No U.S. Sanctions on Four Countries With Child Soldiers

[tomg]

Source: New York times


By BRIAN KNOWLTON
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, in an annual State Department report on human trafficking, 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.

In a memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, President Obama said he had determined that the waiver was in “the national interest.”


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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/world/africa/29soldiers.html?hp

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There is quite a bit more, and if I am misreading it, I apologize. But as a father of four kids, fuck the national interest.

[Chulanowa]

1. This is the same national interest...

That thinks locking down everything that's even slightly iranian, because our warmonger "allies" are telling us Iran might be thinking about possibly doing something that could perhaps be potentially bad is a good idea

[EFerrari]

5. This is the same State Department that signed off on Colombia's human rights "progress"

despite the discovery of the biggest mass grave on the continent there -- one filled during the tenure of our "friend", Uribe.

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Obama+Meets+Colombian+President+Uribe+White+K0XRMIwx8s4l.jpg

[treestar]

2. Hadn't we better learn a whole lot more about what is going on there

before we judge the administration's decisions? Obviously there is a proviso for a waiver in the national interest.

How is it decided? How was this decided?

[ixion]

4. ah, yes... ethical relativity

:eyes:

[iverglas]

10. I wouldn't say that ;)

I'd say pure absence of ethics, or perhaps more accurately: morals.

[treestar]

11. Well yes, or we'd never aid any third world country

What of many other things, like FGM, polygamy, etc.

There are all sorts of terrible practices in the third world. Our just abandoning all aid won't stop them.

And the only people who complain about moral relativity are right wingers.

[iverglas]

12. this isn't "aid"

This is military supplies.

This isn't about "abandoning all aid".

This is about not supplying the weapons of warfare to countries where children are conscripted into military service, either by or with the acquiescence of the government. And in some cases, where other atrocities are committed.

Surely you see a difference.

Your equivocating about the meaning of what's being done here doesn't change what it is.

[treestar]

13. Well I wish we would arm none of them

But then someone else might. This just isn't simple. Who are they fighting and why and is that side any better?

[BulletproofLandshark]

14. Supporting armies that use children is clearly wrong. n/t

[ixion]

3. "the national interest"

yeah, right. :puke:

[PDJane]

6. The US shouldn't.......I won't say can't .......

say a thing about child soldiers, because they are trying Khadr as an adult....when he was just an abused boy in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so got shot in the back.

I have to say that an American life, however sorry I may be that a soldier is dead, doesn't excuse what continues to happen to this man.

[madrchsod]

7. "The Grand Hotel, ..

always the same,

People come,

People go.

Nothing ever happens"

[Solly Mack]

8. k/r

[iverglas]

9. good fucking god

html fixed

The US would give military aid to Chad and Congo and Sudan even completely regardless of this??

The things one doesn't learn when one clicks.

From the article:

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, 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.

And now, they said, the four countries are effectively being given a year to change their ways.

“We put these four countries on notice by naming them as having child soldiers, and thereby making them automatically subject to sanctions, absent the exercise of a presidential waiver,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman. “Our intention is to work with them over the next year to try to solve this problem — or at least make significant progress on it — -and reassess our posture towards them next year, depending on the progress they have made.”

... Of the six countries the State Department identified as using child soldiers during 2009, only two — Somalia and Myanmar — were not granted exemptions from the law, and Myanmar receives no military aid from the United States.

This is simply outrageously unbelievable. And I mean unblievable: that anyone would expect rational people to believe that this would ever have an effect on any of these countries, or that anybody in the US administration believes it would. That's the truly non-credible bit. The US administration knows these countries don't give a flying fuck what anybody thinks about their abuse of children, or anything else.

How many bleeding years has it been going on? How many years could the US have been exercising all this moral suasion already? The US didn't need a law to stop lending aid and comfort to these international criminals, they could have just stopped. Just say No. And now it has a law a law telling it to say No, and it says Yes anyway.

Putrid.

[saigon68]

15. This Scum Bucket is responsible for this Travesty

[rayofreason]

16. So Bush signed a law...

...passed by a Democratic-majority Congress to prohibit military aid to countries that use children as soldiers, and Obama is exempting his Administration from that law?????????