Thought Provoking Class

My apologies for those who aren't that interested in politics. That is
the topic of most of this post.

Today our Australian History class was really interesting. We talked
about the mindset of Americans vs. the mindset of Australians, and
other countries. Then somehow we started talking about Bush and his
foreign policy and how he handled things after 9/11. Our teacher is
very knowledgeable. He doesn't like Bush (at least his foreign policy)
and he has his own ideas on what should have been done after 9/11. It
was very interesting to hear his thoughts. He doesn't seem to be just
your average liberal Bush hater type person, he actually knows a lot
about history and rise and fall of nations.

Here are his ideas on what should have been done after 9/11. Instead of
bombing Afgahnistan we should have sent a lot of foreign aid to it,
showing our good nature (he's British btw). This would only help us in
that part of the world (theoreticly). Then put an enormous price on Bin
Laden's head, like a billion dollars. That would have caused the
Russian mophia (however in the world you spell that) to get involved
and find Bin Laden. This would have given us what we wanted without
getting too heavily involved in the region (I guess). Even the
Afganistans would help track him down.

He seems to kind of forget about the whole Al Quada thing that we wiped
out in Afganistan. Not sure what he says about that.

There was obviously a lot more to his clever scheme but that was the
interesting part. In a way it sounds like a liberal using the old
globalization card. Because he also seemed to downplay the idea of
force on our (the US) part. I'll at least give him credit for a very
thoughtful way of handling the situation. Whether or not he would have
actually done something like that in Bush's shoes I don't know. But he
has interesting thoughts.

He's also a talk show host by the way. No wonder he can communicate so
effectively.

AHHH! There's so much more I want to say. I could go on forever about
other interesting things we talked about in that class this morning,
and what I felt about it. I really wish I could have gotten it on video
to show my family. There was so much I learned and want to explore
further.

I want to say that it was cool to feel such a since of solidarity (if
that's the right word) with some of my fellow classmates regarding our
political views.

I always feel so inadequate when speaking about politics and foreign
affairs (or however you want to classify this). I feel like there is
always something I'm not taking into account. And also that I won't
represent my view point with accuracy. I guess I'm talking about an
inability to communicate how I really think about it all.

I don't know what triggered it but today I felt my first real since of
homesickness. It's like, "Oh yeah I remember that place called home. I
had some good times there."