Iraq's Junior Mujahedeen
ABC News and the U.S. Military released footage discovered in a recent raid. The disturbing video depicted young boys being trained in the guerilla tactics of al-Qaida in Iraq. These masked, armed children conducted training exercises, executed checkpoints, and even raided a home. I was interviewed for background on this story because this is the situation that many of us have seen coming, and have been advocates for change.
A year ago, Newsweek featured a young boy brandishing an AK-47 on its cover for the story on "Iraq's Young Blood."). In this article, I warned that the millions of disengaged, out of school children in Iraq have created a fertile recruiting ground for extremists groups. After my service as a Captain in the Army's 1st Armored Division, I returned to Baghdad to attempt to address these haunting problems:
o 40% of Iraq's 25 million people are under 14 years old and 61% are under 25 years old, compared to the US where less than 35 % are under 25 years.
o Iraq's Ministry of Education estimates that only 30% of the 3.5 million Iraqi elementary-age kids are attending school now, down from 75%, as hundreds of teachers and students were killed in the sectarian violence.
o Billions of dollars are being on reconstruction, but very little, if any money is focused on youth development.
In Iraq, 12- to 15-year-olds are being paid less than $3 a day to build roadside bombs in places like Sadr City. Children are being used as look-outs and trigger men for insurgent attacks. Iraq's children are being trained in military tactics instead of being trained to rebuild their culture and society.
I decided to run for Congress after working in Washington for over two years developing real solutions like work/study programs and crafting an international youth policy to bring these issues to Capitol Hill and the State Department. Unfortunately, Washington didn't listen to our pleas.
Washington's broken politics have led to a serious deterioration of our national security and led to the situation in the Middle East where 10-years-olds are being trained as the junior mujahadeen. This continued short-sighted vision fails to see the long-term consequences of our policies that are creating a generation of young men and women who are being trained to hate America.
We had an opportunity to engage Iraq's children in programs of positive development which would enable millions of young people to be a part of a prospering society. Poor post-invasion planning and execution wasted that opportunity. Now, instead of training the future of Iraq to use tools to rebuild their country, they are being trained to use weapons to destroy it.
If this does not change we will be fighting these children-turned-adults for generations to come. The cycle of war will continue unabated.
The 2008 election represents an opportunity to change this cycle of destruction by supporting candidates who will work to reform how we approach our national security.
Iraqi youth face a monumental challenge in the months and years and decades to come, as they strive to overcome a shared childhood plagued by violence. Along the way, they will face numerous decisions about where to place their allegiance as their country struggles to rebuild itself after decades of tyranny and now occupation. Extremists have a head start in recruiting Iraq's future generations to be part of the current struggle, but it is not too late to alter history. The future of Iraq, and of the region, and of our country depends to a large degree on the opportunities that young men and women will have to help shape their country's development.
As an Iraq war veteran, I have seen firsthand the consequences of our failed approach to national security and I pledge to you that I will reform it. I will work to develop a thorough, well-structured plan to engage the millions of young people in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, and work to give them the tools to rebuild their county instead of the weapons to destroy it.
Join me to help bring real change and leadership to Washington.
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The tape showing those "terrorist" kids was produced by an Iraqi advertising firm, who were not told to keep it secret. The civilains of alRashidiya (were it was filmed) were kept away by the Iraqi army (death squad) and the Iraqi police (death squad).
The eye wittness are in the hundreds, they thought a typical anti-terrorist ad was being filmed, and amazed at how it is now being shown on their TV screens :)
The main promoter of this tape in the Arab media is the Saud's "al-Arabia" news channel, Arabic Foxnews - alJazeera will have a lot of fun with this one I hope :)
The Arabic link, and I'm sure it'll be translated soon:
http://www
I am not surprised. Al Qaeda does not recruit this way. The people they recruit have no DVD players or VCRs.
And we know what the Military Industrial Complex propaganda machine is capable of.
I'm sorry, Jon, but the problem is the US military being there and occupying their country to protect the greedy old white guy's money. As desmirl said, the problem is our corrupt administration and aberrant behavior, racial and ethnic bigotry towards people who are different from the European Americans. The attitude of our so called leaders that they can fuck up anyone, including most of us Americans, results in untold misery all over the world.
Until we, as a nation, get it through our thick skulls to stop meddling in the affairs of everyone else in the world, until we realize that a lot of what drives our abberant behavior is racial and ethnic bigotry - we are going to continue to create enemies who are willing to give their lives if they can strike a blow against our ruthless and aggressive exploitation of other nations' resources.
Could not have said it better myself.
