US defends detention of children in Iraq

Source: AFP

GENEVA (AFP) - The United States on Wednesday defended its detention of around 500 minors in Iraq, saying it had developed an "extensively robust" programme to meet the special needs of child combatants.

"The US does detain juveniles that are encountered on the battlefield," said Sandra Hodgkinson, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Defense.

"We go to great lengths when we do detain juveniles to recognise the special needs of the juvenile population and to provide them with a safe environment away from hostilities," she told journalists.

...

She said it was US policy to aim to detain minors for only one year, and that the military authorities had set up an "extensively robust" programme along with the Iraqi government to meet the detainees' educational and social needs.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080521/wl_mideast_afp/unusiraqprisonchildren_080521131319

what have we become, I see visions of Hitler's Nazi Regime.

electrodes to singe their balls instead of the full sized adult ones. And the waterboarding tubs have pictures of their favourite cartoons on them." - U.S. Government.

WTF is up with that??? Have we no shame? Oh how I hate what the Bush Crime Family has done to our once proud nation. Impeach, indict, imprison!!!

http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/apr/cs0419.htm

Has HRW responded to the conditions these Iraqi kids are kept under?



The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers works to prevent the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, to secure their demobilisation and to ensure their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.


http://www.child-soldiers.org/home

100 widows

300 orphans


How shameful

besides begging, I'm not sure what these kids do to bring home the bacon



http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5e4_1211324050

you can't see children doing jobs ?

or the clothes you buy at Wal-Mart for the wage that equals a bowl of rice per day just to keep them alive but
these Iraqi's are coerced in different ways aimed at ending their lives when they are fitted into designer vests.


Iraqi army: 6 teens trained as suicide bombers

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi military on Monday displayed a group of weeping teenagers who said they had been forced into training for suicide bombings by a Saudi militant in the last urban stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq.

snip

"The Saudi insurgent threatened to rape our mothers and sisters, destroy our houses and kill our fathers if we did not cooperate with him," one of the youths, who were not identified, told reporters in Mosul, where security forces are cracking down on al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents.

Iraqi soldiers acting on tips found the youths, who ranged in age from 14 to 18, in the basement of an abandoned house on Monday after the Saudi militant who was training them was killed in military operations last week, deputy Interior Minister Kamal Ali Hussein said.


In April, the U.N. said rising numbers of Iraqi youths have been recruited into militias and insurgent groups, including some serving as suicide bombers. It called them "silent victims of the continued violence."

snip
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Many of the parents beg to have their kids kept in US custody so they can safely finish school studies. Those stories are swept and filed categorically into the Abu Graib general talking point

But, maybe you feel the religious madrases are the better answer for these youths. Thats ok by me but it's good to see the Iraqi's recognize and are now beginning to "take" kids like these into 'custody'.

on edit;
yes, I'm sure those stories could have been force fed talking point they were instructed to say but when I look into their faces, I see the faces in my neighborhood that play baseball in little leagues.
These boys have been spared a planned June 'graduation' by a Saudi citizen in a scheduled sudden death game.

jmo

I wonder if that CIA guy is still ramming Plastic Flash lights up their rectums

rhetoric.

America; #1 for hypocrisy.

Nothing is apparently beneath us. Nothing.

The United States is not a Christian nation. You heAR that door slamming, that was God going out to lunch and not coming back. Oh, by the way Marine snipers targeted ten year old children in Falluja. They even shot them as their parents were trying to get them into hospitals for treatment. Yes I can say: GOD DAMN AMERICA and rot in HELL.

Perhaps then we could be moral.

I've not seen one good thing happen on this planet in the name of religion.

Not one single solitary thing.

It's all an attempt to control and divide.

There is no morality with respect for all. And that just isn't found in any major religion.

It's about classification and subdivision - not morality.

RELIGION KILLS.

AP: Iraqi military detains 6 boys suspected as bombers
Iraqi officials say six teen aged boys purportedly being trained as suicide bombers have been detained in the northern city of Mosul. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf says the boys are between the ages of 14 and 16.

snip

The U.S. military in northern Iraq said American forces were not involved and had no information about the arrests, referring questions to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

U.S. and Iraqi military commanders claim that al-Qaida in Iraq is increasingly trying to use women and children in attacks to avoid stepped-up security measures. There has been a series of recent suicide bombings by women.



A woman comforts her son Ahmed Ibrahim at a hospital in Fallujah, Iraq, on Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Ahmed was wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a funeral tent in the village of Abu Minasir and killed 22 people and wounded at least 40 people.Police say that funeral was for Taha Obaid, the principle who was shot and killed one day before in his school

Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, is believed to be the insurgent network's last urban stronghold. U.S. and Iraqi forces launch a crackdown there this month.

The Iraqi government is trying to assert control over the country and the Mosul offensive is one of a trio of major operations. The other two are focused on Shiite extremists in Baghdad's Sadr City district and the southern city of Basra.


Iraqi men and Iraqi soldiers flee the site of a roadside bomb after it exploded, in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 26, 2008. A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=AriBq4tTtWr_cZhgTvV6AW9X6GMA

Iraqi's standing up dealing with 16 yr old children.They grow up so fast in certain parts of the world. Things could be worse;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3333359

"Could you be a good little Citizen and go swill some Red Bull and get back to American Idol or various Championship Tournaments currently going on in the Sporting World so that we can go about the business of Freedom?"

Except the wallet of the big oil interests.

Nancy,Steny And the dimwits.Why can't you people impeach that evil clown in the oval office?

freedom fighter clowns scraping the bottom of the barrel?

Jihad Camp for Kids

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d39_1212408799

The "infantry" reserve is due a call up at this rate. I can only imagine what they don't release on the "crusader" internet.
How can anybody honestly see that as proof of winning ?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/31/AR2008053101927.html

:sarcasm:

so they are keeping them incarcerated until they are old-enough to be tried as adults.