“Talk to an Iraqi” from This American Life

From This American Life:

“A young Iraqi ends up in America after fleeing Iraq and goes on a road trip to ask Americans questions about the War. But he approaches people in a very specific way, a way you might actually recognize from Peanuts comics. The conversations he has illuminate how we form opinions about a war happening far away.”

The roughly sixteen minutes worth of video are, like most TAL stories, outstanding.  We include them on the Situationist, however, because of how powerfully the dialogues illustrate the influence of system justification, in-group bias, and other psychological motives.

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To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Cruelty of Children,” “Racism Meets Groupism and Teamism,” “‘Us’ and ‘Them,’” “The Situation of an Airstrike,” “The Situation of Soldiers,” “Our Soldiers, Their Children: The Lasting Impact of the War in Iraq,” “The Situation of a “Volunteer” Army,” “Some (Interior) Situational Sources War – Part I,” “Some (Interior) Situational Sources of War – Part VII,” “Lessons Learned from the Abu Ghraib Horrors,” “Michael McCullough on the Situation of Revenge and Forgiveness,” “The Disturbing Mental Health Situation of Returning Soldiers,” and “March Madness.”