here’s some pics.
Later,
Nate
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(Singapore and the Chinese New Year)