In light of these assumptions, let me propose the next places of signficance:

Sudan, and the 1992 Cleric’s convention that operationalized the Next-Caliphate agenda, including al Qaeda, Eritrea, Somalia, and the emerging Jihdist confederation on the Sahel.

South Africa is in the fundrasing and training phases right now.

Where do you think al Qaeda Organizers go after it gets too hot in Iraq and Afghaistan?

-Africa

It’s also never mentioned by the MSM that press releases from the US DOD are suspect and biased, but reports from their unvetted stringers in Iraq are gospel.

US agency press releases are propaganda, tapes from Bin Laden and Zawahiri are indicators that they are still winning.

I am reminded suddenly of Churchill’s statement to the effect of “We do not fight with the Germans. We fight either for or against them.”

Until the battle of Nomonhan, consensus in Japan held that the nation could only fight a defensive war against the U.S. in the Pacific. After the battle, the army began creating a rationalization for why Japan could defeat the U.S. due to U.S. cultural decadence.

I think this a pristine example of how fear for their own position in society drives leadership classes to war. The Imperial leaders simply could not step aside for the good of the country and let Japan follow a model similar to that it used post-WWII. They dragged the country into a needless war to preserve their own status. I think the vast majority of conflict originate from such internal dynamics.

Most leftist today argue from a Marxist inspired model that looks toward economics as the driver of wars. However, I think we should look at the more human drives of the leadership than the impersonal forces of economics. Shakespeare teaches us more than Marx.

Sadly, I think the assumption that we TEACH high school and college students about WWII at all is optimistic. In my (very good) public school we had about 2 pages on WWII and the teacher just let me talk else I constantly interrupted his errors.

For fun I used to ask my fellow high school students (all going on to big colleges, by the way) the following questions:

1) did we fight against the Russians in WW2?
2) did we fight with the Italians in WW2?

The answer to 1) was usually “yes” because they confused the “cold war” with WW2 and saw movies like Red Dawn. The answer to 2) was usually “no” because there wasn’t much press about the Italian role in WW2 and everyone pretty much views them as fun-loving people. The other students knew about Japan because of Pearl Harbor and the “day of infamy” speech and the fact that SOMETHING happened on December 7th every year and they of course knew about HITLER and the Nazi’s were bad guys in all those Indiana Jones movies and stuff.

I remember trying to use my old Advanced Squad Leader game to simulate the war between the Russians and the Japanese. Of course the Russian armor just blew away the Japanese equivalent, not that this was particularly realistic since individual armor duels are minor in the grand scheme, but they were telling.

Military roles today are often more about the civilian impact and there is little popular understanding about much of anything. Knowledge falls off even more drastically when you leave the states.

Great post, btw.

As far as reading newspapers, I read them all the time, pretty much everything I can get my hands on. It is important to know what OTHER people feel are important, so you can understand where they are coming from. Occasionally I learn something, mostly about trivia, and often I am angered at how they are misplacing reality.

But I sure wouldn’t bet my house on them.

What that shows that what one deems important tells more about the one making the assessment and what is important to his world than the events themselves. Ultimately history is too complex and too much unknown for anyone to ever understand it fully. Therein lies much of its fascination.