Nature vs. Nurture: Fostering New Hate

In a time where the wounds of war are constantly being inflicted upon generations of children in Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems the US would find it within the best interest of all, the children and ourselves, to foster a better relationship with the families and youngest hurt in the footsteps of the war on terror. Instead, an article today on AOL.com proclaiming "US Military Holds 500 Youths in Iraq" shows us that we are hosting a war on terror, as well as fighting one.

(http://news.aol.com/story/_a/us-military-holds-500-youths-in-iraq/20080519064909990001)

If our country was in turmoil, and another governing nation stepped in to help us correct the insurgence and the unrest, how might we feel if those who disagreed were captured or killed? Or furthermore, if the children we have left, fighting under the only ideals and memories their dead fathers have given them, were captured and held, without warning or deadline of release? What then?

This is what has happened over in Iraq; as the article goes on to state, "a total of 2,500 youths under the age of 18 have been detained, almost all in Iraq, for periods up to a year or more in President Bush's anti-terrorism campaign since 2002, the United States reported last week to the U.N.'s Committee on the Rights of the Child."

The the idea that a child, on the brink of adulthood, fighting for all that they have ever known, is imprisoned from their family, and we are just finding out about it now when it started in 2002, scares the hell out of me. What else might we not know about? What else has this administration been doing over there in the name of peace and ending war, when it is ripping families apart and brewing new hatred? And lastly - who will answer our nation if another attack happens, because it was provoked through the imprisonment of a child? I cannot imagine anyone, even Bush, having an argument for that one.