When I was in Iraq during my first tour in 2003, I spent countless hours sitting with my local villagers talking about their experiences and futures. Over chai one day my primary village sheik, Dr. Mohammed, and I discussed the meaning of “freedom.” 
He said that in America freedom meant you could go where you want, vote for whomever you chose, and enjoy your life. In Iraq freedom meant “you stole my sheep…I get my gun and kill you. Freedom means I do what I want.”
I remember the conversation vividly and was thinking how hard it will be to build a stable society when everything is solved with violence after 35 years of dictatorship.
Watching the insane video out of Lubbock of the guy “standing his ground” to murder his girlfriends ex-husband and the Rittenhouse case have taken me back to that time. How long does a society/nation survive when we solve all of our conflicts with a gun without consequences?
We are as awash with guns as Iraq was. What should have been a bumping of chests and “F’ you…f’ you!” ends up being a straight up execution and the police just shake it off. We should be scared. There is a madness growing in our country and I’ve seen where it ends.
Dr. Mohammed was executed by AK-47 armed terrorists in the clinic I helped build for him in 2012.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
