I tell my students it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see who's very far away who's a different color who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.
We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that since 1998 there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means.