They deliberately treat recruits like children (amongst other things) to put them in a state where they will be more receptive to re-programming. (other things like "yes drill Sgt." also help re-enforce the pseudo parent-child relationship)

It's one of the reasons child soldiers are so effective, if you can get someone into that childlike state of openness and obedience to authority you can basically re write their whole personality. (and naturally that's easier with an actual child)

The same goes for religious indoctrination, get them young enough (or regress an adult far enough) and you can turn them into a genuine fanatic.

I guess I took it for granted that most of us oppose the idea of creating child soldiers. Every African warlord doing the same can claim the very same needs for defense and protection, it's still terrible.

Invisible Children are Covert Religious Propagandists.

“So, in summary, Invisible Children are expert propagandists with what seems to be a covert religious agenda, advocating military action in Africa while simultaneously recruiting an “army” of young people to join their cause (and their weird Fourth Estate youth camps) and to stand around posing like this [quasi-fascist looking picture], a bit like an army of child soldiers might.”

Yes, it's ugly.

Watch the documentary Ghosts of Rwanda to see something much, much worse.

The ugliness in this video of Gaddafi's capture is the conclusion of many similar deaths along the way to stopping a genocide in Libya. If we insist that our forces stay out, uninvolved, then it falls to less trained and less disciplined forces to act. In Rwanda it was the rebel army that finally ended the genocide, using an army consisting of a great many child soldiers. Brutally ugly, but it none the less stopped something much worse.

Watch this if only to see how ugly our world can really be. Go look up the videos of Al Shabab's 'victory' in Somalia this morning as they drag the bodies of 70+ AU peace keepers around before cheering crowds for some perspective too.

>> ^Phreezdryd:

Why not just put a picture of the pope glaring at you on the package. And is this one of those places where some believe sex with a virgin will cure aids, leading to a high incidence of rape?


A majority of the rapes are by the militias in the jungles who do believe rape gives them magical protection, though they are more interested in protection from bullets than aids. Still, they recruit their child soldiers by addicting them to drugs and training them that the only way to survive any length of time is to strengthen themselves with the magical protections afforded from raping people.

If you'll remember the Rwandan genocide, there is a dirty little forgotten piece of it. Virtually 100% of the people that participated in that slaughter safely retreated in the jungles of the Congo where they still live and recruit to this day. They contribute in no small part to the human tragedy that is the Congo today.

I liked the comment from one of the talking heads (went something like this) "No one expects a small child or an elderly white woman to do a terrorist deed, so why should they search them?".

He answered his own question right there, and he doesn't even realize it, as a terrorist is only effective if no one suspects him/her of being one so they can do what it is they do... Ergo it is a good thing to search everyone, I mean I could exchange some poor (white) kids backpack filled with comic books and toys with one filled with a pound or two of C4 and some money and s/he would then be able to walk right through all of the controls and not be checked because s/he is a kid and kids aren't terrorists, right?. And don't forget that all kids are also immune to brainwashing too so they can't do stuff like that. It's not like there are thousands of child soldiers in the world shooting, raping and pillaging right now... or?

Poor talking head can't see the forest because of all those darn trees.

I rather be a bit annoyed and a bit late than dead. I have one life and I kinda enjoy it.

>> ^nach0s:
I have the first Vice Guide to Travel video, and while this clip seems to indicate higher quality, it still seems like some bored rich guys from the States going out thrill-seeking. There's some reportage going on for sure. They've gone to a pretty hellish place that most of the world has forgotten about. But a lot of this segment is the 'reporter' ineloquently commenting on how scared he is, or how fucked up this or that place is. Yea, it's fucked up, the images speak for themselves.


Bored rich guys going out thrill seeking generally make the best journalists. I don't really care how or why they got the footage, the fact is they got it and look to have reported it pretty much the way they saw it. When's the last time any major network covered something as important and ridiculously dangerous? Heck, honestly tell me you've heard from any other source that the UN intends to withdraw their force within a year and just hope the civil war doesn't start back up into another drug addicted cannibalistic child soldier hell on earth?

I believe the question was "who made the landmines" not "who laid the landmines" in which case the WEsterners would be among the culprits.

Again though, the specific ones this guy is clearing are stated to be those that he helped lay down as a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge, having a communist core, were only on the receiving end of western arms in the undesirable way. It is safe to say that, for all it matters, any mines laid by the Khmer Rouge were NOT western made.

My bigger point I was being 'anal' about wasn't really over who made the mines. It was about placing appropriate blame. Landmines were the very least of anybody's crimes in Cambodia. Kissinger and his western kin have far more blood on their hands from carpet bombing. The Khmer Rouge have more blood still for executing one of the worst genocides since the holocaust.

I don't want to detract from the west's guilt, but neither do I want to see the misconception that everything is the fault of America getting reinforced falsely. If you only blame the West for what's happened in Cambodia you are forgiving or ignoring the Khmer Rouge, and this guy would no doubt agree that's a very bad thing.

Ah, the rich American kid's version of child soldiers...


Utterly disgusting, really...

Your "historical" blurb barely warrants a reply- especially in light of the fact that you reject Gabriel Ash, and Benny Morris, as having diminished value, ie. "cliff notes."


