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They Still Suffer: The Children of Iraq

By Jennifer Cole

Recently I have seen an increase in news reports on Iraqi children being murdered, abused, or enslaved by ISIS members. I do not read these articles, because the titles alone tear at my heart. The children I saw in Iraq are still a part of my most vivid memories, and it pains me deeply to think of them being hurt again. I rationalize that the children I saw while I was in Iraq are now eleven years older, they are no longer children and may be the parents of the very children being harmed today. I guess I still think of those children as children today, and they are the faces I see ISIS abusing and killing. I guess that is how trauma works, time seems to stop and the people, places, and events that you experienced stay timeless in your mind while the world ages around you.

I've thought so much about the children I heard being killed, how their mothers' screams could not save their lives. I think of the beautiful children that ran along my convoy, their faces gleaming with hope for change. We brought them change, but not the change they had probably expected. Some might say that we should go back to Iraq, to protect the children that ISIS is harming now, but we are part of the reason that ISIS is so horrible. You cannot fight terrorism with terrorism, and that is what we did in the Iraq War, we bombed them and shot them, then we droned them, and then we abandoned them and allowed another to take control, and then we shamed the groups that were created from war. I am not insinuating that ISIS is not to be blamed for their crimes, as they should be held accountable, but we cannot insist we use the same measures against them. It did not help the children of Iraq in the past and it will not help them now.

I feel helpless, because there was nothing I could do then to help them and there is nothing I can do now, except write about them and hope others learn about them. Writing is my weapon of choice, as the old adage goes, the pen is mightier than the sword. My hope for the people of Iraq, especially the children, is that the US can partner with other nations to create safe zones for refuged Iraqis. We can provide food and medical for less than it costs to make weapons, combat gear, and the training and shipping of troops. I know, without a doubt, that there are answers other than war and invasion, because that answer was wrong the first two times.

Jennifer Cole was deployed to Baghdad in 2003. She utilizes writing and art to cope with combat PTSD and to denounce the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.