What She Said
Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul has an elegant heartfelt post on humanity, history, truth and war:
Human emotions are enormously complicated. Everyone knows that about herself. Everyone sees that in her friends and family. Why don't we carry that knowledge into our reading of the news? Why, when we read about people in other countries, do we expect them to be less complex, less human than we are?There's an article in the New York Times today about Iraqi refugees, who despised Saddam Hussein, and fled to Jordan, now returning to fight against the United States. Another, in The Guardian, reports Iraqis returning from Syria. Thousands of Iraqis have returned in the last ten days. I think I know how they feel. Well, "know" is probably the wrong word for that sticky web of thought and feeling. Let's say I think I've felt something similar to what they feel.
From the first time I heard the neoconservative dream that Iraqis would refuse to fight for Saddam and welcome American "liberators" with open arms, it seemed to me not only highly unlikely, but dehumanizing as well. As if oppressed people don't have the same mixed-up emotions that the rest of us have. As if complex inner lives were unique to technologically advanced societies. We want to believe that there's a small number of bad Iraqis who fight for Saddam, and an enormous number of good ones who are on our side, or will be as soon as they can break free enough to express their true emotions. After all, we're good, right? How could they fail to see that?