ABSTRACT
For centuries we have debated the morality of going to war and the manner in which it is fought, but international conventions are not sufficient in themselves to make warriors adhere to the rules. As P. W. Singer points out in his fascinating, informative but equally disturbing study Children at War, child soldiers are to be found in three quarters of the worlds current 50 or so conflicts. In Liberia, 20,000 children are reported to have served in the country's protracted civil wars. Recruited from orphanages, refugee camps, the slums of impoverished cities, or among those made destitute by AIDS, famine and war, children are easy to brainwash, quick to train, and readily drugged, terrorized and conditioned into committing reckless atrocities. The searing image showed with terrible intensity how war maims and destroys innocent children and helped at the same time to galvanize anti-war sentiment in America, which in turn influenced US policy and led eventually to withdrawal.
