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I know it is clique, but,
Iraq.
Sometimes when I'm delusional, I like to wonder: What's really going on behind the scenes? If I were a fly (or more appropriately a Japanese beetle) on the wall in the White House, during those secret meetings that we only know about because of movies, what would I hear? Doesn't that scare you a little? It all seems so baffling, like - why are we there? What's the real reason? What am I missing? What are we not being told?
It's the things I don't know that always inspire the most fear and dread.
But here's what I do know, or who, rather - I know Isaac. Isaac worked at Reza's last spring, and he was from Iraq. He would tell me stories about how his family was wealthy and owned a lot of land before Sadaam came, and that all of their land was confiscated. He told me they still have the papers but it was worthless now, because there were people settled there, and the land was given to soldiers, and everything unimaginable happened.
Or there is the new valet guy, who just got back from a visit to his homeland, Iraq. He claimed to have been there two months ago, and that "it was awful." When I asked what it was like to be in the middle of a war he seemed puzzled. "There was no war. That was over." And I was confused, but then I realized, this person is used to conflict, all the time. He doesn't think of people dying or tanks in the streets as anything very out of the ordinary.
And that's so sad.
And that gets me to wonder, if he ever wondered, like I do. Did he ever think, what don't I understand? Did he ever wonder about what was going on in the palaces behind closed doors, or better yet, did he wonder what was going on in the White House behind closed doors?
Are we all the same?
Aren't we all the same?
I don't want to bleed. And I don't want to see a tank. And I don't want to be shot down from a helicopter. I want to be sane. I want to be free.
Are we really that different,
at all?
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