Wanna fight some child-soldiers?

Well, you might get the opportunity thanks to the Obama Administration. According to the Washington Post, our president signed a waiver that allowed us to send military aid to some countries who still force children into their military;

Obama sent a memo to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, dated Monday [last week], saying that it was “in the national interest” to waive a cutoff of military assistance for Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Yemen.

Those countries would have been penalized under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush shortly before he left office. The law took effect this year, after the State Department identified six countries that used government soldiers – including Somalia and Burma.

Senior U.S. officials said Wednesday that Yemen was exempted because ending military aid would jeopardize the country’s ability to fight al-Qaeda. In Sudan, U.S. military assistance will be critical in helping the unstable southern part of the country build military institutions if it votes to secede in a January referendum, as expected, officials said.

Congo was exempted because U.S.-funded programs there are aimed at helping the military become more professional and less abusive, officials said. Chad got a pass because of its role in fighting terrorism and assistance with the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. In addition, U.S. aid goes toward helping that country’s military end its practice of using child soldiers, officials said.

So all of this talk about “respect” from the “industrialized” and “civilized” world is just hooey. never mind that withholding taxpayer dollars might just make these countries become a little bit more civilized. This soft approach certainly won’t make any difference. But the UN is more interested in racial profiling than funding the use of small Black children in Africa. Makes perfect sense.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Foreign Policy