If only the internet had been around during the Crusades...

I had heard that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had written a letter to President Bush and delivered it to the US Embassy. Since this week's cover story of the Economist is also about the Iranian situation, I had not followed up on it yet. Andrew Sullivan has post an excerpt to the letter as a pop quiz here. I got the quiz wrong, even after having heard excerpts from the letter on NPR this morning. It is amazing that there is no difference in tone in what he's written to statements made by the three gentleman he's offered up as choices on his quiz.

I would be the same was the case during the Crusades; it is only my guess, not having researched it yet, but I imagine that if one were to parse the words of Christians and Muslims and presented them to a modern or historical audience without attribution, the words would sound strikingly similar. If two sides are arguing the same point, but believe that each other "has it wrong" in some fundamental [Word choice, Eliel--ed] way, then isn't that a fine example of an immovable object and and unstoppable force on a collision course?

So how to intervene? The internet has provided a platform for the words of Mr. Ahmadinejad to reach a wide audience. We as citizens of this country, watching this game of brinkmanship between our two nations, have a responsibility to educate ourselves as to what our "enemy" is really saying. And when we're done, we need to have a fair and balanced dialog about it. We've already seen in Iraq [and the former Republics of the Soviet Union, and Rwanda, and the Sudan--Ed.] what happens when these age old conflicts devolve from cold to hot wars.

So I'm following the link provided by Mr. Sullivan and heading over to read the full document here. I'll post more detailed opinion on it after I've had some time to digest it.