The six-year-old suicide bomber
Hold up!
See that little date above?
This post was published years ago.
My opinions have changed over time: I think it's quite fun to keep old posts online so that you can see how that has happened. The downside is that there are posts on this site that express views that I now find offensive, or use language in ways I'd never dream of using it today.
I don't believe in airbrushing history, but I do believe that it's important to acknowledge the obvious: some of what I've written in the past has been crap. Some of it was offensive. Some of it was offensively bad. And there's may be some brass among the muck (you can make up your own mind on that).
Some of what I've presented as my own views has been me—wittingly or unwittingly—posturing without having considered all the facts. In a few years, I'll probably think the same about what I'm writing today, and I'm fine with that. Things change. People grow. Society moves forward.
The internet moves on too, which means there might be broken links or embedded content that fails to load. If you're unlucky, that might mean that this post makes no sense at all.
So please consider yourself duly warned: this post is an historical artefact. It's not an exposition of my current views nor a piece of 'content' than necessarily 'works'.
You may now read on... and in most cases, the post you're about to read is considerably shorter than this warning box, so brace for disappointment.
This (now quite old) report from the Guardian suggests that children as young as six are being used as suicide bombers.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) revealed that soldiers defused an explosive vest which had been placed on a six-year-old who had been told to attack Afghan army forces in the east of the country.
“They placed explosives on a six-year-old boy and told him to walk up to the Afghan police or army and push the button,” said Captain Michael Cormier, the company commander who intercepted the child, in a statement. “Fortunately, the boy did not understand and asked patrolling officers why he had this vest on.”
The vest was defused and no one was hurt.
That’s obviously terrible. I don’t think there’s any question of that. Unsurprisingly, no-one attempts to blame the child.
But if the child is 16, and as equally brainwashed as the six-year-old, we do blame them. Surely they bear no more responsibility? Both are equally indoctrinated into a clear belief that what they are doing is right. Essentially, the sixteen-year-old’s powers of reasoning have been reduced to the same as the six-year-old’s. Yet we still attach blame.
It’s really quite odd, when you give it some thought.
This post was filed under: News and Comment.
