From what I know the public school system in iraq was one of the best in the middle east before the sanctions. Secular too, though anti-american. Then again I grew up in the day when we were still propagandized in the school system to fear and hate the russians so who am I to talk about vilifying our enemies to our children.

Where exactly did you get this information that iraqi school books don't even have world maps in them?

OT (even from this OT topic):
Serge and Fintstone -- thanks to both of your for your service. Truly remarkable the random places to meet other military types. Serge, if you don't mind my asking, what were you deployed on? Fintstone, I can't imagine deploying to a missile silo. I suppose it couldn't be any crazier than a submarine...

Dan

I know, if you didn't post it....how could it possibly be so? Pretty soon you will expose that Serge is really a troll republlican in New Jersey...working for Rush Limbaugh, and couldn't possibly know about where he grew up......another damn right wing conspiracy!

According to the charities collecting supplies for Iraqi schools....many have no books or supplies whatsoever.

I can sit here and watch some of this stuff 'float by' but sooner or later, I see something I know from personal experience isn't right, and I have to take a stand and usually will thereafter wonder about the person that wrote it.

Joeclarke: I lived in The People's Republic of China (Communist China) for 2 years. The internet there IS filtered. Google is banned. As is ANY exterior news organization. Yes, even in this modern day and age. Sattelite dishes are non existant. You migt see them in the SEZ's (Special Economic Zones), hidden on a patio, or inside of a curtained window. To get to the real internet from Guanzhou, I had to phone dial Austrailia to MSN. As soon as I got a good handshake, and started to logon, the phone line would disconnect. Imagine that. I could carry on a telephone conversation and as long as I threw in comments about how great the PRC was, I could talk for hours. But mention Christmas, or say anything disparaging about the PRC, and the line would disconnect. Sorry, my personal experience differs from your statement. The outright bashing of intellectual property rights is an affront to western business. The Chinese (under Clinton's enlightenment) got MFN status allowing them to flaunt the business rules openly, and not have to pay tariffs on their junk they flooded our markets with. Enviornmental wastelands and human rights abuses flourish under their system of winking at the international community. They have been rewarded for doing so by the USA.

The day is coming when we, on this board, will be discussing when Clinton knew this and why didn't he take steps to stop it.

350HP930: Iraq had a great secular state run school system. Trained lots of good little muslim children to hate the west.

Only problem was, you had to be male. No female children allowed.

I wouldn't consider that a great school system in any part of the world.

Dan
Thanks for your service too! Actually enjoyed the life. Lots of variety ....was a Mustang. Spent most of my life with the military...enlisted out of high school Served as enlisted til selected to E-8...worked on several types aircraft (some of which were very cool and very classified), taught electronics...spent a tour in special ops. Along the way..I had picked up an undergrad in Elect Engineering..so went to officer's training. My reward for the audacity was four years in Minot ND as a Missile Officer wearing a blue jumpsuit and waiting to tun the key. Gave me time to do about half a masters degree in HR and complete one in Business. Spent a tour at ROTC and then worked as a Weapons Analyst....Finally worked in an engineering role for aircraft with nuclear weapons until I retired. Did the same briefly as a contractor and then civil servant. Currently not employed, but looking.
Actually missile duty for us was relatively easy work.....but understandably demanded perfection. Unfortunately, most missiles are based in remote areas..many with bitterly cold winters.
Service at sea must also be interesting, to say the least.

That's ok guys - I understand.

It's much easier to accept that someone hates you for competely irrational reasons or as a result of "indoctrination" than to entertain the possibility of the alternative.

Answer: Yep - more so on average when compared to an equivalent aged student in the USA. I recently had a chat with a young lady from Persia (she prefers that name) - a recent high-school grad. She knows more about many facets of world affairs than me, let alone my sweet little teenage lads who could care less about anything other than football or chicks. And I'm betting that "Persia" is far more restrictive in the area of access to information than Saudi Arabia.

(ain't nothing wrong with chicks and football (notice I changed the sequence there) BTW)

Singpilot
Yes, I had the opportunity? to travel into the Soviet Union before the wall came down.......it was amazing how information was controlled and how closely people were watched! I have to give the people there a lot of credit for resisting that and am amazed their humanity, openness, and genuine goodwill that many demonstrate in spite of the opression. I saw some great textbooks on math and science there......but in other publications....IMHO...propaganda was king.

Yes Joe, that is the only explanation we can come up with for you. We are only trying to be charitable. It is hard to imagine one so vitriolic for any other reason.

Joe...

I will completely and enthusiastically agree with you about the young woman from Persia.

Foreign news organizations are dramatically more 'fair and balanced' than what we are fed here in the states. I still travel internationally about half of the year. In fact I am in Nassau now. The coverage from Canada and Germany provide a visibly different perspective than the 3 channels of CNN and Fox that are on right alongside them.

Most European countries get several sources of news, and people there are usually better informed than our youth. Sad, really.

I have forgotten how much CNN, Fox etc present a very biased view.....

