Riverbend in Baghdad finally gets to watch Fahrenheit 9-11, albeit on a bootleg.
I can't explain the feelings I had towards her. I pitied her because, apparently, she knew very little about what she was sending her kids into. I was angry with her because she really didn't want to know what she was sending her children to do. In the end, all of those feelings crumbled away as she read the last letter from her deceased son. I began feeling a sympathy I really didn't want to feel, and as she was walking in the streets of Washington, looking at the protestors and crying, it struck me that the Americans around her would never understand her anguish. The irony of the situation is that the one place in the world she would ever find empathy was Iraq. We understand. We know what it's like to lose family and friends to war...to know that their final moments weren't peaceful ones...that they probably died thirsty and in pain...that they weren't surrounded by loved ones while taking their final breath.