Response to "Former child soldier Ishmael Beah recounts his past.Full"

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kEL_LRBSqk

           This video is very eye opening and gives you a lot of insight into the horrible things that occur around the world. It reminds me of the movie "Blood Diamond", which showed the conflict in Sierra Leone over diamonds. A conflict which included the recruitment of child soldiers. In the video Ishmael describes the tactics the commanders used to get the children to kill. These were tactics like drugging them and blind folding them and then making them shoot people, and they did these things to desensitize the children. These same tactics were shown in "Blood Diamond" and in both cases proved to be very effective.

           The article "Teaching Kids to Kill" is similar and different to the video. To begin, there were tactics used by the army to desensitize children to the violence, in a way video games are doing this because they make it seem easy and nonpunishable. The article is different from the video because it is talking mostly about non military cases where children have fired weapons. These kids did not have adults directly telling them to commit these acts of violence, like in the case of Ishmael.

           From the video, I would challenge whether Ishmael is truly rehabilitated, because he has been through so much. I wonder if he is just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I also challenge whether he should be given so much notoriety, because he has done inhumane things in the past.

           I think it is important to note the severity of the wrongful acts committed in conflicts. These are things that we are oblivious to, yet they occur all over the world. It really helps us to see the wrong in these situations when we can see someone affected by them.

           I think that the creators of this video want to raise awareness of the issue at hand. Raising awareness for it will make people realize how horrible it is, and this will result in change.