Bombs and Lionel Richie

Life has some odd coincidences... As part of my job, I had cause some weeks ago to visit the facility where the Australian Special Forces train near Sydney. Many of the soldiers who train there are on their 2nd and 3rd tours of Afghanistan and Iraq and are the tip of the sword of the Allies fighting the Taliban. During this past week, I heard on the news that one of them had been tragically killed here in South Australia in a live-fire night training exercise and another seriously injured. It brought home a little more starkly the reality of what is happening, unseen, many thousands of miles away from us.

A couple of days later, I happened to be downloading an old Lionel Richie song , 'Just for you' to my ipod and I wondered what had happened to him so I googled. I discovered an article that had been written by a journalist called John Berman from ABC in the USA, about the fact that apparently Lionel Richie is a huge phenomenon in the Arab world and Iraq specifically:

I have been to Iraq nine times since the American invasion three years ago, for a total of about 10 solid months. (My wife is counting.) During that time, I have seen bombs and blood, I have seen rebuilding and restructuring, and I have seen death and democracy. So what have I heard? That's easy: Lionel Richie.
Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. "I love Lionel Richie," they say. Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song.
This is the same Lionel Richie who wrote "Say You, Say Me." This is the same Lionel Richie who is the father of some young woman named Nicole. Yes, that Lionel Richie. Could he really be an Iraqi icon?
I decided I had to investigate, and not just investigate, I decided I had to ask Lionel Richie himself. So I called him from Baghdad. Actually it was a formal interview. It was the first interview with Lionel Richie ever on the subject of Iraq and Iraqis.
I asked Richie if he knows just how big he is here. He said, "The answer is, I'm huge, huge in the Arab world. The answer as to why is, I don't have the slightest idea."
He has performed in Morocco, Dubai, Qatar and Libya. There is obviously something up there. The more we talked, the more he theorized as to the reasons his music might be so popular here. He thinks it is because of the simple message in his music: Love.

Richie says he was told Iraqis were playing "All Night Long," on the streets the night U.S. tanks rolled into the country in 2003. (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1974794)

How different are we as people? Actually?
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. (H. W. Longfellow)