To the editor:

Professor Felix Moos’ suggestion for a program to train future national security and intelligence officers reminded me of an article in the Dec. 2, 1990, issue of the Los Angeles Times by Stanley Meisler titled, “A Nation of Know-Nothings America’s Willful Ignorance of the World Puts Us at Peril.” According to Meisler, Americans generally do not know foreign languages, geography, world history or international current events, while U.S. public decision- and policy-makers understand little of the cultural and historical forces that shape world events. Moos’ assertion that Sept. 11 was a failure in U.S. intelligence operations is deadly accurate.

The explosion in information fueled by the Internet has not been accompanied by a similar increase in our knowledge of one another. Countries and economies interact, but they do not necessarily understand each other any better. The uniformity of technology is accompanied by an implicit assumption that politics, and even cultures, will become homogenized. For too long, the United States has fallen to the temptation of ignoring history and judging every new state by the criteria of its own civilization.

Eleven years have passed since Meisler’s article, and Americans still find ourselves lost in a dark tunnel, cursing the effects of our collective ignorance of the world beyond our borders while continuing to nourish the root causes. Moos’ idea to train a new generation of intelligence officers with multicultural and foreign language competence is refreshing and daring.

As living proof, because of the profound influence exerted by Professor Moos and other Kansas University professors in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering as well as those in Spanish and Portuguese, I could build a meaningful, multidisciplinary career spanning 16 years in Asia and Latin America to date. KU, Lawrence and the United States are blessed to have Moos’ knowledge, vision and drive.

KU and our political leaders should listen closely to Moos’ message because of its timely relevance. Perhaps then we can begin the journey of shortening the cultural, linguistic and technological distance that has separated the United States from the rest of the world for far too long.

Tom Kurata

Lawrence