Child Soldiers

I found an interesting article by Peter W. Singer called Facing Saddam's Child Soldiers. It was written in 2003 but I think it is a good article because it talks about child soldiers being a regular part of war in today's world. It also talks about what Saddam Hussein did to make it possible for child soldiers to be part of his battles. At the time the article was written more than half of Iraq's population was below the age of 18. Saddam Hussein trained children how to fight in wars. He taught them how to fight by having 3 week long training camps in the summer for boys. The boys who went to this camp some were only 10 years old. They had to do drills to learn how to use weapons and how to be in warfare. Saddam Hussein made the boys train so that they could politically defend him when a war would occur. So Saddam Hussein knew that a war was coming much before USA even thought of invading. Saddam had these camps for boys starting in the 1990s. I think that these boys that Saddam trained are the ones fighting against the USA right now because the only thing these boys know how to do is fight. They have been told that Westerners are bad, they don't care about you, they will kill you, they hate your religion, they won't have mercy, kill them before they kill you. The article also says that USA military usually wouldn't kill kids, but that in a war in Iraq they might be forced to because they are going to be fighting against the kids. I think that the USA military are told to kill the enemy even if the enemy are kids. If they don't kill the kids in Iraq, they kids will kill them. That is why some of the vets that come back from Iraq are so traumatized and feel guilty. They think that their wives and girlfriends might think they are monsters because they killed kids in Iraq. The article also says that US troops have to remember that not all kids are soldiers. There is the chance that US soldiers will just start killing any kids they see because they will think they are going to kill them.Next I am goind to reserch chlidern in afganistan