Do in Rome as Roman does!

"Some days I thought we had broken into a mental institution. One of the old ones, from the nineteenth century, where people were dumped and forgotten. It was like we had pried the doors off and found all these people clutching themselves and burying their heads in the corners and sitting in their own filth. It was useful to think of Iraq this way. It helped in your analysis. Murder and torture and sadism: it was part of Iraq. It was in people's brains."

     How can we ask a patient with mental disorder to behave as a normal people. 


"How would you like it if I were to cut up a poster of President Bush?" (79)
     
     Put yourself into the local culture and show respect. Help and educate local people to think through the issue by themselves but not put pressure on them to accept the outsider's belief. If the truth is not shown to them in a right way and not accepted in the right mood, it will turn out to be hatred and rebellion. That means American troops might make  barbarity out of truth, if they are not careful with their ways of showing truth. Hatred and rebellion to truth, beauty and kindness. Losing the confidence in truth is unforgivable for truth and destructive to the world.


What is Iraq like?--the biggest theme of the work.


      "Iraq might have been a traumatized country, it might have been broken, it might have been atomized--it might have been a mental hospital. But whenever the prospect of normalcy presented itself, a long line of Iraqis always stood up and reached for it."


      However, when everything is getting better, they begin to destroy. 
This is what happened after the hope in 2003.
"And they went to the slaughter. Thousands and thousands of them:editors, pamphleteers, judges and police officers, and women like Wijdan al-Khuzai.The insurgents were brilliant at that. They could spot a fine mind or a tender soul wherever it might be, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation. The precision was astounding."


Hatred to the United States


     As a fellow of a country which ever suffered invasion, I can fully understand status of Iraqis. Whatever reasons are of the invaders, they are considered as excuses. 


     Try to imagine this situation: You are living with your parents, brothers and sisters in your house.You own your house, family value,and family structure, etc, which all of them are not ideal. But one day,which is as exactly same as any other day, someone totally unknown comes to your house, and tells you that: all treasures you've saved in the basement are theirs; your father is a tyrant who should be killed because he removes all your freedom including not wearing hats from you; your mother is an evil who should have a life sentence for she saved all money in the basement instead of buying presents for you; you and your brothers and sisters are idiots because of your backward education from your parents or your grand-parents, and you should rebel your parents and pursue the equality you deserve with them; you should go to their schools which  values more democracy, equality, and individuality; you should learn their language and a broad view of world. What would you think of this unknown guy? At first you might suspect if he is right. But if he really kills your parents and occupy your home, you must hate him to death. That's where Iraqi hatred comes from.