9 Things About War You Should Think About

1. In 2009 the headline read: Attack in Baghdad – 155 dead.

2. Were we immune to the news?

3. There were no bombings in Afghanistan, no rapes and abductions in Sudan or even Virginia. What I’m saying is we didn’t listen.

4. What if we looked at the TV when the reporter said a bus carrying children from a daycare drove past the Justice Ministry the moment the bomb went off? What if instead of turning the channel, we held one another in grief and mourned the two-dozen children killed.

5. Just for a moment, imagine you’re the child of a US target. Stand above the hole in the ground, the crater sized wreckage that used to be your home. A neighbor moves clay and wood and other rubble to a wheelbarrow. He lifts up the jagged half of what was once your front door. A purple pashmina scarf, dusted with sand, catches in the wind. It lands near your feet.

6. A drone killed your mother, but not her scarf.

7. It’s ok to laugh, sobbing, at the odds.

8. What if we paid attention to the world?

9. What if we passed terrorists on the street everyday?