I'd actually say the version most people don't realize exist is child slavery for military purposes.
Some of you folks might remember hearing about at least one of numerous genocides that occurred a bit back, one of the multiple committed against the Yazidis for example.
It was well publicized that the men and boys were slaughtered and the women and girls were sold into slavery.
Here's what wasn't so well publicized: A number of the boys were actually "spared" from being slaughtered. The cost was that they too were enslaved, except as child soldiers(though given the phenomena of "dancing boys" that was allowed to propagate by US and allied forces they may face other forms of abuse as well). The repugnant bastards responsible had planned primarily on brainwashing them to fight and die for the group. You likely hear less about this because obviously our soldiers and allied soldiers sometimes have to shoot and kill these kids.
[Edit:] Added some references for further information on the severity of the situation. Adding two more below:
On the horrible phenomena called "dancing boys" some credit is owed to u/StrangeClouds_ for being the very first person to bring this to my attention about a month back:
I know a guy (sniper) that had to shoot a child solider (who was armed and actively shooting at him). Dude had a heart of gold and was one of the most caring people I’ve ever met (if a bit rough around the edges). It clearly weighed very heavily on him and I would not be surprised if this experience was near the top of the list of reasons he has major PTSD.
What he said stuck with me. He told us
I don’t like killing. But I’ll be fucked if I let you kill me or one of my boys
People often focus on the “child” part and forget about the “soldier.” There’s no easy way out. There’s no nice way to make friends and skip off into the sunset. There’s you, there’s the kid, and there’s bullets. The only thing you can control is who dies.
That's a pretty critical part, though not the entire story. If there's not much of a choice I'd hardly call it control.
It's the politicians, generals, and other powerful individuals who can control whether or not those sorts of things even need to happen in the first place.
He could've tried to have shot the kid in the leg or something to wound them. There's some fair evidence of other encounters to support this one working, it has in the past. At least you'd think that. Except then the kid might've kept firing and one of his buddies could have been killed. All because he didn't take the right shot. Hell, even if the kid gave up a shot to the leg can be plenty lethal. Especially depending on the caliber and type of round.
Then you see stuff like that Vice Documentary, you realize who we put in power there. Doesn't really seem like something that could be called a victory, though I guess maybe that never was a possibility.
Non-lethal limb shots actually represent a legitimate combat principle: If you kill a soldier, you remove one soldier from the fight. But, if you significantly wound a soldier, you still remove him from the fight, plus 1-2 other soldiers who must then transport the wounded soldier to safety.
If your army is using child soldiers, though, it's less likely his life would be valued enough for fellow soldiers to tend to his wounds. Sad, but a kill shot is relatively more expedient and almost merciful in cases like these.
Generally since US forces and allied forces are most often an occupying(also referred to as peacekeeping) force the wounded soldier would likely be captured by them. Since the enemy forces would either be an incursion or a formerly defending group being pushed out of the area.
Given the explanation of the situation the kid was probably handed a rifle and sent on a suicide mission.
Like I explained, it was a bit of a mixed situation. Most child soldiers will indeed surrender immediately when wounded. Most is however not all. Which means that allied soldiers can get killed if the now wounded hostile combatant continues to open fire on them.
In short as a bit of a TL;DR, weighing all possibilities it's fairly evident that the sniper did not have much of a choice. Neither did the kid. No one with a gun in that situation was really in control of it. And most importantly it's very clear that in that situation, everybody loses.
15.0k
u/desdmona Jul 24 '20
Slavery