Saddam's "Hitler Youth"

[Joe DeFuria]

Thought I might try my own hand at pointout out "simimlarities" between certain leadership and "Nazi Germany"

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/72394p-67079c.html

American troops threatened by chemical weapons and suicide bombings face another danger when they reach Baghdad - Saddam Hussein's army of children.
Well-trained, ferocious and 8,000-strong, the Ashbal Saddam - Saddam's Lion Cubs - are waiting in the capital for U.S. forces to arrive, said Peter Singer, a fellow with Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

The Cubs are a junior Fedayeen Saddam - the militia directed by the Iraqi dictator's oldest son, Uday - whose fake surrenders and ruthless tactics in southern Iraq surprised U.S. war planners.

"Whatever the Fedayeen has been willing to do, you can extrapolate that these children will do the same," said Singer, author of the forthcoming book "Caution: Children at War."

 

[Silent_One]

I've been thinking along this line for a while now. I saw a clip on these "youths" last night and the first think that I thought of was Hitler Youths, and the Fedayeen are like the SS. I have some historical information at home that I'll post tonight regarding the Ba'ath party's structural setup and the Nazi's structure.

 

[Gollum]

The most obvious difference being that the "Hitler Youth" wasn't primarily trained for, nor ever directly engaged in combat. It was a kind of para-military boyscouts, designed to indoctrinate the youth with Nazi ideology, loyalty, camaraderie, conformance and train their physical ability.

Of course this was intended to serve as a recruitment pool for later military service (towards the end of the war, when the draft age was lowered to 16 years, a significant number of the HY had to do military service). War related-activities were restricted to collection (scrap metal, clothing, etc.), clearance (after bombings) and air raid protection though, so the comparison is not very accurate (at least based on the description of the Ashbal Saddam given).

You can find examples of youth being enlisted in war efforts all over the globe (especially SE Asia and Africa), I am sure oyu will find many more similarities there...

 

[Sxotty]

Yeah gollum is right this is worse than what hitler did with the HY, but remember 15yr olds went in to the army still, and a 15 yr old is not an adult to me. I guess since lots of other people have done it too, although I don't know anything about it, that there a alot of other evil people running around too.