Stolen kids turned into terrifying killers

[on-ramp]

Crazy world we're living in.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/index.html

[Jims5543]

Quote: General Zateb Kazim - 2005 Movie called Sahara -

Don't worry. It's Africa. Nobody cares about Africa.

The death toll in Darfur is stagering, and no one cares.

[widebody911]

> The death toll in Darfur is stagering, and no one cares.

Tough noogies; they shoulda lived somewhere with oil under it.

[john70t]

Yeah, who would care about Christians getting slaughtered en-mass by roving Muslim militias anyways....

[masraum]

Well, it all sucks, but at the same time, we can't support the people we have and most of the world is overpopulated.

[DavidI]

This was the theme of the movie "Blood Diamonds."

David

[Jeff Higgins]

O.k., maybe I'm just jaded, but I just read one of the worst tabloid-sensationalist hack-jobs I think I have ever seen from CNN. While I do not doubt there are young people fighting around the world, Ann O'Neill is just way over the top on this one.

...sent into battle with orders to kill.... No *****, Ann.

These children, some as young as 8, become fighters, sex slaves, spies and even human shields. "Some as young as 8". How would you like to be dragging an 8 year old into battle? Oh, and the "sex slaves" part is sure to get the hand-wringers in a snit. Gimme a break.

"I think this is a little bit like the campaign against slavery in the late 19th century," she said. "There's such an abhorrence of it on an international level." There are more slaves in the world today than there were then; she counts on the fact that her audience does not know that. Sounds like slavery has lost out to cute children sex slaves with guns and orders to kill, at least with this crowd.

"Children" is a heartwrenching label to put on young people caught up in anything like this. I have grown leery of the term, however. I still remember HCI's statistics concerning the number of "children" killed by handguns in this country. The included "children" up to the age of 21, and the vast majority of deaths used to bolster their numbers were in the 18-21 bracket. I suspect Ann's sources' numbers are similarly inflated.

While I do not doubt at least some of this takes place, one should be cautious in reading this kind of sensationalist drivel. Generalities like "many", or "some", are miss-used in place of hard numbers by those with an agenda. It's unfortunate that they feel they have to resort to this to draw attention, especially with something as serious as this. The real affect of that brand of reporting is to have most folks just roll their eyes and go on to the next story, writing it off as the shrill ramblings of yet another media dip*****. These young people (as opposed to "children") deserve better.

[Joeaksa]

After spending part of last year in this area of Africa, I found out that unfortunately much of this is true. Met a few of them and heard about a lot more.

These kids were taken and given drugs and guns, and turned on other groups of people. Their commanders were in many cases old men of 15 and a lot of sad things happened in the process.

[legion]

This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.

[Brian Cameron]

Originally posted by widebody911
> The death toll in Darfur is stagering, and no one cares.

Tough noogies; they shoulda lived somewhere with oil under it.

Ummm.... you're kidding, right?
http://www.sudantribune.com/mot.php3?id_mot=37