In your travels sing do you think the rest of the world gets a more blanced andperhaps a more accurate view of events than the US?

If so, and from personal experience of five years in the US, I think we do get a more balanced view form the media of events, does the Us suffer from indoctrination in that way.

I.e. you know the media presents a particular viewpoint, so some will object on principle to what is being said whilst others will accept it as the truth.

That the media many be right at times as well as wrong is therefore irrelevant because you cannot gauge which is which at any one time. Like a stopped clock you know its gonna be right twice a day but when is that if you have few if any other references you trust.

From my Iraqi colleagues I must assume that the education system in the not too distant past was comparable in academic level to ours, but that philosophically it viewed the West as a 'danger' to Islam. Is that good or bad, depends on who you're talking to...for us its bad, for them it gave a good compass reference, much as our Cold War gave direction to the Western economy.

Their knowledge of our historry and culture was as sketchy as ours is of theri culture, again reflecting the different priorities.

What is clear however is that whilst their training is different ot ours they are intelligent and cultured people. What we view as unaccpetable ideas and ideals are matched by our ideals being view with equal distain.

MFAFF;

I think that on average, the news viewpoint expressed outside of the USA is just different, not biased necessarily but definately more detailed. BBC has a viewpoint. TF1 (France) has a viewpoint. ZDW (West Germany) has a viewpoint, very unbiased, exacting, and even ugly in it's brute delivery.

You'd almost have to watch several to get the whole picture. Watching CNN and Fox and MSNBC gives you the (what I would call) leftist point of view. As will the French view. The BBC tends to be centrist.

You see them all, and get a chance to make up your own mind. In the states (when I stay there too long at a time), I find the news so bad, that I turn it off. Funny thing is, I think more and more Americans are turning it off.

My time in college had several 'Persian' Islamic students in my class (UC Berkeley in the early 70's). They arrived, shy and withdrawn, having been told of the 'evils' of the west. After a while, they would assimilate into society (such as it was in Bezerkeley), and discover that the evils and devils were of their own country. Most tried not to go back, and the fall of the Shah allowed some to stay.

I would have said that most of them were as cultured and educated as anyone in America, but had been indoctrinated to an anti-western bias from childhood. Once they found out the truth, they almost always resented the indoc.

Most of these friends disappeared back into their countries at some point and were never heard from again.

Glad to konw my view of US media is still correct.

To be honest with you the thing I missed most about living in the US was the lack of quality in the newspapers and on TV.

Made watching TV and reading papars, an essential part of modern life too dull and mind numbing.

Returning to the UK was a like being reunited with old friends. I do like the BBC and the UK papers.

We get the IH, New York Times and W Post at work every day, great fun comparing the same stories across the spectrum of papers....

But hey I'm a well educated snob so what do I know...but I still watch StarTrek....

Thank god for the internet. I can now read the english periodicals of the world, something relatively hard and expensive to do back in the days of print.

Nowadays I rarely ever buy a paper or watch TV news.

I like to think that learning the difficult truths of the world is like panning for gold. You have to carefully swish around masses of dirt (the news) to coalesce the gold (the truth) for the purpose of collecting that precious metal.

...then North Korea
 

I know this thread has been inactive for a while, but here is some fuel to the fire.

Cheers,
Serge

Report: N.Korea's Kim May Offer Nuclear Deal for U.S.

BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il has told Beijing he is ready to scrap his nuclear arms programs if the United States changes what he called its hostile attitude, a South Korean newspaper said on Tuesday.

Kim slipped unannounced into Beijing on Monday and held his first talks with Chinese President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao on the crisis over communist North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear ambitions and its threadbare economy.

His rare overseas trip, expected to last up to four days, comes a week after Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) visited China with new evidence of the North's possession of nuclear arms and warning that time was running out to resolve the stalemate.

The purpose of Kim's visit and the significance of its timing were not immediately clear, but the reclusive leader of the world's only communist dynasty may be eager to win Beijing's support for his fledgling market reforms and nuclear position.

Asked if the United States had used the opportunity to pass a message to Kim, a U.S. embassy spokeswoman was careful, saying only: "China knows our position well and this was reaffirmed during Vice President Cheney's visit to China."

Ending the nuclear crisis is critical to unlocking outside aid to the ailing and isolated North Korean economy, including from China, the North's closest friend and host to two rounds of inconclusive six-party talks aimed at breaking the impasse.

However, Kim may calculate that an arsenal of nuclear weapons is the only way to guarantee the survival of his government, giving him leverage with the United States as he presses for security guarantees to prevent any possible U.S. invasion.

"Kim reportedly explained the reasons behind the nuclear weapons to Hu and added that North Korea is willing to give up nuclear developments if the United States changes its hostile attitude," the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea (news - web sites)'s biggest daily, said.

That is the secretive North's standard position.

China had agreed to give the North energy and food aid, it said. Beijing may be eager to offer rewards to ensure Pyongyang does not declare itself a nuclear state and has long insisted on a peaceful resolution to a crisis that has enraged Washington and triggered nervousness among neighbors.

