US detains nearly 800 children and teenagers on a Baghdad base

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C08%5C24%5Cstory_24-8-2007_pg4_12

BAGHDAD: US troops are holding nearly 800 children and teenagers on a Baghdad base, boys who are largely illiterate and picked up for planting bombs and now the focus of a multi-million-dollar education project.

Dressed in orange jumpsuits reminiscent of the uniforms of terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, the youngsters aged 10 to 17 attend a US-run school seven days a week, eight hours a day, in order to mend their ways. Equipped with four football pitches, 18 classrooms and a library, the school is stocked with television sets, DVDs, Harry Potter in Arabic, text books, white boards, rows of desks and chairs, and hot lunches. snip

The number of overall security detainees in Iraq has skyrocketed in the six months since General David Petraeus flooded the nation with thousands more soldiers, to lift the total to 165,000 American troops, designed to quell the sectarian conflict and insurgency.

Some 16,000 detainees were in custody before this “surge” in troop numbers. Today there are 24,000 security detainees according to the US military. This year so far only 2,251 detainees have been convicted.

Soldiers are now picking up more than 100 youngsters a month, up from an average of 25 a month last year. On February 1, there were 272 youth detainees. This week there were 787, said Captain John Flemming. US commanders say most of them - which include some as young as 10 years - are caught making and planting roadside bombs, or acting as lookouts for bombers and snipers. Others carry guns. Some are fighters.

[aquart]

1. Do their mothers know where they are?

Or did we kill their mothers?

[annm4peace]

3. Great response..

why do they have to be in those orange jumpsuits? sickening.
why can't the be given some type of school uniform ??

[bdamomma]

2. they are only protecting their homes and their countries

and right, how many of their families got blown away by us!!!

how shameful, these beautiful children who did not do anything to us, have been scarred for life.

[MadMaddie]

4. This is wrong on so many levels....

they are treating the children like adults in a prison....7 days a week 8 hours a day....what is wrong with that picture?

[seemslikeadream]

5. No child left behind?

[Robbien]

6. Your country is occupied and you are being held captive by your occupiers

and you are only a kid. The occupiers say they are doing you a favor by educating you.

I bet that isn't what the kids believe.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Hearts and minds, baby!

[lovuian]

8. it makes you wonder if they are rounding them up for

Mind control

its scary stuff
I hope its for good causes...

10 years old awful awful stuff