Child Bombers in Iraq. Our Fault or Theirs?

Radhika Coomaraswamy, a UN special representative has reported that insurgent groups in Iraq are recruiting children as suicide bombers. It doesn't surprise me one bit. Children are always exploited in peace as well as war. They are exploited because they are innocent and trusting. And as a species, we destroy the innocent and the trusting and for the smallest and pettiest of reasons sometimes.

Fact is that in conflict, children are used by the weaker side for a number of reasons I would imagine. Firstly I would imagine that a child is going to be scrutinised less by the enemy than a man in his late teens or twenties. Secondly, from a propaganda point of view, it always looks bad at home and to its supporters for a dominant or occupying force to be seen arresting or killing children. Lastly of course children if they are brought up well will respect their elders. To a certain extent they will believe what they are told by them and they will also probably do as they are told by them. Sick!

However before we all feel good about ourselves and revel in disgust at the people who do this to children, I think that I should mention a bit of an uncomfortable fact. This is just as much our fault as it is theirs. We invaded them. We upset their way of life. We were told we were doing it for one reason and when that reason failed to materialise, we were given another reason and we have more or less accepted it.

Sure, a few of us jumped up and down a little when it happened, less of us continued to jump when the lies were uncovered, but now it almost seems as if we have come to accept it and that is why we are as much to blame as anyone. Ask anyone in the street what their biggest worry at the end of the fourth month of 2008 is and they will give you any other answer than the war in Iraq of Afghanistan unless they have friends or relatives out there. In fact between Ross Kemp and Harry the whole thing has been turned into some kind of bloody adventure. It upsets me, no enrages me because as a nation we are more worried about house prices, petrol shortages and which dodgy second rate politician will be the mayor of London at the end of next week than we are in the suffering of the children of Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, South America, Asia or even here in the UK. Yes here in the UK!!! We might not be sending our kids to military checkpoints or targets strapped with bombs but we are allowing them to drink, take drugs and carry weapons that can kill as quickly as a bomb. Either way there are only a handful of people who are willing to say or do anything

Wake up UK. It's all going wrong and our apathy is the reason. Remember you can't blame the politicians because politicians will get away with what you allow them to get away with.