I often think about art as a social cipher. But all powerful art is, first, intensely personal:
As the two men got to know each other better in subsequent meetings, their discussions would meander, as Cook sought to understand his onetime and perhaps future adversary. Hedging his bets, he used his company sniper team as his bodyguards during some meetings so they would get a good look at Sarhan in case they needed to shoot him in the future. The two men talked about Sarhan’s children, who were playing “Mujahadeen and Americans,” instead of the traditional “Cowboys and Indians.” Cook knew that Iraqis of all stripes loved American movies, particularly the 1997 epic Titanic. Sarhan told him that he didn’t watch any American movies, that they were products of the devil. Cook jokingly asked him if he liked Titanic, knowing it was enormously popular in Iraq. Why, yes, the insurgent confessed. He recounted watching it seven times and crying every time at the ending, as Kate Winslet lets the dead Leonardo DiCaprio slip into the freezing North Atlantic.