Face Time

Thanks very much for the wonderful story about Sami Rasouli’s return to Iraq [February]. So much of the media coverage concerns itself with politics, or even with the gruesomeness of war. I find myself increasingly interested in Arab and Muslim culture. It’s as if the news media’s efforts to sanitize the story, or make it a typical geopolitical story, have made me more curious than ever about what real people are doing and saying on the streets of Iraq, what life must really be like there, irrespective of any agenda related to either re-electing or defeating George W. Bush. The fact of the matter is that the world does not revolve around the U.S., and as hard as that lesson seems to be for us to learn, there’s going to be a lot more American blood spilled before it’s all over, I’m afraid. It’s not about us. Your story put a wonderful, human face on this terrible war-torn world.
Ben Levin,
New York