The American Left and the Middle East (Part 6): The Natives just don't count. While driving last week, I heard Phil Donahue speak out against the war in Iraq on the O'Reilly show on Fox News. For 20 minutes, Donahue spoke against the war without once mentioning the plight of the Iraqi population, or the Iraqi civilian casualties of the US war and occupation. In the same week, an actress (who the papers said spoke against the war) at the EMI awards merely said: "Oh, and our troops in Iraq. Let's bring the boys back home." It is all about the American "boys," because there are no Iraqi boys and girls. And those US troops are not boys. I have seen the pictures of Abu Ghrayb, the torturers in the pictures are not boys. They are adult men and women. And yet a psychologist has now joined the analysis: apparently Lynddie Englands is a "child" too. (But I find it sexist and escapist to blame all the torture at Abu Ghrayb on Englands. And why is it that the only name we know from the scandal is hers.) Next time you hear liberal or leftist American critics of the war, notice if they mention the Iraqi population.