What Our Australian Cousins Think Of Us ... And Other Things That Don't Matter

I should have knocked the Australian on his ass. I was talking to him and an Englishman during my first week in Kuwait, picking their brains about how best to enter Baghdad. The Englishman lived in Dubai, and the Australian lived in Kuwait. Both were successful sales reps in the Middle East for companies that manufactured construction equipment, and both had abandoned doing business in Iraq. The danger, they said, was too great.

The Englishman was helpful, calling people he thought could help me. He insisted I accompany him to the offices of Turner Construction so I could talk to those contractors about getting me into Baghdad. The Australian, though, was a different story.

He had nothing positive to say, and, instead, repeatedly told me how insane I was to even consider going to Iraq.

"Do you speak Arabic?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"Then you're doomed," he prophesied.

"Do you have thousands and thousands of dollars to pay for security while you're in Iraq? To pay for an interpreter? To pay for a driver?"

"No," I said to each question.

The Australian threw his hands up in the air to convey his belief that I was worse than a fool.

The Englishman, I could tell, was embarrassed by his friend's behavior, and he was silent while the chap from Down Under began to rail against America and all things American.

"You Americans are mushrooms," he finally said in summation. "You live in the dark, and you're fed shit."

The Englishman was clearly shocked by the rude remark, but not as much as I. That was too much.

"You know what?" I began. "What you think in your petty mind is none of my business, but what you say in my presence is. If you ever say anything about my country and the people who fight for and defend my country again, I'll knock you on your ass. Maybe my country should have let the Japanese invade your country during World War II."

The Englishman swallowed the last of his coffee and announced that he and I had to go meet with the contractors at Turner Construction, and we left the Australian. He didn't mention anything his friend had said. In fact, he never talked about politics. He tried to help me find an inexpensive way to Baghdad.

Americans are kind of like the brothers who are always fighting with each other, but let someone mess with one of them, and they band together to defend the one attacked by an outsider. Who does that Australian think he is? Down Under is right. I should have put him down under the table.