could you ask your guest to discuss the important context about life for middle class iragis before the invasion? americans have a hard time understranding that iraqis resented them too by the time the 2003 war came. the regime was oppressive, sure, but sancitons wiped out the life dreams and savings of middle class iraqis. they spent the 90s selling their books, tvs, musical instruments, etc on the street to raise cash. so when they seemed ungrateful of the invasion, perhaps it wasn’t just the poorly-managed american effort, but a backlog of economic hardship.

it would be great if the show could address as well the post traumtic stress that iraqis living here in america have been suffering. i have personally observed mentally well men and women just being crushed by the burden and the inability to help and descending into depression etc.

What have we done?

Anyone know the bumper music that was played at 9:18 EST? Sort of trippy keyboards, I enjoyed it. Thanks and sorry if this is off-topic.

Suroosh Alvi and Eddie Moretti’s 2007 documentary “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” follows Iraq’s only metal band, Acrassicauda, from the fall of Saddam until 2007. The film documents the young band’s necessarily somewhat surreptitous beginnings just before the fall of Saddam, their brief sense of hope for greater freedoms of expression in the wake of the regime’s fall and, finally, their deepening sense of exhaustion, depression and despair as the occupation continues. The band disintegrates as its young members, some of whom are married with young children, are forced to flee an intolerably dangerous Iraq for refuge in neighbouring countries.

There are endless questions to be asked about why a US audience might only respond to ordinary Iraqis whose “ordinariness” they can personally relate to (this group of young, educated and somewhat western-influenced Iraqi headbangers). At the same time, this film brings into stunning relief the personal toll that life in a war-torn and occupied place takes on people. As fathers, brothers, sons and friends, these guys prioritize the safety of their families and friends, as Muslims, they do their best to observe the pillars of Islam as they understand them, as metalheads they just want to be able to listen to the music that they think totally rules, and as musicians they want to contribute to that tradition.

The problem for the media is that these types of stories can’t be conveyed in soundbites. It requires the narrator to achieve real intimacy with the people whose stories are being told, in order to open the possibility of a similar intimacy for the US audience. As your guests are emphasizing, this is an incredibly risky prospect.