e for an i

my dear american fellows, or my dear fellows in america.

now that barrack hussein is priming for the top job, he declared setting as priority extricating the troops from ıraq and concentrating on settling afghanistan first.

this requires, more than any military measure, some kind of political solution that inevitably has to be based on some cultural interaction, communication and understanding with the iraqi - even if the so-logical-that-seems-to-be-inevitable-tripartition-of-iraq becomes actual.

unfortunately, my dear fellows are long in the armaments division but two decades after the initial clash and after a half decade of invasion, still seem alarmingly and pathetically short in understanding and accomodating the iraqi mind and culture.

eventual conciliation can come less from (attempted) subjugation than reaching out and establishing a conjunction of interests.

my dear fellows in america, including those in the media industries and holywood, could do something very simple and easy, in respect to getting accross to iraq (which, incidentally, means far and hard to reach) and the iraqi.

they can stop pronouncing iraq as eye-rock, which in some dialects at least, can associate with not-so-nice words, from what i hear.

the local and correct anglicized pronounciation of iraq would be "e-rock". and with far little emphasis on the "e" - closer to something like 'rock than e-mail for instance.

believe me fellows, you do not have to delve or dive, it pays even if you merely try to peek into the culture of a country you are foreign to, much less one whose soil you have occupied.

believe me fellows, i learnt that from watching the hatred garnered by the "ugly american" fat cat tourists of the 60's, who demanded shopkeepers this side of the atlantic "how much is that in real money?"

not hard is it? an i for an e for sympathy? might also even get you some sweet mint tea on the side...