Rita Khoury

Rita grows up as the privileged second daughter of George and Mary Jo Khoury. Her father George works as a doctor while her mother is a nurse. Rita, who is half Lebanese, becomes interested in her Arab heritage as a young adult and eventually studies Arabic at Harvard. She becomes a foreign correspondent for the American Standard, a respected newspaper, and is posted in Lebanon. The paper sends her to Iraq where she covers the aftermath of the American invasion. Confined in an armored villa because it becomes too dangerous to report on the streets, Rita gets drunk and pens a rant to her boyfriend in Lebanon about the situation in Baghdad. When he shares the email with a popular blog, Rita gets suspended from her job. She returns home where she begins work as a foreign affairs analyst.

Rita's character reveals the mistakes of the American...