The Refresher that Pauses

In honor of all the Back-To-School sales (must they start so early? I'm not even in school anymore and I find them depressing), here's a short geopolitical history course on how we got where we are now, with Iraq, al Qaeda, and the "War on Terror*." This comes courtesy of Juan Cole, professor of history at University of Michigan, whose recent articles in Salon and other periodicals have shed lots of light and perspective on our current foreign policy situations.

Don't worry--the lesson has lots of pictures so you won't fall asleep from all the hot-weather learnin'.

*which, in my experience, we've won. I no longer have Terror. I just have Rage. And I didn't get it from no monkey, neither.