A foreign knowledge desert requires cultural irrigation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1766834,00.html
Unless we teach Americans more about us, we'll continue to be dismayed
by the thrust of their foreign policies
Max Hastings
Thursday May 4, 2006
The Guardian
A couple of weeks ago I met a bright young Senate staffer on Capitol
Hill in Washington. Like most such people, he possesses a lot of
influence and significant power. He has at his fingertips details of
every planet in his universe - names, wards, counties, votes,
biographies, vices.
His only limitation is an absolute ignorance of the world outside the
US. He had visited London with his wife on a European sightseeing trip.
He once attended a conference in Asia. His self-assurance and fluency
are undiminished by knowing nothing of the foreign issues on which his
employer speaks and votes in the Senate. He is content with mastery of
his own, all-American sphere, and has no desire to burden his agenda
with the arcane affairs of Britons or Germans, or even of Afghans or
Iraqis.
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