A Little Bundle Of Contradictions

I've just finished a book called the "Imperial Life In the Emerald City" A book which the New York Times describes on the back cover as a "visceral-sometimes sickeniing-picture of how the administration and its handpicked crew bungled the first year in postwar Iraq." The author brings up some clear cut mistakes that were made that even in my mind can not be dismissed as simple ignorance or naive incompotence. I get it. In a haste war we made alot of haste decisions that were simply dumb. Maybe even the decision itself to go to war. But the book to me was more of a bitching and moaning fest about americans acting like... well americans in an arab country. On my king sized bed in my air-conditioned room with my HDTv I won't pretend I know much about war or what its like having never experienced anything like it. It all just seems so miserable.

I've currently been rereading "The Diary Of Anne Frank." Its been awhile and I forgot how funny she was even with all that was happenig in her world. "A truly Remarkable book" the New York Times will say about this one on the back of its cover. Everyone knows this tragic story of a young girl and her uncontrollable fate. She died just weeks before help could arrive. I dont know too many of us that can relate to such a life but I'm sure there are many out there today if given a voice they could tell very similar fates and circumstances. I'm reminded of a 15 yr old muslim girl from Kuwait I had a chace to talk to in Toronto. She was smoking a cigarrette sitting on a curb with her head wrapped in a shroud. She had a ghostly hollow expression on her face which never changed throughout our entire conversation. I asked if she ever wanted to quit smoking and she responded, "I want to quit everything." We got talking about what brought us both there, it turns out that her father was a general in the kuwaiti military when Iraq invaded her country. She was 6 at the time and watched her dad taken in the middle of the night never to see him again and her sister raped repeatedly having her uterus ripped out with a 3-prong used rocket propelled granade launcher which she was able to describe in horrorific detail. She watched in shock as her sister layed on the floor moaning for hours til she passed out never to awake again. She recounted all this as a matter of fact with callused emotion. It was truly tragic.

I feel like Anne Frank "a little bundle of contradictions" on the war we're involved with now. I cant imagine losing a daughter the way Anne Frank died and I cant imagine losing a father and sister like that of the Kuwaiti girl. How haste should we be in stopping and preventing such undeniable cruelty that exists? Many will argue thats not the reason we went to war or that there is other cruel dictators that we do nothing about or that we shouldn't police the world. Its easier to find an excuse then a reason but some things there is just no excuse for.

"I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains." ~Anne Frank.