The reclusive Kim had confirmed Pyongyang's willingness to settle the nuclear crisis at the next round of six-party talks that include the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan, the newspaper quoted its source as saying.

BIG CHANGE?

In the last round of talks in February, they agreed to meet again before mid-year and to start working-level talks before that to discuss the dispute. No progress has been reported since.

Chinese and North Korean media were silent on the visit, Kim's first to his giant neighbor in three years.

An Asian diplomat in Beijing said rumors about Kim's visit included the possibility he was seeking Chinese backing for a major announcement or policy shift.

The timing, just days after Cheney came to town, may not be a coincidence.

"Some speculated reasons are that maybe the Chinese side delivered a message from the U.S. on the nuclear issue. Maybe North Korea feels it's the right time to deal with this issue," said the Asian diplomat.

"The other speculation is that North Korea is very much eager to pursue its economic reform and they need the full support of Chinese leaders," the diplomat said.

Kim is expected to meet his counterpart, Chinese military chief and former president Jiang Zemin, and to do some sightseeing, a Chinese source familiar with the visit told Reuters on Monday.

Kim was also likely tour a Beijing high-tech zone dubbed "China's Silicon Valley," the South's Yonhap news agency said.

SOUTHERN MEDIA ABUZZ

South Korean media was abuzz with news of Kim's trip.

The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper cited rumors North Korea would soon make an announcement that could signal a breakthrough in resolving the crisis, which began in October 2002 when U.S. officials say Pyongyang disclosed it was working on a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons.

"Some even speculate that Kim might have told Hu that North Korea has shifted its position," the paper said.

The Korea Herald applauded China's efforts to try to close the gap between the United States, which has demanded complete, irreversible and verifiable dismantling of the North's nuclear programs, and North Korea.

Kim is also expected to meet Premier Wen Jiabao, who is at the helm of China's booming economy.

In 2001, Kim toured Shanghai and was reportedly impressed with the glitz of China's financial hub. He later began to experiment with market reforms.

I trust Kim Jong-Il about as far as I could spit him. But I'm glad he's antsy.

If self-annointed Master Diplomat and Emissary of Empathy Jimmy Carter couldn't "solve" the NK nuke issue, it must be insoluble.

Leave it to the "news" agency Reuters to call Kim's travels from NK to China (which are adjacent to one another...) an "overseas" trip.

JP

Sounds like ourcurrent "inept" foreign policy is bringing all the bad guys to the table. Funny how that did not happen through all those years of "brilliant" foreign policy.

The fact that we are rewarding pakistan despite the fact that they are the rogue nuclear power that has given every country from libya to NK its nuclear capabilities show these changes to be the sham that they really are.

IMHO Pakistan is a much greater threat to US security than 'the axis of evil' and very little is being done to contain this threat.

We are also giving them billions of US tax dollars as a reward for their role in the 'war against terror' too.

Just goes to show how electing a strong leader in 2000 changed how the world looks at things. Strangely enough, I thought liberals would be happy to have Libya without WMD, Pakistan renouncing terror, Afghanistan out from under the Taliban, Israel giving up the Gaza Strip, N. Korea volunteering to give up their nuke program, etc...If only Clinton had done it...The current adminstration has achieved more in 3 years than the previous did in 8.

350 -
Why/how is Pakistan a greater threat? This is an honest question, w/o a trap waiting to be sprung.

I believe that the Pak admin has changed its tack, and we're rewarding them for current (and future) efforts, rather than past history. Obviously the rank-and-file Pakistanis are not united behind Musharraf, but if we want the place not to slide back into being officially anti-US/West, we'd better help that poor bastard stay in power; and greenbacks are an historically successful tool.

Bear in mind that the Paks got into a fierce, week-long firefight w/ al-Qaeda and took a number of those bastards down (though they didn't catch OBL's buddy). They've demonstrated a lot more fortitude and dedication to our cause than many of our erstwhile allies; and they've kept doing so when the bullets started to fly.

If you believe as I do that nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests (obviously I didn't coin that little gem :D) then when a nation formerly antagonistic to you can become your opportune ally and serve your permanent interests, you run with it.

I honestly don't see the Paks as more of a threat than the *****house-rat-crazy North Koreans, but I'm interested in why you think they are.

JP

I think pakistan is a greater threat because they are an unstable dictatorship with nukes and a lot of radical muslims in high places who have already proven that they are willing to support terrorists who have attacked us and our allies. Just look at how they responded to Khan taking the fall for the technology transfers.

If terrorists ever get nukes I imagine they will come from pakistan or russia and have been purchased with saudi money.

How good do you think the US's security position will turn out to be if all of a sudden our 'enemies' tell us that they have nukes in several of our major cities and its time to pay the piper?

Hopefully our nemises will be wise enough to bleed us dry with blackmail instead of killing millions for the hell of it.

A war with iraq while our government cuddles in the beds of the conspirators that brought us 9/11 could easily spell disaster for the US.

In the big picture NK is only a fraction of the threat posed by allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan IMHO.