Since its founding, the United States has been in a near-perpetual state of war. However, one chapter in our history of bloodshed is quickly coming to an end with the announcement of the withdrawal of troops from Iraq at the end of the year.

Iraq is a country that is primarily Muslim and was invaded by the United States beginning in 2003 under false pretenses, resulting in the deaths of thousands; civilian deaths amounting to numbers beyond 100,000. This war and the war in Afghanistan are what have led to the world image of a corrupt superpower that has declared war on Islam. This is not the case: In my eyes the war was an overblown reaction to an event that while horrific has done exactly what was planned because of our reaction. I hope that with the end of this war we can begin the repairing of the image of the United States.

The September 11 attacks have forever changed the United States, just as its planners had likely intended. The goal of a terrorist attack is to instill terror, and look at us–we’ve given up many civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. With all the security upgrades to planes since the attacks, I doubt the situation could ever happen again, yet the Transportation Security Administration still exists and comes up with more and more ways to infringe upon our privacy. Then there’s the warrantless wiretapping brought about by the Patriot Act, which brings in a whole slew of issues about our rights being violated.

If you look at how England reacted to its 2005 terror attacks, you’ll see how I believe the United States should be. When England had bombings during rush hour that were intended to harm civilians, they didn’t blow it out of proportion. Yes, they wanted justice, but they didn’t decide to sacrifice everything in pursuit of it.

If you read into the history of Osama bin Laden and the reasons that he may or may not have turned to terrorism, you’ll see that US occupation is really high up there on the list. Have our wars in the Middle East given birth to a new bin Laden or even several of them? Will our children pay the price for our hunger for vengeance?

I just hope that the United States doesn’t repeat history and make the same mistakes the Reagan administration did that very well may have led to the hatred of the United States that burned in bin Laden’s veins. One of the popular theories for the hatred was that under the Reagan administration, the CIA was notorious for funding any army that was fighting any cause that resembled Communism.

One such army that was funded was the Mujahideen, a group that is regarded as the precursor to the Taliban. The Mujahideen were fighting Soviets in Afghanistan because of our fear of communism. When the Soviet threat ceased, so did our funding of the Mujahideen and Afghanistan fell into utter chaos as a result.

We made our bed and had to sleep in it, but now if we repeat our mistakes and our stabilization comes to an abrupt end in Afghanistan, as so many people seem to want, history will undoubtedly repeat itself.