274: Enemy Camp (2004)
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Here's the story of the way we usually like it. There's this guy, and he's behind enemy lines. Maybe he's dropped in there in the middle of the night. Maybe he sneaks under barbed wire at the border, whatever. He's there, he's been there a while. Months, years maybe. He's in disguise, working on our behalf. Nobody suspects, no one can tell. He looks and acts just like them. And then, living there in their midst for so long, speaking the language, eating their food, breathing their air, watching their TV shows. Something happens. He starts to change. He starts to become more like them. And then, when it's time for him to strike, to launch his mission against him, he hesitates. He's not sure who he sympathizes with anymore. It's a very romantic idea. This particular vision of what it means to live inside the enemy camp. That you lose your bearings and you would forget how to fight, because some other impulse inside you would take over. But sometimes, this is actually how it happens. There are lots of ways that people get confused about who their enemy is and how to fight them. Today on our radio show, we have that story happening to several different people in several different places in several different ways. True stories. [MUSIC PLAYING] I'm W.B. Easy Chicago. This is American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I'm out of class. Each week on our program, we choose some subject. Bring you documentaries, interviews, short fiction, found tapes, found writing. Anything we can think of on that subject. Today on our program, Life Behind Enemy Lines, our program today in four acts, that one, our own worst enemy. In that act, even senior administration officials like Colin Powell now admit that the insurgency in Iraq is getting stronger, we get one of the architects of the president's war in Iraq. Richard Pearl, to answer the question, is it our own fault that things are going so badly in Iraq? That too? Confession? In that act, the true story of a fixer for the Catholic church. And now he came to sympathize with the people who
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