National Geography has a survey of geography that they administered world wide. No surprise, Americans flunked, but there were a few interesting moments.

As discussed on peterme , while most Americans got this question right, most of the “over-educated” people I know flunked it.

Question 3. Taliban and al Qaeda Home Base?

I was sure that Americans would be able to answer this question with the media saturation on the issue, and while, as a country were better able to answer this question then most, we still came in with the lowest number of correct respondents. So what answer did people give? I contend that we would have aced this one before the recent demonizations of Iraq, but only able to handle one enemy at a time, and overwhelmed by the media hype, and double talk of the war on terror, Americans are already largely replacing the few known facts surroudning September 11th, and the subsequent war on Afghanistan with the myth of 9/11, and the subsquent perpetual war.

I’m tempted to suggest a law saying we can’t bomb anywhere that the American populace can’t identify on a map, but that isn’t our problem. We’re perfectly capable of going home for the nightly cram session of the evening news, its the long term memory that escapes us.