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It's not anything unusual to read about terrorists like Hamas and al-Qaeda using civilians as human shields. We've all seen the pictures and read the stories about these cowards using non-combatants to hide their own wretched bodies behind, knowing full well civilized troops are hesitant to engage in firefights when there are innocent people around. In other words, trying to save their own butts at the expense of others. I'm sure many of the civilian casualties in places like Palestine and Afghanistan are a direct result of keeping civilians close by, but they don't seem to give a damn about the fact that these innocents will more than likely become collateral damage. And we also know that they use young children as human shields. But now there are reports out of Afghanistan alleging that the Taliban (who are also famous for that cowardly act) are using children three years old and up as shields, and also making them do their dirty work.
Afghan children as young as 3 years old are being used by the Taliban as human shields or to gather spent cartridges, and teen-agers are being given motorcycles for planting roadside bombs, U.S. Marines say."We've seen children actually dropping mortar rounds in the (firing) tubes against us," says Lt. Col. Michael Manning, commander of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment that is rotating home after seven months in this hilly northern district of Helmand province.
"I've never seen a culture that cares so little for human life. They (the Taliban) truly don't care unless it impacts their own personal family," says Manning, who has lost 13 Marines and seen 127 wounded since March.
And the use of children is becoming ever more prevalent in the region, as NATO troops go on the offensive trying to rid the country of the Taliban militants.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Osterman, commander of Marine ground combat forces here, says the Taliban is increasingly relying on children to fend off the Marine offensive.Marines have witnessed youngsters dragging away wounded Taliban, planting roadside bombs and collecting dropped weapons, he says.
At a remote firebase east of here, squad leader Sgt. John Ellis says he found children selling heroin wrapped in torn pages of the Quran in the village streets.
"We found children with pockets of heroin and wads of cash," Ellis says.
I thought desecrating the Qu'ran was a major offense. I guess when it comes to their agenda, things like that don't matter since they're all Muslims, anyway. But the stories about the abusive use of children are quite obscene.
A Marine Corps battlefield report describes a fight in the Marjah district in August, where retreating insurgents "placed five children shoulder to shoulder on (the roadway) to cover their movements. Once the children were placed, the Taliban element mounted their motorcycles and escaped."Another incident in the report describes how a child was sent out onto a roadway to observe a Marine patrol from a distance of 150 yards. He used hand signals to communicate the patrol's movements to an unseen enemy. Later, the patrol was ambushed, the report says.
"In both instances, the Taliban elements were willing to place children in direct danger to avoid risking themselves," says the report, portions of which were provided to USA TODAY by Osterman's office.
Battlefield reports typically derive from the observations of Marine officers in the field. The Marine Corps says it is difficult to identify how many instances where insurgents have been seen using children in Helmand. But they said there have been 50 battlefield reports filed since March listing one or several cases of kids used in combat.
"We're seeing an increasing trend," Osterman says of the Taliban's use of children.
I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised, since there seems to be little value placed on the life of anyone other than the men themselves. And the Taliban apparently are having no trouble at all recruiting.
Marine commanders believe that families are either coerced into allowing children to be used by Taliban fighters, or in the case of adolescents, paid money or offered inducements to fight, such as small, Chinese-made motorcycles."It's a recruitable, very easily influenced group of people," Manning says of the children and families. "And there's tons of them."
Neither children or other civilians have any place in the battlefield. Such a lack of respect for human life is unconscionable, but then again I suppose that's why the Taliban have survived so long, against some formidable enemies.
