By Collin Bonnell

In order for Americans to get past the violence caused by the missile strikes in Iraq, we must pay for the damage caused. (Courtesy of Flickr)

It has been almost 15 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched by George W. Bush. Since Bush gave his “Mission Accomplished” speech, what was presented as a small pre-emptive strike to “free” the Iraqi people and confiscate Hussein’s alleged stockpile of WMDs has bogged down into a perpetual state of insurgency causing a civil war between Iraq’s various ethnic groups, “ending” with the foolish withdrawal of American troops in 2011, erupting into civil war once again, enabled a campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Islamic State and leading to the return of American soldiers due to the lack of a better alternative.

All while American troops have been engaged in near-constant conflict in Iraq, with a short lapse from late 2011-2014, during which the American government continued to offer advice and aid to the Iraqi Army. The conflict has consumed an entire generation of the American working class, whose sacrifice has been ignored both by the wealthy elite and by the very government which sent them in harm’s way.

One grieving mother, Cindy Sheehan said of her dead son Casey, after being denied an audience with President Bush, “he was an honorable man, and he died in a dishonorable war.” Veterans of the “War on Terror” have been left to suffer with PTSD, traumatic injuries and alienation from an American citizenry which has no conception of what it really means to be at war.

Veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been denied government support which was granted to previous generations of returning soldiers, and have been treated as if they are expendable by the same politicians who sent them off to fight and secure American interests abroad. In addition, the war has caused tremendous damage to the infrastructure of Iraq.

According to a recent report by the World Bank and the Iraqi Government, the American intervention to defeat ISIS alone has caused at least $45.7 billion in damages to Iraqi homes, schools, power plants and infrastructure. In addition, the third American military intervention in Iraq since 1990 has caused an unknown amount of civilian deaths and ruined any hope of an end to American involvement in the Middle East.

Given the damages caused by American recklessness, it seems obvious that the American government should foot the bill for these damages and provide additional funds to build a stable Iraq. These funds would help prevent Iraq from slipping back into chaos and ensure that the American public understands that we are responsible for what our military does abroad.

The American taxpayer must be made aware of the damages caused by our government’s blatant disregard for our founding principles while abroad.
Our leaders, our voters and our elders owe it to the youngest generation of American citizens, who have no memory of peace, to show the fault of their actions and give the American people a brief lapse of calm after 17 years of war.

Moreover, we must give aid to those countries which our foreign policy decisions have wronged in order to preserve the positive image of America abroad for the next generation and ensure that we are not continually pulled into the quagmire we have created over the past 17 years.

In spite of this obligation, the Trump administration appears intent upon not only denying our culpability for damages done to countries like Iraq, but also upon expanding the “War on Terror” to include new countries while disregarding the Constitution’s requirement of gaining congressional approval for new foreign interventions.

In the eyes of our leaders, the war must be expanded until the world is consumed by it and all of humanity has been purged of “terror”.
The young people of this country, and the world, are owed peace; yet if our leaders cannot acknowledge the invalidity of violence and the folly of our past actions, we are destined to only know war.

Collin Bonnell, FCRH ’21, is a history and political science major from Hingham, Massachusetts.