Reports of ISIS training children, some appearing to be as young as 10. They are being called "Caliphate Cubs," an Islamic terrorist's twisted version of Cub Scouts (the Boy Scout program for elementary School Boys from 1-4 grade). ISIS has even been bragging about this. It starts with heavy religious indoctrination, drilling on Shari'a law and Koranic verses. It then proceeds to military training: assembling and disassembling their weapons, firing their weapons, and making explosives. This sounds like boot camp minus the explosives making and religious component. But then it gets really bad. The next and last lesson is on how to carry out beheadings, practiced on dolls, and they are forced to watch multiple beheadings as to get rid of any fear or discomfort. Then they are sent to the front lines as human shields, suicide bombers, and manning checkpoints. Sadly, kids are impressionable and this has a big effect on their views. There is little evidence and insight as to whether the children are being forced to go as it isn't required.
In WWII, when Allied forces encountered children being forced into action in Nazi Germany near the end of the war, this turned out to be a major moral dilemma for many servicemen. After all, a child can still cause a lot of death and destruction, but then again he is still a child. What do you think the US and Coalition response should be? And if we do in fact end up with boots on the ground, should there be rules of engagement when encountering child soldiers, or should our troops be allowed to determine what to do in order to ensure the safety of their comrades?
Child soldiers are used throughout the under developed world, and its sad to see children forced to do such horrible acts and to be taught to hate. I think if a soldier comes across a child soldier he should try to avoid confrontation, at least lethal confrontation, but at the end of the day it is going to have to be a judgement call by the soldier. Hopefully, we can get as many of these kids into reintegration programs as we can.
When my father was growing up in Pakistan, the Soviet Union was invading Afghanistan to the north. He told me when he was in high school, he could get extra credit if he took a seminar type class on how to clean, build, and fire a Kalashnikov rifle. He didn't take it, he considered himself to civilized, but he says he was the only person who didn't take the class out of all his friends.
This is a tricky question, because like you said, these are still children at the end of the day. The worst part is, they are not even fully aware of what they are doing, because they have been so brainwashed by ISIS. I do think their should be a different policy when encountering child soldiers. I feel that when soldiers run into these children, they should not be shooting to kill, as they are just children. I also think that if the soldiers are captured and they are under a certain age, they should turned over to a special branch of child protective services that are trained to deal with these deadly kids, but also are willing to give them the help they need.
The saddest part to me is that they are twisting religion to give these boys incentive to join. And from there are using the children as though they are expendable. At the end of the day, they are just children.
The very essence of child soldiers disgusts me. I'm going to skip a lot of my rant to focus on the one true aspect that could stop all of this. Education is the answer. If the people running ISIS and the children being used by them had access to education, none of this would have happened. Education would bring structure and balance to the lives of, what I am assuming are, these boys and men. It would bring equal rights for women into the picture as well. There would not be some maniac running around the mid-east using child soldiers who have been brain washed. Education man, it is the answer to so many of these problems we have in the world today.
Those are hard questions to answer due to the fact that these soldiers are children. If we do end up with boots on the ground, I hate to say that we should put our own safety above theirs, especially if these children working for ISIS will open fire. However, I'd rather see us taking the children as prisoners and giving them the help and education that they need. I hate how certain militant groups brainwash children and use them to carry out such horrible deeds. These things are truly tragic.
i think should they encounter a child soldier they should try and keep the situation as safe as possible, they should defend themselves as much as they need to but do everything they can not to harm the child. it's truly sad that these young kids are being brainwashed into doing these horrible things but honestly i dont know what we could to try and free them.
