Regardless of how inundated we are with information, if it does not affect our daily lives, or those of our loved ones, we will filter and forget. I expect when citizens were asked to sacrifice items from their daily lives (Sugar, metal, rubber, nylons) for WWII, they were interested in WHO was affecting their lives in such ways. We, sadly, have not been asked directly, to sacrifice much in our daily lives for this “war”.
We will sacrifice when the economy crumbles under the weight of the public debt. But it will be indirect. We also have to sift through so many lies and mis-direction about the war, that the effort is exhausting. IF my economics class were taught like that, I would have given up learning.
Moreover, we are not able to use our Iraq knowledge quickly or directly. Other than showing off at the water cooler, there are no tests.
What I would like to learn are the names of the dead soldiers, both sides, and why they died. Maybe I would retain that information.

The U.S. media needs to apply Arledge Sports coverage to the Iraq war, show towns ,people, work force etc.

You should check out the Wounded Warriors Project. It’s a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness for U.S. troops severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. It really puts a face on the cost of this conflict. Here’s a link:

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/aarwebshow

Jeff

The comments on our ability to understand and remember (which is in itself a chicken and egg question) the details of Middle East conflict are right on. For years I have noticed that this same phenomenon applies (at least for me) to reading books with primarily Russian or East Asian characters. As an English-speaker, I am able to step into stories with American/British characters and “culturalisms” and feel like I can imagine what happened to those characters before the story began. I am less able to do so for those books/stories that are based in Western Europe and have characters/places with Romanic language – but non-English – names. Doable, but more difficult. When it comes to Russian though, for example, I have a difficult time following the plot for the unfamiliar character and place names. This has always frustrated me. As a teenager I began renaming every character (and in some case important/repeated places) in such novels with American names in order to dampen this problem. I studied Mandarin in college for four years and spent three months in Beijing during that time. I assumed this would make it easier for me to follow stories based in East Asia, without use of my renaming trick. It may have helped some, but I’ve never shaken my habit. Makes reading for pleasure easier, but a book-club environment might be challenging.