Publictakeover's Weblog

Obama and child soldiers!

I would really like to share this with some people who are very important in my life. But this is so depressing that they’ll hold it against me.

Can’t you tell me about something positive? Why do you always want to tell me things that are do depressing?

President Barack Obama has decided to waive almost all the legally mandated penalties for countries that use child soldiers and provide those countries U.S. military assistance, just like he did last year.

The White House is expected to soon announce its decision to issue a series of waivers for the Child Soldiers Protection Act, a 2008 law that is meant to stop the United States from giving military aid to countries that recruit soldiers under the age of 15 and use them to fight wars. The administration has laid out a range of justifications for waiving penalties on Yemen, South Sudan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of which amount to a gutting of the law for the second year in a row

via Obama waives penalties on countries that employ child soldiers – again! – By Josh Rogin | The Cable.