Asking Essential Questions: Your Next Assignment!!

As you move toward figuring out what you will focus on for the JUA, you need to go through a process. You need to start by identifying what you know about our topic: American Image abroad and what has made so many so unhappy with us. Why do so many hate us, darn it? Next, ask yourself what you need to know more about to better understand the problem. What do you personally want to learn about? Then, answer the logistics question: how can we as a group find out what you need to know? What will we need to do it?

Here is a form that will help you record your thoughts and answers. Click on it and print it out. Bring your filled out form to our next meeting which will be tomorrow or Friday.

Places to Go, People to See





John Westland and I are going to put together an itinerary for the group, but we need input from everyone. Gentleman, please comment and give your ideas for people we should see, and places we should go, include the reason why we should go there or see that person.

WE NEED YOUR IDEAS!!!

THE GROUP

Our JUA crew met together today for the first time. We are a testosterone only crew, consisting of 0 females and 13 males. It remains to be seen if this is good or bad. In our meeting, we went over what the JUA is, and answered questions. (Photo coming, the camera batteries died.)

We discussed the volatility of the our topic, and acknowledged that each of us will probably get fired up by what someone in our group or that we are interviewing says. Almost anything anyone says about American Foreign policy and image abroad will seem outrageous to somebody. We recognized how important our question is - that peoples' lives, careers, and futures hinge on how people in power answer it. In light of all this, we discussed the importance of self-discipline and respectful dialogue.

Right now, lives are being lost and billions spent to protect Americans from the increasing threat of terrorism. In this time when men, women and children around the world have been filled with hate and a desire for the destruction of the U.S., it is appropriate that Americans begin to ask, "Why Do They Hate Us?"

But who is "they?" It's not as if there's one group or solidified block of people united by experience, creed, or ethnicity that has decided to eliminate the United States. One of the great questions associated with the War on Terror is "Who or what are we trying to fight?"

Depending on what answer America discovers to these questions, the course of human lives, governments, and whole economies will be directed toward war, peace, or something in between. We need to do some investigation!