outline for final presentation 12-19-09
Christine Choi
I was trying to analyze the similarities between the two characters
from Shakespeare’s play, Timon of Athens with current US military
culture in the recent issue of Iraq and Afghanistan. The two
characters, Timon and Alcibiades somewhat mirrors corporations who
procures the war and the US political decision to have war with
terrorism. In the other hand, Alcibiades can be compared as the US
military culture itself. One of the Bacevich’s argument was that US
does not need a huge troops, but instead, a flexible, yet organized
foreign policy. After 9/11 the hatred towards terrorists actually
reached to a point where the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan were
ostracized by many nations, which looks very similar to the Timon’s
hatred towards the whole mankind. Alcibiades actually changed his
plan at the end and compromised with the Athenians, willing to prevent
the war. In that essence, if US considered the about the war and the
aftermath, and elaborate the foreign policy before anything, it might
have prevented this endless war we are dealing with now.
• Why did you do what you did?
The war is still in process, seems like it will never end. The
inflation, recession, economic breakdown and etc. are all somewhat
related to this endless war we are having now. This is one of the
reason why I focused on my characters to war on terrorism issues.
Also as I read the play, I found myself automatically realize how
those two characters mirrors today’s military culture. If we don’t
make changes now, the history will repeat itself and end up losing
more lives as well as causing economic damages.
• What did you learn?
By doing the research, I have learned a lot about the issues that we
have in Iraq and Afghanistan, the political mistakes, cost of war,
current economic hardships, and etc. I researched via internet since
I can get so much information from prestigious sources like NY times,
Times, the site that runs by government, academic journals, or
articles to personal opinions and private groups. I didn’t pay so
much attention to the political issues towards war, not until I
started this project. However, interestingly I found myself searching
for more in detail just out of curiosity and learning so much about
current military cultures, political issues, and economics. As I
reached at the end of this project, I learned that using armed force
will be the very last solution, and realized that it is necessary to
elaborate more on foreign policy.
• What else could be done?
If I had a one million dollar budget, assistant, and more time for
this project, I would like to interview number of politicians who
actually supported the war and those who disagreed and compare those
two. Also open up a seminar discussing about the problems in Iraq and
Afghanistan so that I can get more voices from many different groups
of people. If there are limited time or resources, I would definitely
go online search for ideas or opinions since it is the fastest and
least expensive way to get vast amount of sources.