I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman on the SkyTrain yesterday. The topic: The war in Iraq and how it related to the war on terrorism. With an arrogance befitting a couple of college jocks rather than the middle-aged couple they were, they agreed that “those Arabs should be beaten down before they kill us all.” I felt my eyebrow raise reflexively as that is a sentiment not often heard here in Canada. Coincidentally, I was reading a book on the subject and I found myself wondering if I should stand up and ask them to check their facts before proclaiming their ignorance to the world. When the woman stepped to the side though, I caught a glimpse of the words “Support Our Troops” proudly spread across the man’s shirt and everything fell into place: They were Americans.

Those are fightin’ words for sure. Questioning American superiority and foreign policy is tantamount to spitting someone in the face, at least as far as they are concerned. But serious questions have to be raised about what the average US citizen really knows about the war in Iraq, the war on terror, or even the Middle East in general. The mortifying YouTube video of Miss Teen South Carolina bumbling about a question on maps proves my point. The American public understanding of the current war situation can be summed up in one word: Misinformed.

I could go on and on about the how’s and why’s of the war and explain in intricate detail how the war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with oil, how the never-ending conflict in the Middle East is perpetuated by the US’s involvement, and how neither Iran nor China or Afghanistan is as much a threat to the country as India, Pakistan or even the US itself. But coming from me, it would be pointless. So rather than reiterate what has already been said better by others, I’m going to make a humble suggestion not solely to our friends across the border, but to everyone out there:

If you feel you know what is going on in the Middle East, if you think Iraq has anything to do with 9/11, if you think the war on terror is important, if you support George W. Bush and his doctrine, if you have children, if you are concerned about the future, or if you just want to beef up on your conversational knowledge, go pick up “The Mess They Made: The Middle East After Iraq” by Gwynne Dyer. Having read countless books and articles on the topic, I found this to be the most comprehensive and easily digestible breakdown of the Iraq war in particular and the Middle East conflict in general. I dare say it should be mandatory reading in schools and is surprisingly engaging for a book of this subject. It is important to note that you don’t need to know anything about the conflict before reading this book. It explains in crystal detail how the war in Iraq was planned years before 9/11 and how the current White House exploited the nationalism and rage created by that attack to further goals that had nothing to do with political stability and everything to do with greed.

The debate over the war in Iraq and the war on terror is starting to look a lot like the debate over global warming: Lots of people are still regurgitating fabricated facts as they desperately cling to their skewed view of reality while the rest of the world shake their heads in disbelief. To think that a nation that claims to be the leader of the world is so uninformed about its own foreign policy and its people so inept that they don’t overturn their President even after realizing he has been lying to them from the start is downright depressing. And as with most other political issues, the only solution is a powerful infusion of the truth.

So go out, pick up The Mess They Made: The Middle East After Iraq and start on your path to understanding. You might not like what you learn, but that doesn’t make it any less true.