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November 28, 2008 at 17:46:37
Pentagon Recruits Kids Under 17, Violating UN Protocol by Sherwood Ross Page 1 of 2 page(s) |
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In violation of its pledge to the United Nations not to recruit children into the military, the Pentagon “regularly target(s) children under 17,” the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) finds. The Pentagon “heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without limits on the age of students they contact,” the ACLU states in a 46-page report titled “Soldiers of Misfortune.” This is in violation of the U.S. Senate's 2002 ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.Pentagon recruiters are enrolling children as young as 14 in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps(JROTC) in 3,000 middle-, junior-, and high schools nationwide, causing about 45 percent of the quarter of million students so enrolled to enlist, a rate much higher than in the general student population. Clearly, this is the outcome of underage exposure. In some cities, such as Los Angeles, high school administrators have been enrolling reluctant students involuntarily in JROTC as an alternative to overcrowded gym classes! In Lincoln high school, enrollees were not told JROTC was voluntary. In Buffalo, N.Y., the entire incoming freshman class at Hutchinson Central Technical High School, (average age 14), was involuntarily enrolled in JROTC. In Chicago, graduating eighth graders (average age 13) are allowed to join any of 45 JROTC programs. 
“Wartime enlistment quotas (for Iraq and Afghanistan) have placed increased pressure on military recruiters to fill the ranks of the armed services,” an ACLU report says. Trying to fill its quotas without reinstituting a draft “has contributed to a rise in…allegations of misconduct and abuse by recruiters” that “often goes unchecked.”
The Pentagon also spends about $6 million a year to flog an online video game called “America’s Army” to attract children as young as 13, “train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions…learn how to fire realistic Army weapons such as automatic rifles and grenade launchers and learn how to jump from airplanes,” the ACLU reports. As of Sept., 2006, 7.5 million users were registered on the game’s website, which is linked to the Army’s main recruiting website.
And when Pentagon recruiters sign 17-year-olds into the inactive reserves under the Future Soldiers Training Program, (the idea being to let them earn their high school diploma), they frequently don’t tell the children they can withdraw with no penalty.
“Over the years, we have had reports from students who were told that if they change their minds, they would be considered deserters in war time and could be hunted down and shot,” the New York City-based Youth Activists-Youth Allies said. One young woman was told if she backed out of her enlistment her family would be deported. And Bill Galvin, of the Center on Conscience and War, said one young man who changed his mind about enlisting and was told by his recruiter: “If you don’t report, that’s treason and you will be shot.”
Singled out by the Pentagon for intense recruitment drives are urban centers such as Los Angeles and New York. The latter, in which low-income students account for 51% of all high school enrollment and where 71% are black or Latino, contains three of the nation’s top 32 counties for Army enlistment. In Los Angeles, 91% of the students are non-white and 75% are low-income.
And the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools says the 30 JROTC programs in Los Angeles Unified School District (with 4,754 students) are “Located in the most economically depressed communities of the city.”
African-Americans make up 16% of the civilian population of military age but 22% of the Army’s enlisted personnel, the ACLU notes. It charges bluntly: “The U.S. military’s practice of targeting low-income youth and students of color in combination with exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment…”
JROTC also runs a Middle School Cadet Corp for children as young as 11, that militarizes them even before they graduate elementary school. “Florida, Texas, and Chicago, offer military-run after-school programs to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders…(that) involve drills with wooden rifles and military chants….and military history.” Children wear uniforms to school once a week for inspection.
While the U.S. claims “no one under age 17 is eligible for recruitment,” the Pentagon’s Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies database(JAMRS) scoops up data on eleventh graders, typically just 16. JAMRS has data on 30 million Americans between age 16 and 25 for recruitment purposes.
The ACLU says this data includes “e-mail addresses, grade point averages, college intentions, height and weight information, schools attended, courses of study, military interests, and racial and ethnic data” as well as Social Security numbers.
In the face of grim casualty reports from the Middle East, Pentagon recruiters appear increasingly desperate to make their quotas. About one in five, the New York Times reported in 2004, was found to have engaged in “recruiting improprieties” ranging from “threats and coercion to making false promises to young people that they would not be sent to Iraq.”
Given the Bush regime’s plunge into criminal wars of aggression that defy international law and the Geneva conventions, there is no reason why military recruitment of any kind should be allowed on any college campus, much less in the secondary schools. If the United States truly wished to spread democracy, (rather than seize oil fields), it would be assigning vast numbers of Peace Corps recruiters to college campuses, and the budgets of the Peace Corps and the Defense Department would be reversed.
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Pentagon Recruits Kids....
