ENGL 130
Mrs. Pape
8-25-11
"Two Wars" Video Response
In the episode "Two Wars" which is part of This American Life tv series, the main subject Haider Hamza who is an Iraqi sets up a stand that says "Talk to an Iraqi" in America. He talks to Americans about the war in Iraq and the u.s. occupation there, but in this video there is a focus on how the Iraqi citizens them self feel about all of this. Haider talks to many people including a few members of the military such as marines and a fellow in the army.
A "hot spot" that stood out to me was how Haider felt about the U.S occupation and how he talked about it, i don't know the quote exactly but this is is pretty close to it, "When Saddam Hussein occupied Iraq it was bad, but the U.S. occupation is hell..." Yes, I am pro war in iraq (which its more war in Afghanistan now) and i don't want to totally bash on this video just because i see a lot of flaws in it, and i do still see both sides of this topic so I'm not just one sided even if I may sound like I am. My opinion after watching this, which brings me to the hot spot and quote i pointed out, is that just because Haider Hamza was a born Iraqi citizen doesn't give him the right to believe he can speak for all the Iraqi citizens. Yes he can feel free to spread and share his opinion but when he starts talking as if he knows how EVERY Iraqi citizen feels, is when he opens himself up for criticism. Maybe he has his own experience's with the U.S. occupation but most or at least a majority of the citizen (which I can't say for sure, but its my opinion) welcome the U.S. occupation because they are there not only there to protect them but to rid that area and surrounding areas of terrorist who are trying to spread terrorism and also doing acts of terrorism. People blame the military there for the bombings and deaths which is ridiculous because they aren't even the one's planting the car bombs or making acts of violence towards the citizens. But on that note I can say i understand there are those messed up military members who do make acts of violence towards citizens, but to say the entire army/marine and other forces there are the ones doing them is ignorant. And those points are a few of the points that I disagree with.
The claims Haider made in this piece related to the issues we're raising in class because it deals with current events or past events that we're HUGE in debates and discussions. The claims also are a good place for the class to start with because it's a good topic to get people out of there shell and speak up in class and share how they feel about it.
Some questions this raised for me is how could Americans not stand behind and back up there troops when they are over in the middle east and fighting terrorism and making it so us Americans back here won't have to worry about there being another event such as 9/11. I mean everyone who tries and talk bad about our troops and make them sounds bad should take a good look at what there really doing. Just because they hear things on the news or listen to how the media twists things about the war doesn't mean they know what there talking about. Our troops are risking there lives for us to protect our home. If critics think that they're going to protect our home by using peace and harmony and not affecting other peoples home or lives need a reality check on life, because they would get a real eye opener if they went over there themselves and tried to use peace and harmony as a way to protect us. I'm not saying that peace and harmony is out of the picture, but with the way how young and innocent children are corrupted so easily in our society and in the other cultural society's shows little hope for peace and harmony in the future.
I don't know if I'm answering this next question right, but I ran into difficulties of understanding with how small minded people can be about the war in Iraq. In the video an eleven year old girl apologized to Haider for what we've done. Well does she think that the Taliban's or terrorists are going to apologize to her father, who is/was over there, for shooting at him and trying to kill him and the other Americans there? I mean they do have a right to protect themselves cause obviously there not going to just put there guns down and surrender, and we are over there in THERE home so its just natural for them to fire back. But the point is that there are terrorists over there, maybe the military is looking in the wrong spots, but the military is still looking and still putting forth their time and effort trying to stop terrorism so they don't strike back, because that is exactly what they would do if we pulled out of the war right now.
So as you see talking about the war kind of riles me up because I can't see why people can talk so badly about our military for trying to protect us. Yeah, maybe it is in a cruel and blunt way, but if we wouldn't of retaliated after 9/11 then they and other countries would think that they can make acts of terrorism on the United States and get away with it.
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