America’s view of violence in Iraq is misinformed
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In 2003, a Raed Jarrar watched American planes drop bombs on building after building near his home in Baghdad. Now Jarrar is in Washington D.C. serving as the Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, as well as facilitating communication between Americans on Capitol Hill and Iraqi politicians and citizens. When I spoke with Jarrar last week, he said he was frustrated by the misinformation being disseminated by the media about the violence on conflict in Iraq.
He said, “When I hear the U.S. coverage on Iraq, it’s similar to, for example, an Iraqi saying that the US Civil War was a religious civil war, or that it was a racial civil war that put some white people against some black people.”
He acknowledged that the Civil War was full of political intricacies like the desire to keep a central government and the question of whether individuals in newly inducted states should be allowed to hold slaves. He emphasized that just as Americans would not stand for misinformation about our past, Iraqis should not have to hear misinformation about the present situation, saying “I think that the same way that Americans understand the Civil War with its complexity, and they will not buy any argument about it being a religious civil war or some other descriptions, I think Iraqis, including myself, think the US understanding of the current Iraqi conflict is really wrong.”
“It’s not a war based on ancient hatreds between Sunnis and Shiites,” Jarrar said. “It’s not a religious war. It’s way more political and economic. It has way more complicated layers than we hear in covered in the U.S.”