Thanks for stating what I was thinking clearly. :)
Ultimately its about the military-industrial complex. They are essentially many intertwined corporations. A machine. Their purpose is to make money off of war and in order to have endless war you have to have endless warriors spilling blood. I doubt any one who is elected (Congress or Prez) will TRULY take Eisenhower's warning of the MIC to heart and start reigning in these bastards!
The youth programs sound like a good idea, but the larger problem if properly addressed will go along ways towards solving the "youth" problem.
Next person who runs on the tiresome "Washington's broken politics, but I will fix it" slogan should be tarred and feathered and ran out of town.
Nice post Jon, I'm going to check out your campaign.
My 2 cents - "al Qaeda in Iraq" is a VERY small percentage of the overall insurgency, all of them only came in AFTER the invasion because we presented them a target.
Thom is right that the bulk of the people trying to kill us are disenfranchised Sunnis and Shi'a. However, I'm not sure it's fair to rap Jon for perpetuating the Bush talking points - the video deals specifically with "al Qaeda", so that's what he posted on. Just doing a quick google of Jon and his campaign it seems he has much deeper understanding of the issues there, particularly from the perspective of someone on the ground before and after the war.
But whatever, central point is that we're perpetuating and encouraging the violence with our continued (infinite) presence there.
Jon, if you're checking comments, I imagine you're in favor of getting our troops out, but what presence do you think we should have in Iraq and the region in the longer term? Do we have interests their beyond oil? And as someone who's worked with the children there, do we have an obligation to future generations of Iraqis since we've totally f'ed their country?
This might help:
http://www
Beautiful people. All of them.
Why are people surprised that young people are being prepared for a war that obviously has no end in sight? The protraction of this occupation is the only goal. That's why the surge is a success. Mccane has sald 100 yrs. is fine. What would you have your children and grandchildren do if you were an Iraqi? Have everyone stay home and hide? When a hint that your home is an al quaida hangout will bring a bomb through your roof and kill your whole family? No, you start training them to take back your country. When they reach age, you have them sign up to be trained by Americans so that they understand American tactics and can be more successful in their insugency. How can we possibly believe that they will have allegiance to our occupation when we are killing their families. They are lions in the grass and we are teaching them how to kill us. George bush has made us all as stupid as he.
If an empire invaded your country, set up a puppet government, killed your father, imprisoned and tortured your brother, ridiculed your customs and heritage and bombed your neighborhood for your entire childhood, all under the pretense of bringing you 'freedom and democracy', do you really believe that some 'youth development' would change your attitude????
Also...
Why isn't anyone willing to define who 'al Qaeda in Iraq' really is? They are primarily poor Sunnis who want to end the U.S. occupation but don't want to go back to living under the subjugation of the Saddam era elite.
The 'Awakening Councils' and, lol, 'Concerned Local Citizens' are primarily the former Bathists we are now bribing to go after the poor Sunnis who 'overplayed' their hand!!!!
The Mahdi army (poor Shiites) and 'al Qaeda in Iraq' are battling not only the United States but also the collaborators i.e. the predominately Shiite government and other Iraqis willing sell out their country for money and/or the illusion of power.
Interesting that the terrorists found the money to do the recruiting but we didn't, we're too busy giving it away to corporations as tax breaks and the crumbs (ie the $600 rebate) to taxpayers TO SPEND SPEND SPEND at our own peril when ya think about it.
Alas, this otherwise excellent post helps perpetuate the myth that ‘the enemy’ in Iraq is al Qaeda, a lie George Bush touted once again in his SOTU: “We are defeating the enemy in Iraq! We have al Qaeda on the run!”
But how can al Qaeda be ‘the enemy’, when it accounts for less than 10% of the attacks killing our troops? Over 90% of those attacks are wrought by Iraqi guerillas who are not part of ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’, much less Osama’s al Qaeda.
It is important to quash this myth. Calling the enemy in Iraq al Qaeda obscures the fact that our presence there is a military occupation much despised by the populace---so much so that the respected PIPA poll found 92% of Sunnis and 62% of Shias actually in favor of the violence directed at US forces.
As Sen. Dodd pointed out, the local people know where the IEDs killing our troops are planted. They don’t warn us because they approve of that killing---that’s how badly they want us out.
We are impatient that the Iraqi Sunnis and Shias can’t seem to agree on anything. But they are agreed on one thing: they want our military out.
So the main enemy in Iraq is not, as Bush would have us believe, ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’, which numbers a few hundred fanatics, mostly foreigners, accounting for less than 10% of our casualties.
The main enemy we are fighting in Iraq is the Iraqi people themselves.
Time we got out.
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