"You picked a side after 9/11; I didn't have to - it was picked for me."
"I was his for the taking. I had seen firsthand the arrogant America he described - the blindness, the hypocrisy, the xenophobia. My anger had congealed, hardened by injustice and disappointment."
以及最后点名电影主旨和主角关键性心理转变的话。
"Of course I would fight; of course I would bleed the enemy. But then he used that word: 'Our only hope as a people are the fundamental truths given to us in the Q'uran'."
(闪回Jim Cross在Underwood Samson对初级analysts说: "We do that by focusing on the fundamentals.")
此时主角说：
"These young men were engaged in their own valuation, just like Underwood Samson, moving human beings in and out of binary columns: worker/liability, American/Pakistani, martyr/infidel, alive/dead.
I was tired of the reduction.
I was tired of deciding, from a distant perch, the fate of people I did not know."
然而回到了故土，他也没有加入游戏的另一边。这就是上面提的，他经过观察发现本国所谓爱国战士们虽然貌似占领道德的高地，但同样生存在盲目、愚蠢和极端的一边。这时电影的主题则从文化和身份的融合冲突，上升到对人性的定义。We're all more than those things. 我们并不只被我们的国籍、人种、信仰、宗教、利益定义；我们之为人，还有其他的内容，还有人性共同的内容。把人以一种目的分为简单的两级，要么有用要么没用，要么这边要么那边，这本身就是将矛盾和悲剧最大化的伏笔。假若我们能够避免这种盲从，理性地对待彼此的不同，世上会多一些人情，少一些凄凉。只可惜一边是资本主义，一边是极端宗教，主角夹在中间，即使一切看得清清楚楚，最多也只能不choose sides而已。
