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I hope Irma or her husband wrote this as a way to make a point and didn't actually DO this to one of their children, IMO 9 years old is too young for even simplistic lessons about international diplomacy... and teaching by stressing the child into a breakdown is no way to teach a lesson.
I also agree with the concensus that the analogy is too simple to even capture the basic forces in play, of course so were many of the responses. The thing to remember about simplification is that it's often used to skew the situation being analysed, creating a "straw man" that is easier to attack. Your story used a young target as justification for that simplification, but that doesn't change the intent (to skew the real situation and turn it into something that we can be "proud" of). Others simplify in order to add weight to their attacks AGAINST US behavior, both accomplish the same thing.
Storymystic I would never use this story simply because I believe there is nothing patriotic or good about war. War is the utter failure of humanity... turning us into nothing more than fighting animals, which I try to believe is something we can someday transcend. That's not to say I didn't support this war, but I'm sad that someone like Saddam has the ability to pull others down to his violent bestial level.
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