Billy Ray Cyrus Is More Concerned With Syria Than Daughter’s Twerkin’

Did we just get schooled on awareness by Billy Ray Cyrus? After saying that he supports his daughter unconditionally, nude bikini twerkin’ or no nude bikini twerkin’, the 52-year-old singer admits that he’s actually more preoccupied with the situation in Syria than Miley’s VMAs performance.

Sunday night, Billy Ray tweeted this message from his verified account: “Thanking God for so many blessings tonight. Continue to pray for world peace. More love…less hate.”

Since this tweet dropped shortly after Miley Cyrus’ shocking performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, many fans believed he was referring to the immediate criticism aimed at his daughter.

In fact, he was talking about Syria.

“FYI ‘Love Not Hate’ Late last night I was watching devastating news out of Syria. Chemical weapons used on innocent children is unacceptable!” he tweeted Monday night, clearing up the confusion.

But the elder Cyrus, while not especially known for his commentary on topical world issues, actually illustrates and interesting point. Coverage of goings-on in the Middle East is pretty much dominated by The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera and Fox News (strange bedfellows, eh?), with an occasional column or 5-minute TV segment here and there.

Actually, there’s quite a lot of Middle East news out there all the time… but it seems to fall on deaf ears here in the states.

To prove the point, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that while only nine percent of Americans support some kind of military intervention in Syria, 25 percent said they’d reluctantly give their “OK” if chemical weapons were used on innocent people. Something that happened weeks ago. Something some say we could have prevented.

Indeed, our knowledge of what’s going on in the Middle East, which others have said could devolve into World War III, is abysmally low.

And Billy Ray Cyrus is way ahead of us. I wonder if he knows about Ben Affleck being Batman.

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