In the past month we’ve seen an incredible number of dangerous events transpire in Iraq…between the United States and Iran...originally over the death of an American contractor. But despite the president’s actions in Iraq and his pronouncements via Twitter…he left some important things unsaid:
It has been almost three weeks since Nawres Waleed Hamid, a naturalized citizen who grew up in Iraq, became the latest American to die in the United States’ nearly two-decade-long military entanglement in the Middle East. His death in a rocket attack in December in Kirkuk, where he was working as a translator for the American military, was quickly seized upon by President Trump, touching off a chain of events that for several days set the world on edge.
Citing Mr. Hamid’s death as a reason for military action against Iran — calling him an “American contractor” without mentioning that he was an immigrant — made the president’s posture especially stinging to some Muslims here, who have felt marginalized and vulnerable in recent years as the Trump administration has clamped down on immigration.
“That an Iraqi American Muslim immigrant was used as a pretext for military action in the Middle East is ironic,” said Basim Elkarra, the executive director of the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It was shocking.”
emphasis mine
sigh.
Recent Comments