Bush's War on Children in Iraq

By DAVE LINDORFF

Surely nothing that President Bush has done in his two wretched terms of officeâ??not the invasion and destruction of Iraq, not the overturning of the five-centuries-old tradition of habeas corpus, not his authorization and encouragement of torture, not his campaign of domestic spyingâ??nothing, can compare in its ugliness as his approval, as commander in chief, of the imprisoning of over 2500 children.

According to the US governmentâ??s own figures, that is how many kids 17 years and younger have been held since 2001 as â??enemy combatantsâ?�â??often for over a year, and sometimes for over five years. At least eight of those children, some reportedly as young as 10, were held at Guantanamo. They even had a special camp for them there: Camp Iguana. One of those kids committed suicide at the age of 21, after spending five years in confinement at Guantanamo. (Ironically and tragically, that particular victim of the presidentâ??s criminal policy, had been determined by the Pentagon to have been innocent only two weeks before he took his own life, but nobody bothered to tell him he was slated for release and a return home to Afghanistan.)

I say Bushâ??s behavior is criminal because since 1949, under the Geneva Conventions signed and adopted by the US, and incorporated into US law under the Constitutionâ??s supremacy clause, children under the age of 15 are classed as â??protected persons,â?� and even if captured while fighting against US forces are to be considered victims, not POWs. In 2002, the Bush administration signed an updated version of that treaty, raising the â??protected personâ?� age to all those â??under 18.â?�

Treaties donâ??t mean much to this president, to the vice president, or to the rest of the administration, but they should mean something to the rest of us.

But capturing and imprisoning children isnâ??t even the worst of this presidentâ??s war crimes when it comes to the abuse of the young. Under Bushâ??s leadership as commander in chief, the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan has been considering any male child in Iraq of age 14 or older to be a potential combatant. They have been treated accordinglyâ??shot by US troops, imprisoned as â??enemy combatants,â?� and subjected to torture.

In the 2004 assault by US Marines on the city of Fallujah, things were even worse. Dexter Filkins, a reporter for the New York Times, reported that before that invasion, some 20,000 Marines encircled the doomed city, which the White House had decided to level because it harbored a bunch of insurgents and had angered the American public by capturing, killing and mutilating the bodies of four mercenaries working for US forces. The residents of the 300,000-population city were warned of the coming all-out attack. Women and children and old people were allowed to flee the city and pass through the cordon of troops. But Filkins reported that males determined to be â??of combat age,â?� which in this case was established as 12 and up, were barred from leaving, and sent back into the city to await their fate. Young boys were ripped from their screaming mothers and sent trudging back to the city to face death.

In the ensuing slaughter, as the US dumped bombs, napalm, phosphorus, anti-personnel fragmentation weapons and an unimaginable quantity of machine gun and small arms fire on the city, it is clear that many of those young boys died.

This was a triple war crime. First of all, it was a case of collective punishmentâ??a practice popular with the Nazis in World War II, and barred by the Geneva Conventions. The international laws of war also guarantees the right of surrender, so those men and boys who tried to leave, even if suspected of being enemy fighters, should have been allowed to surrender and be held as captives until their loyalties could be established. The boys, meanwhile, were â??protected personsâ?� who were by law to be treated as victims of war, and protected from harm.

Instead they were treated as the enemy, to be destroyed.

For these crimes, the president should today be impeached by the Congress and then tried as a war criminal.

After watching this Congress cower from its responsibility to defend the Constitution, I have little hope of that happening. But I do harbor the hope that once Bush has left office, some prosecutor in another countryâ??perhaps Spain, or Canada or Germanyâ??will use the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to indict him for war crimes, and, should he leave the country for some lucrative speaking engagement, arrest him, the way former dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested by a Spanish prosecutor on a visit to the UK.

For his abuse, imprisonment and killing of children, this president should stand trial for war crimes.

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is â??The Case for Impeachmentâ?� (St. Martinâ??s Press, 2006 and now in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening

Another war crime to add to bushs resume..

"But Filkins reported that males determined to be â??of combat age,â?� which in this case was established as 12 and up, were barred from leaving, and sent back into the city to await their fate. Young boys were ripped from their screaming mothers and sent trudging back to the city to face death."

Bullshit! The head of Al-Quada Iraq actually escaped from there during the evacuation and I'm sure he didn't look younger than 12. I just love the left wing spin from some of these so called journalists.

Have a good one!:s4:

He may of escaped but alot of others including children didnt

I agree; they called them human shields. Killing their own....how nice. And what are the troops suppose to do if they enter a building and an eleven year old is standing there pointing a weapon at them?

You have to admit that this article is a heaping helping of left wing b.s. .:wtf:

Have a good one!:s4:

Well it doesnt help that children were not allowed to leave before hand.I also saw the same story on 60 minutes a couple of years ago.

WHY IS THIS THREAD TITLED "BUSH'S WAR ON CHILDREN"?????????


Do you not recall a vote to go to war in the first place??

or do you also think Bush caused hurricane katrina, because he hates black people??

Honestly, when you look to past wars, America is clearly being as humane as possible with very low "collateral damage"

and if a 15 year old is willing to become a suicide bomber then i say "DETAIN HE/SHE" so as to prevent the loss of human life.

basically what it all boils down to is... If we didn't have any respect for human rights and wanted iraqs oil or whatever else Bush's evil plot you think may exist...I ask you to recall only one thing.......IF WE WANTED THESE THINGS YOU SPEAK OF WE WOULD NUKE THE ENTIRE REGION, TURN THE DESERT SANDS TO GLASS AND TAKE OVER THE OIL PRODUCTION.....

Fortunately for the people who live in the middle east, America actually cares about your individual freedoms so we tried a more strategic approach........lucky for you we are actually a "Superpower" that cares............:stoned:

A trench with piles of clothed bodies packed tightly together. Men, women, little children. Even unborn children. Some blindfolded. Some with their hands bound. All slaughtered in cold blood by the henchmen of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (search).

All of this horror was discovered in another mass grave in the desert wasteland of northwestern Iraq, near the town of Hatra. It was discovered a year ago, and only now is it being carefully and scientifically excavated by the Regime Crimes Liaison Office (search). This agency, part of the U.S. Justice Department, is working with the Iraqi interim government to map out the horrors of the Hussein past.

"Iâ??ve never seen women and children executed, defenseless people executed in this fashion," he said. "I mean, you look at a young woman holding her 2-year-old child with a gunshot wound to the back of the head. I canâ??t find any reason to justify that."

When I saw the images I could only think back to Hilla, a town south of Baghdad where I went in the spring of 2003, just after the fall of Saddam. A mass grave of Iraqi Shiites was discovered there.

I will never forget it for as long as I live. Thousands of bodies. Thousands of families swarming over piles of clothing and flesh. Earth-moving equipment digging through the raw humanity. Digging up the past.
FOXNews.com - Reporter's Notebook: Saddam's 'Killing Field' - U.S. & World

THIS was a war on children, mothers, fathers, etc... This so called journalist really needs to get a grip on the reality of Iraqs history.

Have a good one!:s4:

IDG420 if you nuke the entire area how the hell are you going to get the oil out??With robots ???