White House Says Child Soldiers Are Ok, If They Fight Terrorists

[Better Believe It]

White House Says Child Soldiers Are Ok, if They Fight Terrorists
by Michelle Chen
November 15, 2010

The phenomenon of child soldiers, like genocide, slavery and torture, seems like one of those crimes that no nation could legitimately defend. Yet the Obama administration just decided to leave countless kids stranded on some of the world’s bloodiest battlegrounds.

The administration stunned human rights groups last month by sidestepping a commitment to help countries curb the military exploitation of children. Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy reported that President Obama issued a presidential memorandum granting waivers from the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to four countries: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen. The memo instructed Secretary of State Hilary Clinton that it is in our “national interest” to continue extending military aid to those countries, despite their failure to comply with the rules Congress passed and George W. Bush signed in 2008.

A thumbs-up for child soldiers from the pen of President Obama? Whitehouse spokesperson P.J. Crowley explained it was a strategic decision to ease the 2008 law. The rationale is that on balance, it’s more effective for the U.S. to keep providing military assistance that will help countries gradually evolve out of the practice of marshaling kids to the battlefield, rather than isolating them.

According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, which holds America to the same scrutiny that countries like Uganda and DRC routinely face in the media, we benefit indirectly and directly from the exploitation of child fighters:

In 2006 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) registered 59 children in detention during 16 visits to five places of detention or internment controlled by the USA or the UK in Iraq. US soldiers stationed at the detention centres and former detainees described abuses against child detainees, including the rape of a 15-year-old boy at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, forced nudity, stress positions, beating and the use of dogs. Following US troop increases in Iraq in early 2007, US military arrests of children there rose from an average of 25 per month in 2006 to an average of 100 per month. Military officials reported that 828 were children held at Camp Cropper by mid-September, including children as young as 11. A 17-year-old was reportedly strangled by a fellow detainee in early 2007. In August 2007 the USA opened Dar al-Hikmah, a non-residential facility intended to provide education services to 600 detainees aged 11-17 pending release or transfer to Iraqi custody. US military officials excluded an estimated 100 children from participation in the program, apparently on the grounds that they were “extremists” and “beyond redemption”.

http://www.childsoldiersglobalreport.org/

Obama’s memorandum may look jarring on paper, but it’s grimly consistent with Washington’s agenda of waging war indefinitely, without boundaries, against an enemy we can no longer really define. The U.S. supports warfare that uses children as weapons, warfare that kills civilian children indiscriminately, warfare that ultimately sends our own children to perish on foreign soil. And so America marches on in a world of conflict where the first casualty is innocence itself.



Read the full article at:

http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/11/did_you_get_obamas_memo_white_house_selectively_okays_child_soldiers.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Good idea.

Maybe we should lower our own volunteer age to 15 in order to avoid having to institute a draft when we go in to occupy the rest of the Muslim world.

[dflprincess]

2. They can rationalize anything, can't they?

Must be one of those chess moves most of us are just too stupid to understand.

[Better Believe It]

4. Pretty much.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. thank god Obama won the Peace prize.

"Only" 4 countries have been exempted from using children to die for those who manipulate them.

good god.

[blindpig]

8. Ain't that rich...

What a fuckin' travesty, as thought any head of empire could remotely qualify.

[David__77]

5. Imperialist hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Why should anyone adhere to these "conventions" and "treaties?" It's nonsense - just a means to pressurize sovereign states while the US does as it pleases.

[FedUpWithIt All]

6. ...

:thumbsdown:

[struggle4progress]

7. Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2008

... Became Public Law No: 110-340 ... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:S.2135:
Bill Text 110th Congress (2007-2008) S.2135.ENR ... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:6:./temp/~c110IijQmz::

4 Nations With Child Soldiers Keep U.S. Aid
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: October 28, 2010
WASHINGTON — In 2009, the government of Chad conscripted refugee children for unlawful use as guards and combatants in its desert battles against rebel forces; the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo forced children to carry ammunition and supplies through the jungle, and some died under their weight; hundreds of boys and girls were forced into the army of southern Sudan, despite a commitment to release them; and in Yemen, children as young as 14 make up perhaps half the ranks of both the government’s forces and the rebels opposing them. Despite those findings ... the Obama administration is allowing American military aid to continue to the four countries, issuing a waiver this week of a 2008 law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act ... President Obama said he had determined that the waiver was in “the national interest.” The memo offered no elaboration. But administration spokesmen said that the law, signed by President George W. Bush but effective only as of this year, would have penalized countries providing crucial cooperation with the United States, including in the fight against Al Qaeda militants. In some cases, they said, it was easier to press countries to stop using young soldiers if the United States remained closely engaged with them ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/world/africa/29soldiers.html?_r=1

NGO Letter to President Obama regarding waivers to the Child Soldiers Prevention Act
... The Child Soldiers Prevention Act does not present an "all or nothing" approach ... Specifically, the section allows assistance for "international military education, training, and nonlethal supplies" otherwise prohibited under the Act upon certification to the appropriate congressional committees that the government is taking reasonable steps to demobilize child soldiers, provide rehabilitation and reintegration assistance, and that US assistance is directly supporting the professionalization of the military ... In contrast to the use of the blanket waiver, providing programs through Section 404 (e) would have tied the continued assistance directly to concrete progress in ending child soldier use. Your decision to issue the waivers was unfortunate. However, we don't believe that you need to wait until next year's determination process to take additional action on this issue ... http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/11/05/ngo-letter-president-obama-regarding-waivers-child-soldiers-prevention-act

[Poll_Blind]

9. How is this supposed to help fight terrorism when conscripting child soldiers IS terrorism?!

PB

[struggle4progress]

10. Presidential Memorandum--Child Soldiers Prevention Act

Presidential Determination
No. 2011-4

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBJECT: Presidential Determination with Respect to Section 404(c) of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, pursuant to section 404(c) of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 (CSPA), title IV of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110 457), I hereby determine that it is in the national interest of the United States to waive the application to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Yemen of the prohibition in section 404(a) of the CSPA.

You are authorized and directed to submit this determination to the Congress, along with the accompanying memorandum of justification, and to publish it in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

So the memorandum does not say "Child Soldiers Are Ok" -- it says the President waived application of the act to four countries, under the authority granted by section 404(c). It seems to be an unfortunhate fact of American history that Presidents almost always issue such waivers for human-rights-based sanctions -- except for official enemies. Comments by people closely following the issue would be helpful. The only action immediately obvious to me is to contact the White House in support of the NGO letter I posted upthread

[berni_mccoy]

11. Too many here aren't interested in the truth... only bashing Obama.

I suspect that your efforts to expose the truth will be ignored by many K&R's after your thoughtful response.

[Scurrilous]

12. Kick

:kick: