My wife and I know several families who have sons and brothers serving in Iraq, who we pray for specifically each and every night. This morning the mother of one of those soldiers forwarded to us the following poignant message from her son, and gave me permission to share it with all of you:

The war in Iraq has been unpopular not because of the massive expense or the loss of American lives. It has been unpopular not because of the constant criticism of a political left more interested in the advancement of their domestic agenda than in a favorable outcome to the War on Terror. It is unpopular instead because in the Western psyche a few million men in dishdashas and women in veils do not equate to a few million actual PEOPLE.

If Americans and Europeans truly believed that Iraqis deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that, like so many of our ancestors, Iraqis are tired, poor, and yearning to breathe free, this war would become the calling of our time, not the tool of career politicians and political opportunists. The real tragedy is that their personal political gains will come at the cost of human lives. The lives of men I know, with whom I talk daily, with whom I laugh and drink chai. And we in the West will not care because Iraqis don’t look like us, worship our God, or speak our languages, and those dishdashas make the men look like they’re wearing dresses.

I have spent the last six months in Iraq. I have sat and talked with Iraqis daily, both Sunni and Shia. I have heard what they want for themselves and for their children. I have seen the look of fear in their eyes when I mention that American troops may leave. For countless hours I have worked with them side by side and heard their concerns and ideas for the future. I have found that they want to live without the terror of masked men coming to take their fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters to be tortured and beheaded on propaganda videos by Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. I have found that they wish to govern their own affairs without the constant fear of a despotic government imprisoning them because of their religious and political affiliations. I have found that they want freedom to build a better life for themselves and for their children. Are these not the same rights we demand for ourselves? We are no different. If these basic rights were denied us, would we not ask the nations of the world to aid us in our struggle to regain them?

Instead of seeing support and compassion from the people of America and Europe, the Iraqis see us angrily protesting “American Imperialism.” They hear a presidential candidate saying that our part in their fight for basic human rights was a waste of America’s time, that their lives were not worth sacrificing ours. In our probable choice of a president and in our opinion polls we are telling the peaceful majority of Iraqis that they are not worthy of our quality of life, our life expectancy, or the natural rights of man. We tell them every day that in our eyes they are not human beings. What does that make us?