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It's amazing what one can learn about politics -- and people -- from a ten year-old...

My son (the ten year-old) saw the horrible condition of the starving people in Darfur (the Sudanese region in which human rights-related atrocities and ethnic cleansing have been going on since 2003) on a television news report. Every now and then, he will view people in similar condition in other war-torn nations, or ones in which there is political inequity (to put it politely). Obviously, the images of starving children are particularly disturbing to him.

"Why don't we send them food?" he asks.

"Well, we do," I tell him. "America sends billions of dollars in financial and food aid to countries like those every year."

"Billions?!?"

"That's right."

"Then why are they still starving?"

"Good question," say I. "Because the fat, aboriginal scum who run those countries generally steal most of the money and food and share it with the army in order to keep themselves in power."

"What's 'aboriginal' mean?"

"Never mind."

Miyamoto Musashi, the 16th-century samurai and great military figure in Japanese history, wrote about a concept he called "immature strategy" in his book Go Rin No Sho (A Book of five Rings). The basis of this was that one could not be an effective swordsman, military leader -- or anything else, for that matter -- utilizing underdeveloped, half-baked ideas or techniques.

Hence my son's initial response: Having been raised in a culture in which people ostensibly care about others, he reasoned that throwing a mess of resources at the problem would readily fix it. Then there's the fact that kids of that age still think everything ought to be the way they think it ought to be -- just because.

Immature strategy; my ten year-old isn't aware of the political nuances involved, the corruption, greed and lack of concern for life that is business as usual in many cultures, but is anathema to the Judeo-Christian ethic to which he has been exposed. So his solutions are on a par with his maturity as well as his frame of reference.

Upon further explanation, however, a more mature statement emerges: "So... those people aren't really starving -- they're being starved."

Now we're getting somewhere. "Precisely," I say enthusiastically.

"Don't their leaders care about them?" he asks.

"Well, no. In fact," I go on, "some of them are being persecuted -- starved -- because their leaders believe they're no better than animals on account of they're from a different tribe, or because they worship the wrong god."

Which leads into a religious discussion which I won't get into here...

So he's watching the news the other night while they report on the North Korean nuclear arms issue. I'm in the next room. This ten year-old correctly assesses that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is one of the tyrants as described above. Not only that, but he's implicitly threatening his neighbors -- and the U.S. -- with nuclear attack.

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