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Sun
18
Oct

SATSA & The Professionalization of War on Campus

Student Association on Terrorism and Security Analysis (SATSA)

by Vani Kannan -

On February 27-28, 2015, the Syracuse University (SU) Student Association on Terrorism and Security Analysis (SATSA) held its yearly conference on campus,  entitled “The New Global Threat: Emerging Issues in National Security.” SATSA publishes The Journal of Terrorism and Security Analysis, and is oriented towards the policy and legal implications of military action. Students contribute to the journal to increase their marketability for jobs such as National Security Attorney. Broadly, this conference is geared towards training students so that they have the tools to advise military personnel and military contractors on what authority they have, and how to use the law to justify military operations.

English translation unavailable for .
Wed
14
Oct

Former child soldier brings his story to kids in graphic novel

By: May Warren

Michel Chikwanine, a former child soldier, has collaborated on a new graphic novel about his experiences.

Abducted at age 5 from his school’s soccer field, Michel Chikwanine was forced to do unimaginable things as a child soldier in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Now a 27-year-old African studies student at the University of Toronto, Chikwanine has co-authored a new graphic novel about his experiences called Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls are Used in War, aimed at kids 10 to 14.

Chikwanine, who wrote the book with Jessica Dee Humphreys, said he hopes it will help young people understand what being a child soldier means.

English translation unavailable for .
Tue
29
Sep

Israel’s army and schools work hand in hand, say teachers

By Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye

Close ties means Israeli pupils are being raised to be "good soldiers" rather than good citizens

HAIFA - The task for Israeli pupils: to foil an imminent terror attack on their school. But if they are to succeed, they must first find the clues using key words they have been learning in Arabic.

Arabic lesson plans for Israel’s Jewish schoolchildren have a strange focus.

Those matriculating in the language can rarely hold a conversation in Arabic. And almost none of the hundreds of teachers introducing Jewish children to Israel’s second language are native speakers, even though one in five of the population belong to the country’s Palestinian minority.

The reason, says Yonatan Mendel, a researcher at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, is that the teaching of Arabic in Israel’s Jewish schools is determined almost exclusively by the needs of the Israeli army.

Thu
17
Sep

International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth

Would you like to take action against the militarisation of youth? You can join War Resisters' International's week of action from 14 to 20 November (as an individual or as a group).

War Resisters' International is organising the 2nd International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth this year from 14 to 20 November. The week is a concerted effort of antimilitarist action across the world to raise awareness of, and challenge, the ways young people are militarised, and to give voice to alternatives.

Mon
14
Sep

America’s Tween Soldiers

August Say, 12, holds out his arm to determine where he should stand in class in the new Dragon Leadership Corps at his middle school in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Seth Kershner, In These Times

Last year, Henry F. Moss Middle School in Bowling Green, Ohio, offered students a brand new course. And, as a headline in the local newspaper proclaimed, this was “not your traditional class.” For starters, the teacher—an army sergeant—had told the Bowling Green Daily News that one of his goals was to expose these seventh- and eighth-graders to “military values” that they could use as “building blocks” in life. To that end, students in the class earn military style ranks, engage in army-style “PT” (physical training) and each Wednesday, wear camouflage pants and boots.

This is the Moss Middle School Leadership Corps, part of the growing trend of military-style education for pre-adolescents.

Mon
14
Sep

New Publication: Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools

Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools

Scott Harding, Seth Kershner -

Sat
12
Sep

Militarism Run Amok: Russians and Americans Get Their Kids Ready for War

Lawrence Wittner - In 1915, a mother's protest against funneling children into war provided the theme of a new American song, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." Although the ballad attained great popularity, not everyone liked it. Theodore Roosevelt, a leading militarist of the era, retorted that the proper place for such women was "in a harem―and not in the United States."

If Roosevelt were still around today, a century later, he would be happy to learn that preparing children for war continues unabated.

Thu
03
Sep

Congolese child soldiers to give evidence against ‘warlord’ Bosco Ntaganda at The Hague

By Aislinn Laing, The Telegraph

Children allegedly co-opted to fighting over mineral wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo among witnesses lined up in bid by International Criminal Court to secure rare conviction

Scores of Congolese child soldiers are due to give evidence at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the coming weeks against a man nicknamed The Terminator and held up as one of Africa's most brutal and feared warlords.

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