Nicholson Baker's novel Checkpoint (2004), Slavoj Žižek's book Iraq: the Borrowed Kettle (2004) and Susan Sontag's research Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) are used to explore the relationship between mediated experience of the Iraqi war and “commodified” memory (D. LaCapra's term). Sontag's concept of a responsible representation of pain, Žižek's ideological and political analysis of the Iraqi war context and possible consequences and Baker's fictionalized emotional response to war sufferings offer new insights into a complex coexistence of private memories and public accounts and the ethical dilemmas they pose for consumers of information. From different perspectives, both Sontag and Baker view memory and verbal and visual representations of pain as a means to overcome ethical and political indifference and deal with hypocritical sympathy and historical amnesia. “Commodified” memories created by the media and its re-narration of authentic experience of the participants and victims of the Iraqi war modify the very concept of experience and bring forward the issue of shared knowledge as an experience-shaping element. Iraq turns into a metaphysical place identified with a certain location on earth that is elevated into a metaphor for democratically justified violence and human suffering. Possible ways to articulate and negotiate ethically acceptable and sensible decisions aimed at handling the traumatic experiences that the participants and observers on both sides of the war share are the focus of Baker's novel and Sontag's research.