Week 2: Reality TV or Reality?

On Febuary 14th, 2012 a story by Barbara Starr, writting for CNN world news broke that received little, if any attention.  Two children have been rearrested in southern Afghanistan for being prospective suicide bombers, the International Security Assistance Force said.The two "young male" would-be bombers were detained in the past week, the ISAF said in a written statement.The two kids, both ten years old, were arrested along with three adults.Last summer, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pardoned 20 such teenagers ranging in age from 8 to 17. Some of the 20 youngsters told Karzai they had been recruited by the Taliban, strapped with vests and ordered to detonate them near foreigners, the president's office said in a statement last August. Militants told the youngsters that the blasts would spare them but kill the foreigners

This pertains to an ethics in that it illustrates just how far an individual will go to futher their own agenda, even when said agenda is promoted at the expense of the lives of others. These children were young, impressionable, and naive yes, but are they really guilty of their actions? Do they posses the necessary capacity to grasp the consequences of those actions? Should the facilitators and those indoctoring them to carry out these acts be held as accountable if not more so than the children commiting the physical act? Some would take the position that "man has free will" and is thus able to choose what he does at all time, but is that really applicable in this instance, or in this type of environment? On a final note, what does it say about American society when we glamorize and morn an entertainer such as Whitney Houston, who while talented, was still merely an entertainer, yet we ignore the systematic manipulation of young, impressionable children who are coerced into doing horrific things throughout the world? What does this say about your values and perpectives as a country and a species?


http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/14/ten-year-old-suicide-bombers-arrested/?hpt=hp_t3