• Sundial@lemm.ee
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    19 days ago

    No happy child willingly becomes a soldier. They’re recruiting children who have known nothing but violence their entire lives. This is what people mean when they say people are radicalized due to the wars and suffering they’ve endured. Where do you think these militia groups come from? People who are happy and carefree? Or people who have had violence and oppression inflicted on them their whole lives and feel the need to fight back? This isn’t the result of some kind of propaganda campaign like you claim it is. This is people fighting back against systemic oppression and violence they’ve been enduring for decades.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      19 days ago

      No child, happy or otherwise, legally becomes a soldier.

      https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/

      “Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Parties to conflict that recruit and use children are listed by the Secretary-General in the annexes of his annual report on children and armed conflict.”

      • Sundial@lemm.ee
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        19 days ago

        You’re not saying anything wrong. You’ll get no argument from me if you say child soldiers are bad.You’re just sidestepping my point. Which is that the existence of child soldiers is due to the inhumane conditions foreign powers like the US have created in that part of the world.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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          19 days ago

          No, the existence of child soldiers is due to illegal indoctrination and recruitment efforts. That’s the entire purpose of thoe Jihadi “schools” run by the Houthi.

          https://www.memri.org/reports/houthi-summer-camps-children-teach-jihad-sake-allah-hatred-west

          https://sanaacenter.org/ypf/curriculum-changes-to-mold-the-jihadis-of-tomorrow/

          Kids aren’t signing up for this, they’re bullied and brainwashed into it, and any legitimate military force would reject them.

          • Sundial@lemm.ee
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            19 days ago

            The Houthis, and their hatred of the US, didn’t come from nowhere. They were part of a repressed minority by the President of Yemen at the time, who was sympathetic to the US. The group began to really take shape after their leader they are named after was assassinated for protesting. This led to the Yemeni revolution in 2012 and the civil war as well. And Saudi Arabia is attacking them with the blessing from the US and their weapons simply because their politics don’t align with them. It’s a startling parallel for why Iran also hates the US, and so many other developing nations. Yes, child soldiers and indoctrination is bad. And I’ll agree with that until I’m blue in the face. This is a cycle of violence perpetuated by nations that have more than enough on nations that have barely anything simply because they want to. And it’s been going on for decades.