Do We Treat Iraqis Different?

So we’ve all seen the pictures of the despair in Iraq. We’ve seen orphaned children and women serenely looking to a more positive future. But there is more going on than just the heartbreaking pictures show. There are positive and happy scenes also:

Handing out food in Nasiriyah

Marines and sailors from the 4th Civil Affairs Group hand out food and medical aid to provide relief to local Iraqi civiliansin Nasiriyah, Iraq, on Monday, March 31, 2003. Photo was made available, Wednesday, April 2 2003. (AP Photo/Central Command, Cpl. Matthew 'Aussie' Orr)

Playing games with Iraqi kids

David Toughill, a soldier with Britain's 7th Armored Brigade (Desert Rats) plays with a local girl in Zubayr, southern Iraq April 2, 2003. Britain has sent or committed 45,000 military personnel, planes and warships to the war. Photo by Pool/Reuters

Members of the team from Juliet Company of the British Army's 42 Commando play local Iraqis in a friendly game of soccer in Basra, Iraq, Wednesday April 2, 2003. The marines lost 9-3. (AP Photo/David Husbands, Pool)

Talking with the locals

Navy Corpsman Romualdo Humarang, right, assigned to India Co., 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, talks with Iraqi civilians while on patrol in Numaniyah, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 3, 2003. Officers of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines are to meet on Thursday with local leaders in Numaniyah, worrying that destruction and confiscation of weapons will leave them unable to maintain security in the town. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)

Is there a vast difference between how we treat the Iraqis and how we treat each other?

A U.S. Marine with the 15th Expeditionary Unit Jim Panagakis, left, from Albuquerque, N.M., holds a baby as Marine Bryan Waide, from Mariville, Ten., checks a bag of the baby's mother at a check point at the Saddam Hospital in the city of An Nasiriyah, southern Iraq on Wednesday, April. 2, 2003. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

I don’t think so

Capt. Eric Puls of Bangor, Maine, kisses his 2-year-old daughter Katherine at Fort Hood, Texas, USA, before leaving for Kuwait, Thursday, March 27, 2003. Soldiers of Task Force Ironhorse, led by the 4th Infantry Division, are being flown into Kuwait 24 hours a day from U.S. bases, primarily from the 4th Infantry Division home of Fort Hood, and being processed in a coastal Kuwait camp, and from there to camps near the Iraq border. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)