Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times

I know how religious the people in Iraq are, how traditional they are with regard to gender relations and stuff like that. I would see certain stuff and I would just cringe and want to say [to U.S. soldiers], “You guys are really, really making a bad name for yourself here by storming into this guy’s house with your shoes on. This guy’s done nothing and yet you’re going to make an enemy out of him because he’s gonna talk about you guys for the rest of his life, and that day when they came storming into my house with their shoes on — nobody walks into my house with their shoes on!”

One time I was really tempted to say something to U.S. soldiers when I was in Najaf. And Najaf is a very American-friendly place in general. And there were these soldiers and they were just sitting there, taking pieces of bread and throwing them at each other. They were just kids — like twenty-two years old — just playing around. There’s these Iraqi police officers looking at this from out the window and they’re just totally aghast. They’re totally shocked: Look at what they’re doing to bread! You know, bread is considered holy in Islam. You know, you’re just not supposed to do that. People pick up pieces of bread and you’re not supposed to step on bread. You’re not supposed to play with bread. And I felt tempted to say something and I didn’t. I just didn’t feel it was my place.

Nir Rosen
Freelance Writer
I tried to interact with the Iraqis who were being ignored. And even by then there was a great deal of literature being produced by various religious organizations; they all had their...

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