Incidentally to borrow from Dr.Savage, the enemy is lucky the British have not started to deploy the soccer fans. Wars would be over to fast then
They like 20 against 1 of them odds, and they come unarmed and are feared...
anywho
Posted on 02/03/2007 4:34:10 AM PST by Flavius
LONDON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The British Ministry of Defense has acknowledged that at least 15 17-year-old soldiers have been deployed to Iraq, violating a United Nations protocol.
Four of the teenagers were female, The Scotsman reported.
Britain signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict in 2003 -- the year it joined the coalition invading Iraq. Under the protocol, no one under 18 should be deployed in combat unless there are exceptional circumstances.
"Unfortunately, these processes are not infallible and the pressures on units prior to deployment have meant that there has been a small number of instances where soldiers have been inadvertently deployed to Iraq before their 18th birthday," the ministry said in a statement.
Teenagers, especially 16- and 17-year-olds have become a major source of recruits for the Army. More than half of those who joined last year were under 18.
Incidentally to borrow from Dr.Savage, the enemy is lucky the British have not started to deploy the soccer fans. Wars would be over to fast then
They like 20 against 1 of them odds, and they come unarmed and are feared...
anywho
"Britain signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict in 2003 -- the year it joined the coalition invading Iraq. Under the protocol, no one under 18 should be deployed in combat unless there are exceptional circumstances."
Since it is optional, no harm done...
ping...
Young men, dedicated to the cause and properly led, make good soldiers.
It is the same with the British military. Midshipmen in the British Navy in the old days were often barely pubescent. They assisted and often engaged in combat operations.In this way, great soldiers and leaders are created.
I do not believe that the assigning of 17 years olds to combat is predefined as wrong.
I was wearing a cadet uniform when I was 14 years of age, and would not trade that experoience for any thing. There are millions like me in the USA, and thankfully so.
The UN seeks to brand a free society, which is empowered by patriots, with the same tools as they used for the Khmer Rouge, which used mindless masses of armed children to perpetrate terror and tyranny.
Britain should not take THAT without a livid, pointed response to our whacko UN misanthrops, who themselves in majority go to bed with Islamofascists and tyrants who cannnot, or willfully do not separate the youthful, trained patriots of a free society from the use of children as mindless killers and genocidal lunatics.
To all but the liberal whackos among us, there is a significant difference.
"kids" that volunteer at 17 to face incoming bullets, are worth more then battalions of politicians and administration clerks
As long their parents gave their consent, the UN should keep their mouths shut.
In the US, a 17-year-old can join any branch of the Armed Forces with their parents' consent. They just do their basic training in the summer between their junior and senior years in high school, and then they do their technical training (AIT, tech school, whatever you want to call it) after they graduate from high school.
War, if nothing else, is definitely a young man's game. The physical strain, the carnage, the mental and emotional limits of human endurance, are better handled by 16-19 year olds who are remarkably resilient. A teenager believes himself to be invincible, thus they make a better soldier. Also, a teenager is willing to take more chances than an older soldier.
Yawn.
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,111735,00.html
http://www.vmi.edu/archives/Adams_Center/ArgenzioJL/ArgenzioJL_intro.asp
But imagine what would happen if a 17-year-old girl got captured by the Mahometan fiends. This is not good strategic thinking on the part of the Ministry of Defence.
-ccm
I was 17 when I enlisted during 'nam, so what?
As the UN is SOOOOO concerned with "youth" (teenagers in combat), then they need to express their outrage at the gang-bangers in South-Central LA, and all the other cities across not only the US, but the World where gangs rule the streets - and fight it out regularly...
After all - they are "combatants" as well....
And I have been waiting for several years now for someone - ANYONE to explain what direct benefit the US gets from being a member of the UN and dishing out the billions of dollars we give them.
I have yet to see a "humanitarian" mission by the UN that could not have been handled more efficiently and less expensively than we could have done it on our own. I have yet to see any sort of "peacekeeping" mission that has ever been REALLY successful anywhere that wasn't already stabilized or could have been easily without the UN...
So what is the real purpose?
When I was growing up, my grandfather used to love to tell stories about how he lied about his age and got away with it to fight in WWII.
You bet!
Those "kids" are heros and the foundation of the republic. Bless them all!
LOL! at the UN, who thinks that on their 18th birthday, something magical happens to a young man or woman that immediately lessens the value of his or her life.
ALL of our young men and women are precious to us, and we're proud of them if they choose to serve their country in the armed forces!
I fart in the direction of Turtle Bay...even if it is out of range.
5.56mm
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