A couple of thoughts for which NPR was a catalyst today:

We are financing both sides of the war on terror. Of course through our taxes we’re paying for the United States’ military operations. But through our consumption of oil, we’re financing the terrorists. We’re providing funds that eventually make their way back to terrorist organizations every time we fill up our gas-guzzling SUVs.

Is Iraq a country that can only be ruled by a strong-armed leader? In other words, is Iraq as it is today because Iraqis have various emotional and political scars due to almost decades of dictatorial rule, or has Iraq been ruled dictatorially for so long because of the national temperament? I’m not suggesting that Iraqis are somehow genetically prone to violence. Rather, think of how Iraq was formed — cobbled together by imperialist powers without regard for ethnic and religious differences. These differences — Sunni versus Shi’a, Arab versus Kurd — are now pushing the country toward civil war.

With both points, we have an almost appropriately ironic situation: the West creates its own problems.