The more Americans find out more about Wahhabism, the Saudi royal family, the Dickensian Pakistani street, the Iranian mullahs, what Mr. Arafat really says in Arabic, Afghani warlords, the public parades of future Hamas murderers in Lebanon, and the Pravda-like nature of al Jazeera — the more they are shocked to learn that the multiculturalists, not the traditionalists in our schools, were the great deceivers. How ironic that multiculturalism demanded romance — not reason, parochialism — not inquisitiveness, and prejudice — not impartiality.

The rejection of a multiracial society united by a common adherence to Western values has formed the canon of our educational system for the last two decades. We were to embrace a "mosaic" of unassimilated special-interest groups rather than the blend of the melting pot. But throughout this war we have seen the horrific wages of nations that are not really nations at all, but simply tribes of competing ethnicities, religions, and races whose traditions promote private agendas, rather than freedom and tolerance.

If we didn't learn from the horror in Bosnia and Kosovo, then at least we should have seen in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Congo, and elsewhere these last few years that wherever people give allegiance to skin color, religion, language, and tribe first, and the common culture second — corpses pile up.