walking in the kitchen this morning, it occured to me that there is a generation of iraqi children who have no personal experience with the offenses and repression of the Hussein regime, but are surrounded with violence that exists because of our occupation. these children are in a very crucial point in their development where they will remember and hold onto this period as we all do with our childhoods. they, most likely, will not think that our "liberation" is/was a positive thing. and i fear that this will lead to anti-american/western sentiment that cannot be unlearned, even if democracy and western culture come to permeate the nation. i'm not necessarily concerned with this generation becoming radical islamists, or whatever fox news and the administration are refering to them as lately. What i am concerned about is that once this generation grows up and comes to power in Iraq, the majority will want to form an anti-western government that will influence the surrounding area. Also, with our rebuilding efforts, if we ever get them back to operational, and they make something out of the desert, they can influence global economic politics. especially if iran continues its own anti-west political philosophy, the two countries could form a powerful coalition, reminescent of the influence exerted by the soviet bloc to oppose and confound western policies and governments. this would require the two groups to realize that they have the same enemy in america and put aside their sunni/shiite division. a united islamic front against the corruption of the west could be quite dangerous...
but this leads me to wonder if perhaps the government isn't fueling the islamic division as a way to destabilize the area and play the groups off one another until we have a solitary group to work with that becomes dependent on the US for support against their enemies.