“I want to tell them thanks for liberating us, but enough with the mistakes”

It's now been four years since the Invasion/Liberation of Iraq, and the first wave of post-Saddam university students are about to graduate from universities across the country. Unfortunately, as Damien Cave writes in the New York Times:

"The class of 2007 came of age during a transformation that according to students has harvested tragedy from seeds of hope. They are the last remnants of a middle class that has already fled by the tens of thousands. As such they embody the country’s progression from innocence to bitter wisdom amid dashed expectations and growing animosity toward the Americans."

The article is essentially about the fact that most of the new graduates are planning to flee their country as soon as possible. One medical student compares staying in Iraq to committing suicide. The article continues:

"They said they would leave their country feeling betrayed, by the debilitating violence that has killed scores of professors and friends, by the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism and by the Americans, who they say cracked open their country, releasing spasms of violence without protecting the moderate institutions that could have been a bulwark against extremism."

The article goes on to describe a number of instances of violence against schools, students and teachers, including a suicide bomber who killed forty people, leading to a mass grave being built at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. You can read the rest of the article for the full story.