Child Soldiers and the Presidential Candidates
Mark this well when you hear the candidates giving high-minded speeches about values and morality: Of all the 2008 presidential candidates who are in Congress, Republican and Democrat, only one has supported the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 2620 in the House and S.1175 in the Senate).
Not Ron Paul
Not Duncan Hunter.
Not Tom Tancredo.
Not John McCain.
Not Hillary Clinton.
Not Barack Obama.
Not Chris Dodd.
Not Joseph Biden.
Not Dennis Kucinich.
It’s Sam Brownback. Yes, Sam Brownback, the nasty, right wing Republican Senator from Kansas has beat all the Democratic presidential candidates to the punch. Hey, good for him, but what the heck are the Democratic candidates thinking?
How about the rest of the presidential candidates? Of all those politicians who are commonly referred to as significant candidates in the 2008 presidential race who are not in Congress, not a single one bothers to make a single statement on their web sites about child soldiers or the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007.
Not Mitt Romney.
Not Mike Huckabee.
Not Rudolph Giuliani.
Not Jim Gilmore.
Not Newt Gingrich.
Not Tommy Thompson.
Not Bill Richardson.
Not John Edwards.
Not Mike Gravel.
He’s not commonly recognized as a significant candidate, but fellow Irregular Times writer Jim likes to write about him a lot, so I decided to check out Alan Auguston’s web site too. He doesn’t bother mentioning the issue of child soldiers or the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007 either.
I never thought I’d say it, but thank you, Sam Brownback. The rest of these people who are running for the most powerful political office ever to exist on Earth just aren’t bothering even to mention what they want to do about child soldiers. Other than Brownback, those presidential candidates who are already in a political office and have been offered an easy opportunity to do something about the child soldier issue have declined to do anything about it.
There are two messages here for the presidential candidates of 2008: 1. Shame on you for not paying attention 2. Are you going to let Sam Brownback, of all people, outclass you?
If you’re not a presidential candidate, you’re not off the hook. After all, what have you done about the issue of child soldiers? Have you written about the plight of child soldiers, or spoken about them to your friends? Have you bothered to even try to get in touch with your senators and representative in the House to ask them to co-sponsor the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007? Have you supported an organization that helps child soldiers, or works to prevent children from being recruited to fight in armies?
According to Google, there are just 20 blog articles that have been written about the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007. With the publication of this article, that makes 21.
If you’ve got a blog, you can help spread the word. The big blogs at places like Huffington Post, Daily Kos, etc. are too busy pumping out the latest Democratic Party talking points to bother giving a mention of the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007.
It’s up to those of us who aren’t so well connected to do what we can to spread the word.
Stay tuned… Tomorrow’s article: What would the Child Soldier Prevention Act do to prevent children from being made into soldiers, anyhow?
How do you know any of those guys don’t support the bill? For that matter, how do you know that one guy does support the bill? How many bills are introduced every session? If the number assigned to the bill is any indication, it’s in the thousands. Do you really expect every candidate to comment on thousands of bills?
I have also wondered about the significance you seem to place on whether a particular lawmaker cosponsors a bill. Isn’t the important thing how they vote on the bill? And which bills the leadership thinks they can get enough people to vote for?
If a legislator in her heart of hearts thinks kindly of a piece of legislation but doesn’t say or do anything about it, that’s not support; it’s thinking kindly. Cosponsorship is a public expression of support for a bill, more than thinking kindly.
Voting on a bill is important, but once the vote has happened, knowing how someone has voted doesn’t affect the fate of the bill voted upon. That bill’s fate is sealed. Knowing who has publicly come out in support of a bill, on the other hand, also lets one know who hasn’t — who needs to be lobbied either to come out of the closet, or at the very least to vote favorably on the bill if and when it comes up for a vote.
I’m sure the minority whip and the majority whip already have that piece of information –at least for the legislation the leadership thinks is important enough to act on. Reading between the lines, you seem to be saying the public position is important–bringing the legislative process out of the backrooms for public participation.
Yes, absolutely.
jclifford: Thank you for alerting me to the existence of the Child Soldier Act of 2007.
Unlike our legislators, and our more prominent candidates, I cannot afford an army of writers and researchers to keep me abreast of the latest. As such, it’s all I can do to keep up.
You’re quite correct in that this Bill doesn’t go nearly far enough. Nor do I at all like the clause giving Bush an opt-out — which he will undoubtedly use in support of some ‘friendly’ despot, somewhere.
But in this rare case, it’s a *lot* better than nothing, and I am now at work on more formal position statements to support it.
Again, many thanks. –A²
I rather like the bill, opt-out and all. After all, you can’t just pull the rug out from under allies and potential allies without some kind of warning, to say nothing of information-gathering, which the bill also provides for.
As far as child soldiers, I am reminded of the Palestinians. During the Intifada, every day Palestinian soldiers with guns would engage Israeli tanks while Palestinian children stood between them, throwing rocks at the Israelis. It made some great David and Goliath type propaganda posters–with children standing up to tanks, rock in hand–which were for sale on the streets of Amman. Likewise with the child suicide “martyrs”, their parents not daring to mourn their children while accepting the much needed $100 death bonus from Islamic militants. In both cases the government would probaby deny any official use of child for military purposes.
But I cringed when I saw children playing with toy machine guns on the streets of Jerusalem while adults appeared not to notice or when tiny five year old boys were correographed with toy guns for official elementary school presentations, while the little girls presented folk dances. Palestinian children are being trained to hate, kill, and commit suicide at an early age and their childhoods are being stolen from them. No one in the region seems to see anything wrong with that picture.
It makes complete sense to me to support the PLO financially to try to stabilize that part of the world. It also makes complete sense to me to start letting the world know someone is scrutinizing the way politicians twist children for their war machines.
Perhaps I’ll appreciate the ‘opt-out’ clause, when/if we ever see a person of reason and compassion in the Oval Office again.
I don’t think we can wait until a government is perfect according to our cultural values before we support it financially. In fact, supporting a marginal government may give us more leverage in influencing some of their policies.
Well, I suspect we mean the same thing, then.
You would grant aid “if”; I would withhold it “unless”. Okay, so I’m speaking a little more like a gatekeeper, but sometimes we need those.
Iroquois, we know that people do not support the bill if there is no record of them doing anything to support it.
We know that Sam Brownback supports the bill because he has taken action to support the bill.
We know J clifford does not support Bambi against Godzilla because there is no record of him doing anything to support Bambi. Did he write a post? No. Did he warn Bambi about Godzilla? No. Bambi is in imminent danger and not a peep out of JClifford.
We know JClifford hates Bambi.
That’s right. I do not support Bambi against Godzilla. It would be a waste of time, given that they’re both fictional characters. Support is what you do, not just an opinion. That’s doubly true for politicians, who have accepted a special responsibility, but it is true of all people to some respect.
Now stop taking things to absurd lengths. I never said anything about hate.
Bambi-hater.