Repsonse to Dr. Ellin and the Soliders

I enjoyed the visit from the Soliders who had been in the Middle East for some reason or another, whether it be for Operation Iraqi Freedom or previous occasions. I wanted to talk about what they said with Andy, and he offered his point of view on how and when we should withdraw troops from the region:

"My opinion, as a private citizen, is if we pull out now, we are going to leave ourselves open to having Iraq be a bigger threat than it was with Saddam. The reason we are still there is because of the instability, and the insurgents being stronger than the Iraqi government at this point. We should stay the course because progress is being made that the general public cannot see. What is reported on the news is not a fair representation of the actual war. Our primary mission is security, humanity, and to train the Iraqi security forces and that is going well. Deaths are going down. Attacks are becoming fewer. There is no reason to believe that trend cannot continue."

I agree with him. I think it is true what they say...the TV is a much scarier portrayal of the Iraq War than it is actually is over there. I know that the media sometimes portrays the culture of the Middle East in a negative light, which I find offensive, especially now after learning so much about it.

In one of those textbooks, there was a quote about how opposing militant groups viewed us....I don't remember what it was exactly, but it was saying something about killing all Americans, and don't worry about the women and kids, kill them too, they are all the same. That is somewhat scary to me.

I enjoyed the cultural aspect that the soliders focused on. I think cultural differences definitely put a hinderance on the way Americans view the Middle East and Muslim/Islamic culture. I think the "they hate freedom" and "they attacked us because they want us all to convert to Islam" is definitely false....but some people still believe it. The cultural awareness is key to understanding each other and who knows......if more people understood the real reasons things happened and where the opposing side is coming from, we could prevent such disasters, and prevent going to war and losing lives.