Obama Waives Sanctions on Countries that us Child Soldiers

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a new executive order last week to fight human trafficking, touting his administration's handling of the issue.

"When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that's slavery," Obama said in a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative. "It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world. Now, as a nation, we've long rejected such cruelty."

But for the third year in a row, Obama has waived almost all U.S. sanctions that would punish certain countries that use child soldiers, upsetting many in the human rights community.

Late Friday afternoon, Obama issued a presidential memorandum waiving penalties under the Child Soldiers Protection Act of 2008 for Libya, South Sudan, and Yemen, penalties that Congress put in place to prevent U.S. arms sales to countries determined by the State Department to be the worst abusers of child soldiers in their militaries.

Read more here

Like so many other things what Obama says is not reflected in what he does.

I would guess the move is because we want still have influence in these three states, Libya, because we want to have some influence on the new goverment. South Sudan, a fragile new country that needs our help plus Christians need the child soldiers to defend themselves from Sudanese militias (plus they also have oil to export). Yemen, home country of OBL, has many Al Quaida operatives living and we like to keep the current regime happy so they continue to support us in cracking down on these terrorists.

I forget where I found it, maybe the Economist, but Africa knows this double standard. They also notice that war criminals charged in Europe tend to be from African countries that aren't friendly to Western nations.