That's a trite way of dodging the matter. I hardly see how an intelligent person can see an account of the years between 45 to 50 is diminished by stating a need to look at a larger time frame and context. Care to actually speak to the historical context? Do you prefer to just state that Israel need be condemned for war crimes, and at the same time Hamas crimes be ignored since they are just a result of Israel's crimes?


Please continue with your rationalization and support for genocide

That's just pathetic. Here for yet another time on the sift, and copied from further up the thread is where I stand:

Here's where I stand, and have stated numerous times before. I condemn war crimes committed by any nation or group, Israel included. There's a lot of undeniable evidence the IDF need to be prosecuted for crimes committed in the recent offensive. Hamas kills more Arabs than Israelis and that is their greatest crime. Yes I condemn them for deliberately targeting Israeli civilians, I condemn them for stating in their charter the elimination of the Israeli state as one of their goals. Their worst crimes though are using Palestinian civilians as human shields to launch their attacks, using child soldiers and suicide bombers and generally using the bodies of their own people as their primary weapon. I refuse to accept the defense of 'Israel deserves it', or 'the Arabs deserve it' when defending war crimes and atrocities.


If you interpret that as supporting genocide me thinks you are perhaps the one who's biased.

Try coming to Palestine and honestly telling me that Hamas is a terrorist organization and not simply a response to outright hostile actions purported by the State of Israel.
Israel reaps the seeds that it has sowed itself.


Your world view must like perpetual war and violence. Do you really wish to defend a group that sends it's own children as suicide bombers against it's enemies, because the enemies sowed the seeds?

Would you honestly accept that Zionism is simply a response to outright hostile actions purported by Europeans? I reject that notion as soundly as your own allegations towards Hamas.

Is Israel not simply a response to outright hostile actions purported by the States of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon? Do you accept defending Israel's actions as Arabs reaping the seeds they sowed?

Should we go back further, and declare the Arab attacks on Israel simply a response to outright hostile actions purported by Britain. Do we defend the Arab attacks on the basis of Britain and her allies reaping what was sown?

Do you realize that rationalization is the whole reason the hatred and warfare in the region seems to be a never ending circle?

Here's where I stand, and have stated numerous times before. I condemn war crimes committed by any nation or group, Israel included. There's a lot of undeniable evidence the IDF need to be prosecuted for crimes committed in the recent offensive. Hamas kills more Arabs than Israelis and that is their greatest crime. Yes I condemn them for deliberately targeting Israeli civilians, I condemn them for stating in their charter the elimination of the Israeli state as one of their goals. Their worst crimes though are using Palestinian civilians as human shields to launch their attacks, using child soldiers and suicide bombers and generally using the bodies of their own people as their primary weapon. I refuse to accept the defense of 'Israel deserves it', or 'the Arabs deserve it' when defending war crimes and atrocities.

Cause or effect by damned. Recruiting child soldiers is the gravest of all crimes against humanity.

From http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/camp-campaign

Are you shocked yet? Relax, the camp is fake, but the campaign is real.

Last week YouTube popped up a new video for Camp Okutta, a children’s adventure camp just outside of Toronto. It opens with a promising young camp counselor, with a group of scared kids…

The counselor throws a stone onto a patch of grass. Nothing happens. He throws another. A mine explodes. The video is scary, at first you think it could be a real camp.

Fortunately, the camp does not exist.

Canoe.ca says “A Canadian charity is hoping to bring home the plight of war-affected children with a provocative new campaign that asks Canadians to picture their own children shooting AK-47s and walking across minefields.”

At the end, the video directs viewers to the camp’s website, which goes into more detail about what campers will experience. Children who are homesick or afraid are fed amphetamines and a “rudimentary mixture of cocaine and gunpowder.” On good days, they eat plain rice or scraps of food left behind by the camp’s leaders.

The campaign is meant to draw attention to the estimated 250,000 child soldiers worldwide, War Child Canada founder Samantha Nutt said. “What we were trying to do was to really bring the issue home to North Americans in a new and creative way that would ask the question, ‘If this was a Canadian context and these were Canadian kids, what would our reaction be?”’ she said.

“We accept it as part of life in other parts of the world, and yet it is totally abhorrent and totally unacceptable.”

Nutt described the YouTube video and Camp Okutta website as “100 per cent based in reality,” from the images of children detonating mines, to the use of AK-47s, which are considered the weapon of choice for child soldiers because “they’re lightweight and so easy to use,” she said.

After the first night the video had 5,000 viewers and is since up to over 20,000. Shows you just how well viral marketing works these days.

This is a dupe:

http://www.videosift.com/video/US-Schools-Trail-Behind-World-In-Aptitude-Of-Child-Soldiers

*discard. Sorry.

OH NO! Guns are so nasty and evil. In fact, why doesnt the government ban gun ownership like the UK did? Oh yeah, that annoying Constitution thing. Damn it, always getting in the way. Well, enjoy the video about the mannequin getting its lungs punctured by that nasty AK-47. Also, it argues that its apparently too easy to use and is to blame for child soldiers around the world. Arms running will always exist and signing a treaty will not fix the already illegal arms trade. Of coure Amnesty International should be declared an enemy of the U.S. and destroyed like the rest of the terrorists they support. Who knows how many U.S. soldiers they have gotten killed.