"If hate kills, your country will disappear."

Bread DeLong's Journal has posted an email exchange from January 2003 to the present, between an American professor and a Muslim student in Africa, on Iraq, America, ethics, and being human. The collection provides a remarkably honest, unfiltered insight into how the Islamic world (and much of the planet) views America.

"...Destroying a country can never be called “liberalisation”, resistance can never be terrorism, the victim can never be transformed to a criminal and the criminal to a victim."

"...With the massacre of more than 200 in two days, most of them women and children ... I’m asking if Americans feel guilt about what they are doing. Don’t they know that the blood of these innocent is a duty, that they will be asked for this blood another day toward god? Do they sleep quietly? How can they do it? Don’t they feel that they are partners of this crime by their vote, by their tools, by their taxes and by their silence?"

"...You know if I write to you, it’s because I know that you will calm me. Really sometimes I feel that my heart will explode. If hate kills, your country will disappear. There is no-one in my country who is loving the U.S."

I have to be honest: the author raises questions that I have asked myself, and I still haven't found good answers. I am afraid that the jingoism and isolationism of the political climate are insulating Americans from understanding how the US actions in Iraq are viewed and how dangerous the consequences may be.

If you have the stomach to look at an unvarnished reflection of America, invest some time and read the full post, Jill Gabrielle Klein Talks to a Ph.D Student from North Africa. And see if you can find honest answers to the questions she raises.

Via Bubblegeneration. (Thanks, Umair!)

Crossposted to BOP News.