Cindy Sheehan gives up protest against the war in Iraq

Today Cindy Sheehan, the activist mom, whose son died in the war on Iraq gave up her protest against the Iraq war. With all due respect for her, I think she has done the right thing.

While I am not condoning the war in/on Iraq, there are reasons why I think it cannot be stopped now.

Why did the US start the war?

The US started the war on misleading claims that Saddam Hussein had WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction for the uninitiated), which was a crock of horse manure to start with! My take on it is that George Bush Junior wanted to finish what the Senior could not for one and the second one being Iraq having some of the largest deposits of oil – lets face it, the war was for oil and nothing else! So the war was launched and Saddam was hung. Unfortunately, and I mean it in the most sincere way, what started as a means to end Saddam’s dictatorship, ended up becoming a war on terror, with Al Qaeda joining the rebels against the American occupation in Iraq. So what should have been capture and get out became a war that neither George Bush not any of his team actually thought through!

What are the choices we have today?

George Bush orders his army to get out of Iraq, which is something that will make Messrs. Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton et al. happy, but leave Iraq in a state of conflict with no solution in sight in the near future something they did not anticipate – The Middle East is a cauldron with so many conflicts and George Bush, instead of making the world a better place to live has done exactly the opposite. He has managed to alienate the entire Middle East, parts of Europe and most people on the face of the Earth, hate him for going to war. To put things in perspective, the Americans are fine with having a dictator, who will tow the American line, no matter what - look at President Musharaff in Pakistan for example! No matter what he does and there is ample evidence to the effect that Al Qaeda is re-grouping in Pakistan – the Americans simply look the other way!

The only other choice is for Americans to stay in Iraq and ensure that all the warring parties come to the table and trash out a goal for the common good of the country. While, this is easier said than done, there is no other choice.

So the Americans are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea with no chance of redeeming all the bad will they have managed to generate against themselves and in the process made the world a worse place to live in!

American Media: Trivializing News and too internally focussed?

Is the American media trivializing news and are they too internally focused?

ON late Sunday night, India time, there was a major terrorist attack on an Indian train (connecting India and Pakistan) killing 66 people and injuring many others. One of American biggest and highly popular news website carried the news item as a byline in its “Latest News” section while the main story was dealing with how 4 people and a pet were rescued after they got stuck in a snow storm!

If the same attack happened on American soil or was targeted at American interests anywhere in the world, God forbid – we have too much bloodshed already, even if the casualties were far smaller, it would have made headlines!

Most American news channels, newspapers and websites are so internally focused that it seems that the news is getting trivialized!

The biggest news, recently in American media – Britney Spears has shaved her head! Give it a break folks – Leave her alone – It might do her a world of good!
All news organizations seem to be focused on making profits and news such as this, while useless and not giving any useful information sells!

This also seems to be a malaise affecting the American education system! The system is also so internally focused that most students at school do not even study various about countries, their cultures. Most Indians study the gamut of world civilizations, Indus Valley, Egyptian, Chinese etc. to the American civil war, American and the French Revolutions, the rise and fall of communism, World Wars etc.

Shouldn’t the media have the responsibility to teach people about various countries and cultures? The media mainly focuses on the city where it is in, the state, the US and countries where US has huge interests (especially Middle East, Israel) or where the Americans have or had their hands in a conflict (Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Vietnam).

IN the era of the internet blurring the borders across each country to make the world a global village, ignorance is certainly not bliss!