Prior to World War II, Americans were, much like they were before 9-11, mostly isolationist, self centered and generally ignorant of the world outside of the United States. The former, because they were turning away from Bloody World War I, and were trying to forget. The later was a forced ignorance of the world engineered by the Mass media owned and controlled by conservative big business, mostly sympathetic to GOP motivations. Years of manipulation with of the Idea that the media was ‘Liberal’ has convinced Americans that the isolation and selfishness was an American Ideal.

As an unexpected outcome of WWII, millions of Americans were introduced to the rest of the world, troops stationed all over the world, and even prisoners-of-war brought to the U.S. for internment influenced the population that there were people living in the rest of the world. People who did not share the american way of life. And Americans learned and gained an understanding, even a desire to know other cultures.

The current situation is a bit different, just as Pearl Harbor was different than 911, an unexpected difference is the decision to keep prisoners far away from the general population, partly to keep them from becoming ‘human’ and partly to keep them away from the U.S. Constitution, and the rights that it confers.

With control of the media the republicans have attempted to prevent interaction both with the truth, and any element that might make ‘foreigners’ less than the ‘evil’ monsters that the GOP needs to continue the war on the U.S. Constitution, for Iraqi oil, and to boost the Defense Industrial Complex. But keeping troops in enclaves (to prevent interaction with the Iraqi population) has lead to the uncontrolled situation that troubles Iraqi security, that prevents the Iraqi from learning about Americans, and from American troops from learning that Iraqi people are human also.

This isolation hasn’t worked, and soon American troops will be returning to the U.S. with a deeper understanding of the outside world, something the GOP did not want. And just as the U.S. became more democratic, more liberal, dare I say more international after WWII, so it will after Iraq. The Republicans are making Democrats out of Republicans, my father, a lifelong republican, is now thinking of voting Democrat. So will the pendulum swing from the GOP to the democratic party. Time will tell, the sooner the better.