A U.S. soldier searches two Iraqi 'terrorist' children ...

Sotal Iraq, Iraq

Al-Qaeda's Children

"Iraqi authorities are unable to protect children from the brainwashing that al-Qaeda subjects them to, and which transforms them into terrorists who find it easy to commit murder."

By Mohammad Abdul Jabar Al Shubut

Translated By Julian Jacob and Nicolas Dagher

December 4, 2007

Iraq - Sotal Iraq - Original Article (Arabic)

Al-Qaeda has corrupted hundreds of Iraqi children ranging in age from 15 to 17-years-old. That means that the competent Iraqi authorities are unable to protect them from the brainwashing that al-Qaeda subjects them to, and which transforms them into terrorists who find it easy to commit murder.

Socialization is the most serious process in any human society, as it reflects a country's capacity to pass on its cultural identity from one generation to another and prepare the young to leave the home of their parents and start out on their own.

There are two structures that contribute most to socializing future generations: The family and the state. Both of these help shape the entire composition of the person.

The state (or its equivalent) undertakes the process of nurturing people through education, which is conducted by schools at all of the various academic levels. So it is that the State - even under more mature democratic systems, has a particularly important role in overseeing schools - even private schools - in the raising of children and teaching them the basics of healthy nutrition and good behavior, so as to help them become good and effective citizens.

By virtue of its size and huge budget, the Ministry of Education must be considered one of the most important institutions of the Iraqi state, but the major political blocs have attached little political importance to the Ministry. They have begun to restrict the Ministry's responsibilities without considering the importance of its role. One assumes that the Ministry is aware of the importance of bringing up the next generation of children to protect them from groups that spread extremist and terrorist thinking and adapt themselves to the changes in Iraq.

But newly-released studies on al-Qaeda show that the group is still able to recruit large numbers of children and young people into its ranks by feeding them terrorist ideas. This shows that either the Ministry of Education has failed to carry out its primary mission of protecting Iraq's national and cultural identity by properly cultivating the next generation and/or that there are huge openings through which al-Qaeda has been able to insinuate itself into the work of the Ministry.

Just making progress on the security and military fronts won't solve the larger problem of securing the nation unless real progress is made on the cultural and educational tracks, as well as the political and economic tracks. The integration of these four tracks by developing a comprehensive vision of the issue of security is the only guarantor of consolidating the country's safety.

Now that progress has been made on the military track, we need to intensify the development of plans to achieve progress on the others.

It is now up to the Ministry of Education to get more fully into the picture and develop a plan and a vision to instill in the young: civility; the capacity to co-exist and to hold a dialogue with people that differ from them; and to render them capable of peacefully settling differences. The coming generations of Iraqis must be taught to eschew violence, terrorism and the use of weapons.

In the broadest possible terms, reforming the educational process constitutes one of the most important underpinnings of political reform - which is obviously mired in difficulties. And many of these difficulties relate directly to the fact that many people in leadership positions have themselves lacked a proper social, political and cultural upbringing. 

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