So this is where it starts...
Soon I will leave for Iraq. I don't know how long I'll be there. Friends and family think (know?) it's a somewhat crazy thing to be doing, but with risk comes reward. And I'm not on about the money, because that would have been the entirely wrong reason (although a sweetener, for sure). No, life is, or should be, an adventure. In a strange way I feel like life is there for the taking but it's when you take bigger risks that you take more from it.
I'll save ranting about the invasion and the reasons for it for another entry, as everyone has their own view anyway. Though I think it was wrong, or at least done for the wrong reasons (which have been made abundantly clear by the lack of post-invasion planning), we can't turn back the clock and I want to at least try to make a positive difference. I knew the moment they got resolution 1441 in 2002 what would happen. Yet another totally unnecessary conflict with a fuzzy beginning and an unpredictable end. Some people may say it's a "my god is better than your god" thing, but it's always, at its core, about power. This time it was about indescribable amounts of money too.
I want to learn Arabic so I can speak to Iraqis in their tongue, because using their language will allow me to discover so much more about them than I would having to rely on translation. I didn't foresee the civil war that's been unfolding for the last several weeks, and I feel so guilty for the Iraqi people. In time, I want to talk to them, understand them, and above all to say I'm sorry, and that we're not all like that. I have spoken to people who are out there, and I have been reading a blog by riverbend (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) which is amazing.
The sectarian violence will pass, though it may get worse before it gets better. It's possible that getting electricity back to a stable supply and giving people some hope, something to live for, will reduce the ranks of those disenfranchised young men. Their land is occupied and the world watches and does not, or cannot, do anything. Is it that much of a surprise, then, that some of them have turned to violence? Of course this isn't to justify it, but beginning to understand something is very different from justifying it.
Want to email me? symmetryquick@gmail.com
Thanks for looking
I'll save ranting about the invasion and the reasons for it for another entry, as everyone has their own view anyway. Though I think it was wrong, or at least done for the wrong reasons (which have been made abundantly clear by the lack of post-invasion planning), we can't turn back the clock and I want to at least try to make a positive difference. I knew the moment they got resolution 1441 in 2002 what would happen. Yet another totally unnecessary conflict with a fuzzy beginning and an unpredictable end. Some people may say it's a "my god is better than your god" thing, but it's always, at its core, about power. This time it was about indescribable amounts of money too.
I want to learn Arabic so I can speak to Iraqis in their tongue, because using their language will allow me to discover so much more about them than I would having to rely on translation. I didn't foresee the civil war that's been unfolding for the last several weeks, and I feel so guilty for the Iraqi people. In time, I want to talk to them, understand them, and above all to say I'm sorry, and that we're not all like that. I have spoken to people who are out there, and I have been reading a blog by riverbend (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) which is amazing.
The sectarian violence will pass, though it may get worse before it gets better. It's possible that getting electricity back to a stable supply and giving people some hope, something to live for, will reduce the ranks of those disenfranchised young men. Their land is occupied and the world watches and does not, or cannot, do anything. Is it that much of a surprise, then, that some of them have turned to violence? Of course this isn't to justify it, but beginning to understand something is very different from justifying it.
Want to email me? symmetryquick@gmail.com
Thanks for looking
posted by symmetry at 8:50 AM
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