It should come as no surprise that the Pentagon, together with all other US intelligence agencies, are led by the most corrupt government leaders in the history of our country. Why should we expect differently from the military recruiters? Thank God that should come to an end by January 20 and we can get back on the road to integrity, peace, grace, and the renewing of our foreign relationships (not to mention the intracountry relationships) that have been so badly marred in the last 8 years. If the Intelligence agencies can get their wires uncrossed and gather truthful data, we may even avoid war for the near future. How about that for a New Year's gift? GMMelby, Pastor by Dak (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 47 comments [9 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 at 9:19:27 AM  (0+)
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Please translate
I had a difficult time reading this article. On my computer, I had a choice to only read it either in German, Japanese, Russian or Arabic and I have never been forced at gunpoint to learn to read in any of those languages for some reason dealing with the military that escapes me right now. I am not going to bother to research it but I have a small hunch that what military recruiters are doing is covered by laws passed by congress and have been upheld in courts as being constitutional. If it isn't it should stop. I believe how the JROTC program is conducted in a school district is up to that district or the state that the district is in. It is not up to President Bush. San Francisco stopped the JROTC program in their schools for example because some issue they had with gays in the military. I did not hear of President Bush sending in the 101st Airborn to forcibly reinstate it. Go to the beaches in Normandy. Stand in the cemetry in Colleville-sur-Mer in France. Listen carefully. You will hear French voices, You will see and hear beautiful French children playing on the beaches and running amongst the headstones in the cemetry calling out to one another in French, not German. Then go a short distance east of there to visit the little town of Auschwitz in Poland. Walk through the crumbling old camp there, listening, while looking at the remains of a crematorium, to the muffled voices of nearby individuals who lost loved ones there a long time ago. Then ask yourself if our country, any country, needs a military. History, if you read it and understand it, will give you the answer as will those little children playing on Omaha Beach in view of the rusting remains of a terrible war that killed millions. by Mad Jayhawk (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 652 comments [56 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 at 7:10:59 PM (0+)
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It's Not Constitutional
What the Pentagon is doing is not constitutional if it violates a treaty passed by the Senate, which this does. As for the beaches of Normandy and the Nazi death camps, what's the connection? If it's that USA liberated them, great and wonderful, but that was then, when we were a force for morality and sanity in the world. Sherwood by Sherwood Ross (222 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 155 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 at 9:19:54 PM (0+)
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Treaty?
It was not a treaty. The US Senate voted to support ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. It did not ratify a treaty. It essentially passed a resolution which has no legal standing. If the Senate ratified a treaty that purports to protect children it would be in conflict with the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. The USSC has consistently upheld the idea that the federal government has limited jurisdiction over children and that no government can interfere in the parent-child relationship. Then there is always the issue of sovereignty. Foreign countries or organizations do not have legal jurisdiction when it comes to violations of agreements or protocols such as this. Further, I would guess that the requirements listed under Section 3 of the understanding mirror our current military recruiting practices. The text of the understanding Below are the understandings and conditions recommended by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding the Protocol, as published in the Congressional Record on June 12. (B) SUBSEQUENT REPORTS. -- I personally agree with the idea that children (17-18 years or less) should not be recruited to serve in military forces participating in combat. I have seen grave markers for 15 year olds in German military cemetries and it broke my heart. Voluntarily participating in a JROTC unit in school IMO is a far cry from being recruited (recruiting = induction into the military) so that they can be sent into combat. If a person who 17 wants to join the military (be recruited) his/her parents or guardian has to sign for him. A woman at 15 can have a surgical procedure to kill her innocent unborn child without parental consent in many states but has to wait until 18 to join the military and kill an enemy. That is weird. We do not need an military? I take the gist of the article to be an argument against having a military at all. It seems that there is a segment of our population who favors dismantling the military entirely and relying on the good will of our fellow man to protect us. These are probably the same people who walk the walk and talk the talk with large GUN FREE HOME signs in their front yards. I've seen a lot of those. by Mad Jayhawk (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 652 comments [56 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 at 11:21:06 PM (0+)
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Reply: The information you supplied clearly says "treaty."
Mad Jayhawk: In the second paragraph of the material YOU submitted it clearly says "Treaty Doc. 106-37 "in this resolution referred to as the Protocol." This is just one more international covenant the Bush administration has chosen not to observe. And to leap from the ACLU's objections to the Pentagon's violating the rules preventing recruitment of underage children to the idea that those who so object do not believe in an adequate defense is unfounded. Sherwood Ross by Sherwood Ross (222 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 155 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 29, 2008 at 11:56:23 PM (0+)
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Reply to Jayhawk's Charges on Legality of Protocol
To Mad Jayhawk: One last comment on your statement that the Optional Protocol is not a treaty and has no legal standing, a quote from the ACLU's Executive Summary on the matter: "The U.S. Senate ratified the Optional Protocol in December 2002. By signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. bound itself to comply with the obligations contained in the Optional Protocol." "The Optional Protocol provides that the absolute minimum age for voluntary recruitment is 16 years old. It also instructs countries to set their own minimum age by submitting a binding declaration, and the United States entered a binding declaration raising this minium age to 17. Therefore, recruitment of youth ages 16 and under is categorically disallowed in the United States." --Sherwood Ross by Sherwood Ross (222 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 155 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 30, 2008 at 6:08:28 AM (0+)
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Recruitment
The key word is 'optional'. Recruiting members is not the same as enlisting them as members. Ads for the Army on TV are recruiting individuals to enlist. Should they be banned? The military has a lot of activities that recruit people - such as particpatory displays at public events. Should they all be banned? Children see these ads and participate in these activies. Where do you draw the line? Young people cannot legally enlist in the military without parental consent until they are 18. They can watch recruitment ads on TV their entire lives. At my son's school participation in JROTC was a voluntary activity and kids could join it and quit it at any time. Just like high school band. Are JROTC members considered being part of our combat ready military forces? Do they sign enlistment contracts and take oaths to defend and protect our country like I did when I joined the Marine Corps? Are JROTC members subject to military law? If school districts are requiring particpation in JROTC the legality of these requirements under US law should be looked into. To me the voluntary UN protocol prohibits enlisting (making them a part of the military and subject to military discipline) children in organizations participating in military operations against hostile forces. Voluntarily learning military history and customs and particpating in drills in the school gym once a week is not particpating in combat operations against hostile forces. A child can wake up in the morning and decide to leave JROTC and the school band because they don't feel like participating anymore. They cannot just casually walk away from their commitment to the armed forces. At least not without consequences. To me the goals of those who oppose military recruitment of any kind are transparent. If no one joins the military, we don't have a military unless we begin drafting people again. Their end goal is to either shut down our military completely or to undermine it so it is ineffective. by Mad Jayhawk (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 652 comments [56 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Sunday, Nov 30, 2008 at 11:08:59 AM (0+)
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