The children of war-torn countries actually fighting the war is
certainly not a new phenomena. The mass graves discovered in Kosovo at
the conclusion of that civil conflict are a testimony to the overall
brutality of war, thrust upon men, women and children alike. It's not
unreasonable to assume that children also ended up participating in much
the fighting. During the bloody Iraq-Iran War of the 80's, Iran is
reputed to have sent children through Iraqi minefields in order to clear
them ahead of advances by Revolutionary Guards. The lives of the
unskilled, ill-trained children were weighed against the lives of the
highly trained, elite Revolutionary Guards, and found expendable. In
fact, from the first time marauders descended upon a peaceful village,
raping, pillaging and killing, children have likely been thrust into the
role of child soldiers. However, the potential global consequences are
probably unparalleled in modern history. Thanks to the ease of
international travel, the same teen soldier calmly cutting the hands off
a villager today can be robbing you of your "blood diamonds" tomorrow.
Is that, perhaps, overly dramatic or is it a real cause for concern?
It is doubtful in even the most desperate circumstances that
any parent would easily cast their 8-year old son as front-line soldier.
The problem: it is not the parents doing the casting. And this issue of
child conscription did not just "suddenly appear" overnight. One recent
example of the pervasive practice involves a civilian auxiliary
organization in Iran called the Basij. The Basij were responsible for
the human wave attacks against Iraqi positions as well as the religious
conscription of teenagers to be used in them. However, sending the
children into minefields created carnage of such magnitude, even the
Basij were compelled to change their practices.
Disillusioned with
pieces of bodies, charred flesh and bits of bone that remained after
contact with a mine, the Basiji changed their tactics. As reported in
the Iranian newspaper, The Ettelaat: "Before entering the minefields,
the children wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so
that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines
and one can carry them to the graves." As we tackle the same concept
more than 20 years later and wax poetic about the barbaric practice of
child conscription, this example reminds us of where the rubber really
meets the road, and how long the drive has been.
But let us back up a bit and define the larger issue. The world does have a certain
responsibility in tragedies such as this, but defining the limits of
that responsibility remains a Gordian Knot of international law,
national sovereignty and confusing legalese. When the United States
becomes either directly or indirectly involved in armed conflicts where
the majority of the violence takes place within the geographical
boundaries of other countries, is there is a responsibility for the
rehabilitation of those caught up in the violence? Morally, yes, but
legally it's still a little vague.
At the very least, this is a hard
commitment to sell once the military objectives have been achieved. But
there is a moral obligation and practical reason for not abandoning
"social reconstruction" in favor of simply rebuilding the infrastructure
and leaving. So, the follow up question and subject of this topic can
be paraphrased as, "What responsibility does the world have when we're
not even involved?"
War is violent and riddled with collateral damage and
casualties. But, to call war "violent" is akin to calling fire hot,
restating the obvious. When those involved are not only active
combatants, but also children, the imperative to do what we can to
rehabilitate and equip these children to lead normal lives becomes
paramount. Some argue that nothing can be done for these damaged
children and most certainly it is a huge problem. But, beyond the moral
obligation to the youngest victims of violence, hundreds or thousands of
miles removed from our day-to-day lives, there remains a practical
reason to act. But first, let us introduce the major players.
Children
are coveted as soldiers primarily because they are easily intimidated
and can be brain-washed into obedient soldiers a lot easier than adults.
The break-down of the family unit in a war-zone makes it easier to
recruit or even kidnap children seeking a surrogate family, food and
shelter. But, the psychological damage from violence is more pervasive
in a developing psyche, creating amoral monsters that pragmatically see
violence as a legitimate means to an end. Even well-adjusted adult
soldiers returning from war may have a difficult time readjusting to
their former lives. Imagine a child soldier whose earliest memories are
of torture and death. There is no "default" position of normalcy to
revert to, no "happy place".
The obstacles to their reintegration into
society would be massive, but any successful methodology to rehabilitate
the "war child" would reap benefits in our own increasingly violence prone society.
The roots of violence may be varied, but the expressions of violence are
universal. Developing an arsenal of options to identify and deal with
children who have killed or have the potential to do so is a socially
strategic necessity.
