Loading ...
The Dehumanizing of Iraqis Is the Main 'American Sniper' Issue
The three-car caravan was headed to a funeral, everyone dressed in their Friday best. It was warm outside, as Baghdad often is in the fall, causing their crisp shirts to wilt and sweaters to itch. The men argued over who they’d pick for their soccer dream team, the kids played games on their dads’ smartphones.
The cars were stuffy inside, packed with way too many people. Adults wedged in sideways, kids plunked on laps. Packed in there tighter than carry-on luggage, my family knows how to fill a car.
Eight to nine of them can squeeze into the average five-seat sedan — a shape-shifting gene passed from generation to generation. Or maybe it’s just that we’re Iraqi, meaning stubborn. If something doesn’t fit, we make it.
Did ‘American Sniper’ miss an important mark?
But that ride would be the last for many of them. They were killed in a suicide bombing while attending that funeral in western Baghdad. Three generations wiped out in a split second. Old men, middle-aged fathers, kids so young they had their baby teeth.
I got the news at home in Los Angeles via Facebook, from relatives who’ve scattered across Iraq and the Middle East after the 2003 invasion. We grew up miles and cultures apart, me here in the U.S., most of them in Iraq, but we came to know one another on family summer vacations in smoldering hot Baghdad.
Source: www.latimes.com