Of the ethicness of Killing Children and its dependence on context.

13 killed? No, I'm fairly certain that's wrong: even in an asymetric war, thirteen kills on average is kinda... And yes, over there you can start a family at 13, and you almost have a mustache- Mustaches are Serious Business over there.

And, yeah, I never implied someone kept count of a score, putting notches in a belt or something. I just meant in terms of, you know, keeping record, or maybe if a soldier was superstitious and thought they were responsible for the souls of their victims or whatever.

I've seen fuckers hand grenades to 6-year-olds. The age limit is whatever the enemy sets it at.

Fuckers is the right word here.

6 year olds? I know we're talking about terrorists here but I didn't think they would stoop that low.

I'm sorry, what does being illegal combatants have to do with fielding children? Governments do that too, you know?

Generally, though, it's a refuge of those without a sufficient budget (or authority) to field a properly trained and equipped army. Since terrorist groups tend to have less cash and other resources available to them than a national government, they're a bit more likely to use child soldiers.

edited 4th Jan '11 7:05:14 AM by Iaculus

Platitude of the day: This sitch is fucked up.

Well, yes.

Toy Soldiers are nothing new. It's actually a favored recruiting tactic outside the old blocs. (Africa especially)

... Given the child surplus they have there I can see how it is societally functional.

This is the most cynical thing I have seen in ages.

No, 13 as a baseline age for child insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No, Joey, 13 is not almost an adult, at least not to me. I kind of consider 20-24 to be the ages where people become actual adults, and the time before that is the Teenage years and some trial and error.

There's really not a child surplus. Almost every developed society is short on children.

But if you lived in a society with a serious child surplus and there's a cause worth dying for, there's nothing wrong with using children. If my country was occupied by a force I was willing to die to expel, I wouldn't hesitate at all to strap bombs on children.

13 year olds are certainly still children, except if they've had bar mitzvah, in the eyes of the Jewish community.*

A 6 year old with a grenade is still a guy with a grenade, no matter how you look at it.

^Damn, and you guys think I'm gung ho.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:11:48 AM by Scrye

^^ I wouldn't. Strapping bombs to kids is militarily stupid, ethically heinous, and worse it's prone to backfiring into massive civilian reprisals.

Instead I'd be training kids in that situation to be experts on guerrilla warfare and the nature of armed conflict. Shoot quickly and accurately, know when to advance, when to run after a strike, know how to disable armored vehicles or plant traps. Those sorts of things.

Suicide bombing is a coward's tactic, one that deserves nothing but scorn, hatred and an iron-fisted response.

Why is it more cowardly than hit-and-run tactics? I don't get it.

Suicide bombing tactics predominately strike civilians. It's been the same from Africa to Israel and the Middle East to Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and more.

Hit and run guerrilla tactics are often employed against military targets.

Which do you think is the more cowardly? Hitting civvies? Or hitting infantry?

I was thinking of suicide bombing against the military. Suicide bombing against civilians strikes me more as nonsense than cowardly. What's the point?

Ask the Taliban and Al-Qaeda

^^ In case you haven't paid attention, suicide bombing attacks are ridiculously ineffective against military targets. Security checkpoints and technology, multiple armed personnel and the fact you have countermeasures against such things being employed now renders the suicide bomb as worthless for attacking military targets.

How many times did someone try to ram a car bomb through a US military checkpoint in Iraq only to get hosed down before he could detonate? Several thousand times last I counted.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:23:45 AM by MajorTom

America is essentially losing, going to lose, or already lost its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So these suicide bombers, despite their vile intentions, are using fairly successful tactics.

The success rate for a suicide bombing against civilian targets is much better than against military targets, since military personnel are generally trained to watch out for and counter/incapacitated suicide bombers before they can get you. Civilians really have nothing they can do against em.

Ninja'd by Major Tom.

^Not quite. The fact that the Taliban is showing more and more desperate measures and even peace talks shows that we have them running scared or holding out for a last stand. The US has already pulled out of Iraq and did what we wanted to do (set up a new government and oust Saddam.) Doesn't really sound like losing to me.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:31:25 AM by Scrye

^^ Dude. We won in Iraq. The Bush-Maliki Security Pact of 2008 secured our victory since Iraq could then take over its own security. Most of the few remaining US troops there are sitting on their hands compared to what's going on in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan itself is not an inevitable loss. Far from it in fact. (And we all know the drawdown date foolishly set for this year by Obama won't be met. Anybody with a brain can see that.)

edited 4th Jan '11 8:26:05 AM by MajorTom

Exactly how did you reach that conclusion?

edited 4th Jan '11 8:26:14 AM by Kino

Several thousand?

...

What, information doesn't circulate among these people? Haven't they ever heard of dragsters?

America is spiritually incapable, like most of the West, of winning prolonged wars. It's just inherent in the culture now. History confirms such. America hasn't won a prolonged war (which excludes Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, etc.) since Korea, so WW 2 is probably to blame. And in Korea, the Western nations were essentially fought to a stalemate by an outnumbered, vastly outarmed (10-1 at least), out-firepowered, out-supplied, out-everything'd unpopular foreign army, so that's hardly something to celebrate.

Results in Iraq and Afghanistan today are no exception. There's no way the government of Iraq will survive sectarian pressures after the US withdraws in defeat. America has already lost, it's just seeking the least ignominious defeat now. Afghanistan is pretty much a bleeding ulcer for the West now, as it has been for centuries. The government is corrupt and failing and honestly, the only reason troops are still there is to quarantine the Islamist tide from nuclear-armed Pakistan (mixed success there).

To win a "social war" (where social/cultural/religious institutions are seriously reshaped), would literally require an entire generation of conflict. I mean, these wars are obviously winnabe, the US pretty much wins every battle it ever fights. But a generation of conflict is something that almost no Western nation is willing to swallow these days.

edited 4th Jan '11 8:36:54 AM by Tsukubus