From the rubble of an African civil war in
Liberia, scattered amidst the pieces of shattered familial units, the
enigmatic figure of a child with an automatic weapon and teddy bear
strapped to his back staggers the imagination.
Often drugged and forced
to commit atrocities, their minds become warped by a sinister
combination of antisocial conditioning and altered brain development.
What means do we have of reversing such mental, possibly physical,
brain-damage and "re-humanizing" these children? When one realizes that
between 100,000 and 200,000 children in more than 20 countries are
children soldiers, the magnitude of this tragedy becomes even clearer.
It's a perverse adaptation of "A Clockworks Orange" starring hundreds of
thousands in the role of "Alex". And it's coming to a theater near you
eventually. As the escalating ethnic violence in formerly peaceful Kenya
demonstrates, even stable countries are capable of plunging into the
abyss of uncontrollable violence. Here in America, peaceful college
campuses are no longer exempt from sudden, massive acts of violence and
there's NO civil war going on.
How long can any peace last without first removing the
stimulus for violence? We've already seen "children fighting wars" in
our own streets in the form of gang warfare. We've also seen how rapidly
societies can descend into violence, so better understanding the
children of "real" warfare in other countries will directly help us to
confront variants of that same problem in our own. While Liberia
represents an extreme case in of the type of violence that plagues the
West, solutions procured from this extreme environment can help in the
future rehabilitation of violent gang-members, war veterans and nebulous
masses of other disenfranchised and violence-prone youth. It is
entirely realistic and pragmatic to assume that if it works on those
poisoned by violence in places like Liberia, it can help in the
treatment and assimilation of those similarly affected by violence and
living just next door. So not only is it a moral imperative to help
these war-scarred children, it has practical application in places less
torn asunder.
A critical first step towards stabilizing the child combatant issue is to identify countries that use children as
soldiers. While not directly confronting the problem, it does identify
the potential victims. What the use of children soldiers has given the
world is a huge number of hosts by which to export more violence.
Violence and war gave us the Taliban and young men willing to kill
themselves in order to kill and maim others. The violence of a civil war
in El Salvador has exported Latino gang members to L.A. where they
perpetuate a violent lifestyle that eclipses even traditional gang
violence.
The anarchy that creates children of war metastasizes,
spilling the violence beyond international boundaries in the form of
jihadists, narco-terrorists and criminal gangs. Many are without
futures, skills, education and hope, parlaying their only
skill...violence without remorse...into the only career prospects they
have: crime or war. It is prudent to try and eliminate those as options.
Recently, child advocate groups have expressed concerns about
the possibility of the illegal trafficking of Liberian children after 7
children were sneaked out and into America. While aged ten months to 5
years and spared the fate of the conscripted child, this incident
exemplifies the ease by which other children can be ushered out of
Liberia, perhaps into fates other than freedom. And the implicit threat
that "older, experienced" child soldiers might be exploited
internationally for their deadly skill is a legitimate concern. If the
fact that Al Qaeda is currently training children as gunmen doesn't
drive home the seriousness of this problem, then no real solutions will
be soon forthcoming.
Sooner or later, we may have to deal with
these war children, all grown up and without stable jobs or empathy.
But, there are many opportunities for people with skills such as theirs.
By determining now what combination of therapy and education makes them
productive citizens, not only might we preempt a possibly violent
confrontation over a fence line somewhere, but we also deny an immoral
enemy an endless supply of soldiers without pity or conscious. Then we
can set about inoculating our own society. If we can somehow help these
children soldiers reconnect with their humanity, we can apply it to
ourselves and pull out of this spiral of violence. Otherwise, we run the
risk of descending into the very same pit of anarchy that consumed
those children's souls in the first place.
The theory that events in LOST are simply the hallucinations of one
of the characters is virtually universally despised and rejected as a
possibility. First of all, it would fly in the face of a vast fan base
that has invested years in watching individual character development,
only to discover it was just the imagination of the same autistic child
of "St Elsewhere" fame. Even Bobby Ewing would prefer to wait out that
backlash in the shower. This is why demonstrating the plausibility is
such wicked fun!
