  I keep thinking about the news stories on the ways Iraqis are continuing to live out their daily lives despite the ongoing war and the looming threat of falling bombs. The restaurants in Baghdad are still doing business, and the Guardian reports (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,929142,00.html) that farmers are still working on bringing their harvest to market. I have a friend who fought in the first Gulf War as a marine. He has this can’t-kill-me mentality, like he survived war, so speeding on the freeway is no big deal.
I wonder if most Iraqis also have this feeling since they too survived war. The story about the farmers brings to mind the Martin Luther quote (recently massacred by Hans Blix) where Luther is asked what he would do if he found out Jesus was coming back tomorrow (Blix said if the world was ending, which not only maligns the analogy, but infers a rather Baptist-leaning view of the event that I am positive Luther did not intend). Luther said he would plant an apple tree. When his response puzzled the questioner, he explained that planting apple trees was already on the schedule. The moral of the story is supposed to be if you live your life like Martin Luther, you’re in such a good place with God that you don’t have to go repenting and making right if you have insider knowledge as to his arrival.
Perhaps the moral of the first Gulf war for the Iraqis is that there isn’t much you can do to keep from being hit by an American bomb, but if you live you’d better be ready to pick up the pieces afterward. After all, it’s not like aid was abundant after the bombs stopped falling. If the Iraqis let their economy crumble this time, the aftermath will be even worse.
This is a resolve that has little to do with the propaganda from either Sadam or the US, I believe these people have had to become survivors. So many military theaters have opened on this soil in the past years, they’ve adapted. The US military’s campaign in Afghanistan is flawed for similar reasons. Here is a country that has seen three decades now of constant warring. They’ve seen allies come and go (notably, the US and USSR). Every structure that can be bombed has, so they’ve adapted to not needing structures. Each so-called ally has supported a different form of government, making the notion of governing so weak that only local warlords truly have power. 
