Until one can understand how others feel, how others think, and realize that their society and culture are as important to them as ours is to us one will never be an educated or successful human being.

Not understanding and underestimating the culture and forces in it have led to the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance. And to the quagmire in Vietnam.

Until recently the foes of the US have been as smart as Americans. Lately they've been smarter.

No neocon, for instance, can imagine what it is like to have their door kicked down in the middle of the night, their homes ripped apart and any male arrested. Sounds like the horror of the Nazis, the Gestapo, doesn't it? Well, it's what is done routinely by Americans to Iraqis and Afghanis.

And then they have to listen to the US describing itself as a "liberator".

Can a neocon imagine the hostility they'd feel if that were done to them? Can they put themselves in the other guy's place? Of course not.

One guy here even said that the Afghans got used to having friends and relatives killed. Especially if the US 'threw a few goodies" their way.

Imagine. Empathy is rare and precious, and not available to a lot of Americans.

Arf