] Thousands of people are responding to pleas having seen
] pictures of 12-year-old Ali Ismaeel Abbas lying in a
] hospital bed after a missile hit his family's home in the
] Diala Bridge district east of Baghdad.
]
] "Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors
] can get me another pair of hands?" Ali, who wanted to
] become a doctor, had asked from Baghdad's Kindi Hospital.
] (Full story)
]
] "If I don't get a pair of hands, I will commit suicide,"
] he told a Reuters reporter.

At first when I read this, I thought that anyone who would say such a thing ("if I don't get a pair of hands, I will commit suicide") must be crazy, but then I got to thinking about it. How would I feel if I were missing limbs? Missing one, I could maybe live with. And of course, living in the good ol' US of A, I could get the medical treatment necessary to get, say, a prosthetic limb. Also, I have education and skills enough that I could get and maintain a job.. maybe not my current one if I couldn't type (actually my union would find me a job. woohoo!), but I could probably get the training to be able to learn to type again. But imagine being this child... imagine having NO hands, and living in Iraq.. what are his chances to live a normal life? (hell, after this war is over, what are his chances of living a normal life even if he hadn't lost most of his family and his arms?) Practically none. So after thinking of all this, I can see the poor boy's plight. I'd probably see no reason to go on either.

Think about how many children are facing/will be facing this same issue.

Yes, we may get the dictator out of power, and yes, Ali and all the others will never have to worry about chemical baths and electrocution again, but will his society ever be able to accept him? Not all countries are tolerant of people who are disfigured.

I'd probably want to kill myself too.