For the first time since the Vietnam era, the central issue to the general election is a war. Americans — from college students to the so-called “security moms” — are concerned about the progress American troops are making in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to make the United States safe from terror. We are about to choose who will lead the nation through the next four years of these wars.

While the candidates battle over the progress of the war and whether such combat is justified, both American and world news networks show images of United States hostages in Iraq being beheaded and firefights in the Tora Bora region. While Americans see these images of war on Headline News, how much do we truly understand about Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the greater Islamic World?

Many Americans are diligent news watchers. The news informs us every day of the events in places varying from al Najaf, Kandahar, Grozny and Jakarta. A shortcoming of CNN and Fox News, however, is that cable news does a poor job synthesizing these news clips into an overall picture of the progress in establishing the safety and security of Iraq and Afghanistan. By just watching the news, we do not understand how the daily images on CBS News relate to the overall picture in Afghanistan.

In order to make a judgment on the War on Terror and the conflict in Iraq, we must first understand the countries and regions in which we are fighting. Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be very similar on the surface: they are relatively close geographically, Muslim and have been ravaged by long-term wars. The two countries, however, are distinct ethnically, geographically and politically. Iraq is an Arab nation with a substantial population of Kurds and smaller Christian groups; Afghanistan, while dominated by Pashtuns, has no clear ethnic majority. The Ba’ath Party has monopolized Iraqi politics for the past 35 years; Afghanistan has suffered from series after series of bloody coup d’états and civil war. To further complicate matters, many Arab Sunnis (such as Osama bin Laden) have fled to non-Arab Afghanistan and established al Qaeda there.

In order to understand the global War on Terror and the War in Iraq, Americans need a deeper comprehension of the history of the Middle East and the Muslim world, the politics of these regions and Islam itself. The news talks about American and Iraqi troops entering al Najaf, but how many can identify al Najaf on a map? We hear about the Sunni Triangle, but how many can differentiate it from Muqtada al Sadr’s Shiite Mehdi Army? We see pictures of Air National Guardsmen from our own university serving in Kandahar, but why are they there?

How can Americans make a judgment about these wars and base our decision on our next president on the central issue about which we know little, if anything? We are basing our decisions on propaganda varying from the official line of the White House to Michael Moore’s documentaries, not academic research.

We students live in a unique situation. The University of Wisconsin offers a wide range of opportunities to study Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East and Muslim World. We can study languages such as Arabic, Persian Farsi, Urdu, Uzbek and Indonesian. We can study the history and the politics of the Middle East. We can study Islam. We can talk with students from Pakistan, Jordan and Turkey. We will not understand the news clips and documentaries without a thorough study of the region, its politics and its culture.

It may be too late to educate security moms in West Bend and Rochester about the War on Terror in time for our presidential election. We can, however, educate our families, friends and communities about Iraq and Afghanistan. We have the chance to learn the truth about the Muslim World that we do not see in the Wisconsin State Journal. Through a deeper knowledge, we can educate the American public with a picture of Iraq and Afghanistan that they do not see on CNN or hear from Al Franken. Only through this knowledge can the United States understand what choices our country needs to make in the future.

Jeff Carnes ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in linguistics.