Reply #76: You just nailed it, Koopie.

[LeahMira]

Just because they are not Americans doesn't mean they are savages.

Of course the Iraqi doctors are not savages. It does make things easier for some people to imagine that the "enemy" is a group of neanderthals, incapable of any sort of human feeling and caught by their own ignorance in some stone age morality.

Most citizens of the U.S. have never been anywhere near a Middle Eastern country and have no idea of the fine hospitals and excellent doctors that are there. Baghdad is not Lower Gibippie. It is... or was... a thriving city with modern medical facilities at least as good as those of any small town in the U.S.

It's so much easier, though, if we imagine that Baghdad was a dirty little village full of rather uneducated and mean-spirited individuals who were only a few steps up from aborigines. And so some folks would rather imagine the Iraqi people as a people capable of the worst of all that we find abhorrent... including rape.

Certainly terrible things happen in wars. Certainly, though, there's no reason to invent them in order to give some citizens of this country even more reason to feel anger and hatred and to want revenge.

Poor Jessica! Most women in the U.S., if they have been raped, will only discuss that fact with those who are close to them and those who have a genuine, serious reason to hear about it. That poor girl will have to live the rest of her life knowing that the whole nation knows this thing about her... and to top it all off, she doesn't even remember it herself! Why on earth couldn't people just keep quiet about it? What an awful way to treat a young girl that some people say is their hero! These people are trashing that girl's life and reputation solely to justify their own hatred.

Please, Creator, stop this horror for Jessica and for all of us and bring us all comfort and healing... now!