You Can't Shame the Shameless

I want to go back briefly and finish talking about child soldiers because I finally got back to reading that book I saw on the plane my first day on the job. Remember P.W. Singer’s book, Children at War? I finished that and then dug into more of his writing on the subject.
(Incidentally, all of Singer’s articles are all available on his page at the Brookings Institution Website.)
Anyway…after reading his book and this article, I am convinced that the Agency belongs on the shameful list of international criminals who use children in battle and our motives and behavior are strikingly similar.

One similarity is that the paramilitary groups mentioned in the book like Rwandan war lords, the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, and the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka to name a few, recruit abandoned and orphaned children who have no adult protection. The Tamil Tigers, whose 26 year long civil struggle recently came to a halt, had a bonanza of new recruits just after the tsunami decimated the coast of Sri Lanka, There were many homeless orphaned children who were welcomed into the children's army to fight and die for a cause they did not understand.

We all select our victims the same way hyenas do--we look for the sick, the helpless and the young. The Agency has spotters in many hospitals across Italy and when a young girl is admitted who has no family or no money, we swoop in and offer "to help."

Henrietta, for example, was a victim of home invasion where the robbers weren't content to just take property. They spent a few days torturing and killing the entire family. Henrietta was left for dead with extensive physical and mental trauma from her ordeal.

Angie, another of our cyborgs, was the victim of a near-fatal car accident. The most tragic detail of her story was that her parents were driving the car that hit her and astonishingly, it was no accident. Her father's business was about to fail and to raise some fast cash, he deliberately set out to kill her in order to collect on her life insurance policy.

Triella, our oldest cyborg was "rescued" from a gang of child traffickers in Amsterdam. Hillshire, her handler was part of the police team that broke up the gang and brought them to justice.

Rico was born paralyzed and had been bed-ridden her entire life. Her parents' resources and patience with caring for her were exhausted so they signed her over as a ward of the state. At that point the Agency stepped in to help.

I see now that even as adults, Jean's and my own recruitment happened partly because we were vulnerable after our parents, sister and Jean's fiancee were killed by a terrorist car bomb. We, too, were orphans.

Another similarity is that we choose children because, as Dr Bianchi says, the young mind is plastic and easy to manipulate and they learn fast. We take advantage of the natural child/parent bond and the younger ones develop fierce loyalties to their handlers. Dependent children can be easily conditioned to obey and if they are stubborn, because they are small they can be forced. One Rwandan handler bragged that he could train a child to use a light weight Kalashnikov in 30 minutes. His army of children needed no basic training, no expensive uniforms, and no big food bills. He just needed a strong supply of orphans as cannon fodder and the conflict could go on indefinitely.

There are 300,000 child soldiers in the world today in more than 70 military organizations in 19 countries. Everyone condemns the fact but the practice continues and grows. It seems that no matter how many laws are passed or how many international agencies draft resolutions against such practices, nothing shames us into stopping. Groups who recruit children to kill know very well that they are violating international law and moral codes that have existed for thousands of years and that knowledge is the heart of the problem. They have never been ignorant about whether or not it was ethical or confused about what exactly was allowed under international law. They continue to break the law and stay “off the record” as much as possible.

The biggest challenge of all in ending child soldiering lies in the types of conflicts that employ the young. Children tend to be recruited in long-running civil wars, the kind that simmer for years or even decades, just like our conflict with Padania. Unfortunately, these wars constitute the main form of armed conflict today. Until they stop, the recruitment of children never will.

Those who use child soldiers, and here I include my Agency, and myself are, by definition, willing to ignore and transgress longstanding ethical norms. Those who recruit children, send them into battle, and force them to commit murder are simply unlikely to be persuaded by moral appeals or any kind of rational discourse. As Singer says, “One cannot shame the shameless.”

Last week the 26 year long civil war ended in Sri Lanka, when the leader of the Tamil Tigers was killed. I hope the war will be over for the child soldiers in Sri Lanka the same way I decided the war was over for Henrietta.