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It’s not that<br />
they don’t under- stand the awfulness of war<br />
and the evils of terrorization (they were the victims of<br />
chemical attack from Saddam Hussein.) They face it and<br />
yet they also welcome the war displaced.<br />
Even in early June 2014 in Suli alone, they hosted some quarter<br />
million refugees from the Iraq war. Since then that number has burgeoned<br />
to estimates of over a million refugees displaced from Syria<br />
and regions within Iraq.<br />
My final evening in Suli we drove past the new fast food joints, mini<br />
golfs and amusement parks, hotels, office buildings and tracts of<br />
homes up into the mountains. We were hardly alone, as throngs of<br />
picnickers (a family favorite past time especially on Friday afternoons<br />
after Mosque services) ascended alongside us. High up<br />
we stopped at a lookover. Taking in the growing city below,<br />
I gazed across the horizon at the setting sun, Iran behind me,<br />
Baghdad southeast and murderous madmen ascending from the<br />
northeast.<br />
My week had shown me a fiercely strong people who looked to the<br />
future not just with respect for the growing adversity (which the<br />
months have shown to be quite real), but with resolve to build a<br />
beautiful destiny come what may.<br />
Once back in the US, I followed with concern the movements of ISIL, western,<br />
Asian and mid-eastern governments, Syria—the whole boiling pot. I<br />
sadly heard my fellow citizens, neighbors and Chris- tians ridiculing and<br />
spewing hatred towards the refugees and inhabitants of the Middle East.<br />
It would be easy to dismiss them as simply not being enlightened as<br />
I (now) was. They knew what media and leaders said.<br />
Who could better show the commonality of the peo-