Enemy Combatant Children

Nothing may interfere with George W. Bush’s authority to conduct a war, according to former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo.

And Bush deepens America’s shame by doing such a wretched job in the war’s management. This week, the United Nations challenged the administration’s failure to follow the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. As many as 500 child enemy combatants (as young as 11) are being imprisoned in Iraq, right now. There have been reports of abuse and torture. The ACLU blogs:

The UN Committee observed that children detained at U.S.-run facilities in Iraq are treated just as adults are, without distinction demanded by international law requiring special consideration to children, and in some cases these children do not receive health and education services, without competent judicial review.”

As many as 60 kids have been held in Guantanamo according to reports made to the UN. One of them committed suicide at the age of 21, after spending five years in GITMO. (The Pentagon found him to be “innocent” two weeks before he killed himself, but nobody told him that he was going to be released.)

Author David Lindorff believes accountability will come from other nations:

…I do harbor the hope that once Bush has left office, some prosecutor in another country — perhaps Spain, or Canada or Germany — 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.”