Ibrahim Al-Shawi

Iraqi Letters Ibrahim Al-Shawi

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 will be seen in the future as a turning point in the history of Iraq and the surrounding countries in the twenty-first century. This book was written by an Iraqi with an eye on the consequences of that unfortunate adventure by the United States driven by a variety of different forces within the States and elsewhere. It addresses a number of issues relating to that event: The performance of the US Administration and army in Iraq and the numerous mistakes or misdeeds committed by both; How Iraq itself and the different conflicts and forces operating in Iraq at the time were portrayed and perceived. The reasons the US invaded Iraq. The American people. Whether there were any solutions to that mess. A driving conviction of the author is that all of our value structures are imperfect and incomplete. All of our ideals leave a lot to be desired when it comes to application to reality and to complex human nature or social development: Religions, Communism, Liberalism, Atheism... you name it! We all (without exception) hold contradictory beliefs. Yet most of us choose to close our eyes to our own contradictions and imperfections and prefer to attack other beliefs, yelling that our beliefs are undoubtedly superior. So, if all our houses are made of glass, why are we all throwing stones at other houses and other people? The simple reason is that most of us believe that our own houses are not made of glass, but all the others are. Sometimes we think we can throw stones to larger distances than they can. Sometimes we think that making all other houses look like our own is worth the risk. Sometimes we just want to own and dominate the other houses for economic or ego advantage. Sometimes we do it out of fear of the unfamiliar. And because we usually turn our backs to our own houses in our attempt to defend them, we cannot see the dirty corners or the incomplete constructions in them. Facing those other houses, we can see all their 'dirty linen', all their un-swept corners, all their non-fitting joints and, above all, the ugly residents.