Today I read an article in the Washington Post about a man injured at Guantanamo. One quote really struck me. His mother asked, "What did the Americans do to him?" It struck me as a huge part of the problem. She sees Americans as this undifferentiated group who are complicit in maiming her son. Americans see all Arabic people as Muslims who want to destroy the USA.

I did not do anything to her son. I deplore what I know about Guantanamo. Its very existance and police state/secret police identity are not endorsed like Americans like me. Yet how can the people of each nation know about the people of another nation? How could she know about people like me - who abhor what our government is doing, who keep telling their political leaders that the current policy is unacceptable, who want a different way of dealing with issues. How can I know about the Muslims who practice the Quran in unmilitaristic ways?

Right now, the media are busy capitalizing on the differences, the sensational. They don't focus on every day people who disagree with the policy makers. They don't make waves by letting us understand the people of another nation, particularly ones in a nation where we are at "war". The media has no reason to work toward an understanding of the people of Iraq in terms other than terrorists and victims. We hear about Sunnis and Shites, but only when one group visits atrocities on the other.