Growing older

Do today's events fall under the realm of "growing up?"

Today, I found out my good friend Ryan's number has been called, and he may have to ship out to Afghanistan. He and my best friend Fiona (his fiancee) were arguing earlier, but I never imagined it could be over something like this. The war in Afghanistan - how many times have I supported Obama when he said the war in Afghanistan is right? How many times has my mouth formed words of support, when I really had no idea what I was supporting? I can't imagine life without Ryan. I can't imagine what Fiona may have to go through if he is called to duty, and worse yet, if he doesn't come back. Because that terrible possibility is in the nature of war.

Where did the situation in Afghanistan come from? Who is responsible? The great United States played a role, if one looks at its foreign policy initiatives in the Cold War, especially under Ronald Reagan. More on that later... Short term thinking leads to long term instability leads to the fate of Ryan, who sits downstairs watching Heroes on the television with his young and beautiful fiance. How is it fair that he comforted me when he delivered the news in the kitchen? And how is it that, just moments earlier, I felt the right to complain about my problems applying for internships and getting through finals which, in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing? My life will go on, whether or not I am chosen for a State department internship. I know that. If Ryan is chosen to go to Afghanistan, he can not truly know what that means for his future.

And boy, do I feel powerless. What can I possibly do to help Ryan? I can write letters to my Congresspeople, but realistically what can they do now? The problem exists in Afghanistan. The President deems it necessary that we go there to fight terrorism. And I, just a month, a week, a day, ago, would have said the same thing. But now my friend, one the best people that I know, faces the consequences of the decision to go to war, and I want nothing more than to stop the it altogether. But then, questions remain: what is best for the world? How informed am I on this issue? What business did I have supporting a war that I knew nothing about? And what can I do to prevent this from happening again, to someone else?

I guess that's where the idea for this blog comes into play. I've been studying the history of US foreign policy, and the lessons are out there, in books and journal articles and video clips and radio interviews, for us to learn. History does not repeat itself, exactly - or at least, we don't study history and then resign ourselves to that belief. What history can do is inform us on what kinds of questions to ask about the present, and how best to design our responses in the present to achieve the most favorable outcomes for the future.

So here's what I would like to do:

Learn about the consequences of US foreign policy. Study how the decisions made in the past inform the world that we live in today. And imagine how to prevent situations like Afghanistan from entering into this world. Because war is real. Ryan Stepanski is a real, living, breathing, loving, sweating, cussing human being, and the foreign policy decisions made by this country play a major contributing role to the destabilization of the Middle East, and thus into the fate of my good friend.

So what can I do? Educate myself, and so can you, too, if there is a "you" out there reading this. What good is an education? It is, I think, of the greatest good. A critical understanding of the past can inform the way we think in the future. And a touch of human compassion and concern in a world dominated by realists and economists can do a world of good. Compassion is beautiful. Compassion that is informed by history is powerful. Can we learn to think this way, with both compassion and with pragmatism? It is the best chance we've got of stopping the dangerous cycle of short term decision making, with long-term, deadly consequences.

Invent! Create, dedicate, believe. Hope!

Post it all on here:
Books, journal articles, blogs, newspapers, magazines, stories, conversations, interviews, documentaries, images, sounds, that have informed you in any degree to the present world that we live in.
And:
Ideas about how to make it better.

Karey