For me going to war offers me the ability to write about apparently very alien, sometimes hated or despised people, who've been objectified in a way that restores their humanity. Hopefully for my readers, that denies them the ability to objectify them. I think that's the point. If you can do that, that's a good thing.

The mercy caravans are through there the medicine refugees flowing out. It makes the United States look very bad here. And much more like an occupation force than it did before.

I think that feeling of reward comes from being able to find sometimes an unexpected reflection or insight that seems to transcend the description itself, where you actually realize you're concluding something that is a point of view, that may come across and actually touch people's conscience or minds in a way that could change, at least if not things, change points of view.

If you can find a way to confound people's prejudices, restore the humanity of people, individuals, you restore them to life.

I think in a sense this is a house that was built on a bad foundation. And the foundation was the Americans coming here and allowing the sacking, burning and plunder of Baghdad, for whatever reason.

It is important to know how influential people think and perceive their countrymen, let's say, especially when you are talking about people in power. I think it can be very revealing how they regard themselves and their relationship or their responsibility to their countrymen. That is vital for us all to know and in order to be able to judge them and evaluate them.

War is just what we do. Yet, of course, the effects of it are repeatedly deeper, then deeper, then deeper.