DID U HEAR...

[The Patriot]

did u hear that saddam is creating a kid army....just like hitler did in ww2....how flippin' sad is that s*hit

[budanski]

Saddam's Lion Cubs ??

Not surprising since he's already broken every other rules.

[FallenAngel]

...not like they would be of much help. Odds are we incinerated him, his sons and a few others today with our Bunker Busters. woot

[yellowking]

The Iranians used to run kids at the front of their army to clear mines against Iraq, I don't think Saddam has much on them in this department.

[Sulph8]

I bet he promised them a free meal at Mcdonalds after the war.

[hood]

This is a horrible joke, but I think it applies:

A reporter (in some random Arab country we're bombing) notices that a woman is walking in front of her husband. The usual tradition is for women to walk at least 10 paces behind their husbands out of tradition and respect for the men who are higher than women in their class structure. He walks up to the man and asks him "Why is your wife walking in front of you? Have American values affected your way of life?" The man says "Mines."

[Knave]

did u hear that saddam is creating a kid army....just like hitler did in ww2....how flippin' sad is that s*hit

He's been sending kids to "military camps" since the 1980s... no news there, really, and it's been in practice for a while now. I've seen numerous pictures of boys of 10 wearing the green Republican Guard helmets brandishing AK47s....

[Sulph8]

The Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians. They've all been doing it for quite some time.

[Knave]

The Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians. They've all been doing it for quite some time.

Sudanese, Japanese, Chinese, Laotian, Columbian.... the list goes on. It tends to be a plague of the Third World.

[Mark Sman]

Japanese?

[Shadow]

HJ (Hitlerjugend) was not realy a Kid army.

[Kitsune]

Japan a third world country? Brainfart?
To set matters strait: Japan has the second largest economy on the planet (By the way...since most of the US GDP are services nowadays the Japanese have in fact an industrial production that is about as high as that of the US of A. High technology too. Hardly third world.)

The Hitlerjugend in Germany was no children army but some kind of perverted Boy Scout organisation. But it used military like ranks. Totalitarian systems often use something like this: Here the boys learn obedience and military style behaviour for the first time. And of course it prepares them for the real military.
When in the last year of WWII the german situation became more and more desperate, the regime used more and more boys out of the HJ as troops in the army.

During the Iraq/Iran war the Iranians used many children soldiers. Those kids operated in small teams and in fact stopped the iraqi tank offensive! With high losses on their own side... So if they are really fanatic (and most kids are easily fanaticised...they simply do not know better) those boy soldiers can be quite dangerous.

But as far as this war is concerned: I do not believe that Saddam still has enough control to mobilize hordes of kid soldiers. He seems to be pretty finished. I personally feared that he would manage a real effective defense of Baghdad but this seems not to be the case.

[vryhpyammoadded]

There is a front-page story in my hometown newspaper about a PFC from Alaska now having to deal with the fact he killed a 10 year old boy and shot at other boys attempting to recover an RPG from a recently dead Fedayeen. My guess is that these are the lion cubs you speak of; apparently nothing more than another pair of “throwaway” hands to be expended like so much munition for the Fedayeen Saddam. A few similar stories from Marine friends and old Army buddies still out there have trickled in through emails, phone calls, friends and family.
I very much hope this soldier and all the others out there stand strong against these monsters hiding behind women and children, continue to fight with honor and come back home soon after successfully liberating the Iraqi people.

[96B]

Kitsune, I thought that the Japanese had the second largest economy in the world also! According to the CIA World Factbook China has a 6 trillion dollar GDP, and Japan at 3.5 trillion. I dont see how this is right but thats what it says. I dont see how a communist country could possibly ever succeed over democracy.

[Kitsune]

@Semperfi:

The numbers are this:

Chinas GDP: 5500 billion $ (PPP) / 1200 billion $ (Market Exchange Rates)

Japans GDP: 3400 billion $ (PPP) / 4200 billion $ (Market Exchange Rates)

It depends wether you take the market exchange rates or the PPP rates (=Purchasing Power Parity).

Lets see wether I can explain this: PPP is the Worth of the products and services IN the country alone (lets say China) but if the Chinese want to buy US stuff...they would have to buy Dollars first. This reduces their GDP to around 1200 billion, which is much lower than the german level and WAY lower than the japanese one! Look: different countries have a different technological level and there are social differences. Much of the product which are traded INSIDE of a country can be of only low value (or no value) to the outside world. Radical example: In some Asian country (could in fact be China) a farmer buys a water buffalo to work with it on his rice plantations. This increases the GDP (PPP) but would someone try to sell the buffalo in Japan, Germany or the USA...it would be near worthless (one could make steaks out of it but...) And of course there is the matter of the different currency values.

This "China" Hype is quite typical for the US... I do not know why. Fact is, if you take the relevant numbers, Japans economy is more than three times as large. Japan is technological far superior and its industrial production is gigantic, far bigger than the one of China...in fact they are producing around as much industrial products as the USA which have a comparatively small industrial base nowadays. Japan could be a major military power and a near dominant player in East Asia if they only wanted to. Of course, the Chinese are building impressive skyscrapers in some of their cities...and at present their economy is growing fast. But they are far behind Japan and will be for the next 30 years or so. Japan is still in a kind of economic slump...that is true, but the Chinese would be glad to have the japanese economy along with its "problems".

Tip: Go to http://www.economist.com/ on the left side there is "country briefings". Pick one and then go to "factsheet".

(And stop believing what the CIA says... ;) )

[Sulph8]

Knave didn't say Japan was third world, he just said that the problem tends to be a plague of the third world (as in, also the third world).

[Merik]

Ahhh yes but the Japs economy is in a recession like ours except they are a lot worse off.You have to remember that the japs had thier economy crash a few years back and they are slowly getting back up.

[Knave]

Japan a third world country? Brainfart?
To set matters strait: Japan has the second largest economy on the planet (By the way...since most of the US GDP are services nowadays the Japanese have in fact an industrial production that is about as high as that of the US of A. High technology too. Hardly third world.)


I was also speaking historically, in terms of the Second World War and the Japanese 'Home Defense' groups which recruited boys often younger than 10. In the present day, there isn't any sort of 'kid army' in Japan.

In 1941-44, Japan was hardly a 'First World' nation on par technologically or economically with Germany, Great Britain or the United States. Most of their military technology was outdated and mostly World War I or of earlier vintage. Many people lived in squalor or in poorly-constructed slums.

[Kitsune]

Yeah Knave, I thought something like this. No offense meant !

:hug:

[Knave]

Yeah Knave, I thought something like this. No offense meant !

:hug:

No worries, I didn't make my original point entirely clear.... :)

[Duke]

Merik, Japs?? I would love to boot racists like you. Just PM me

[The Patriot]

yeah hitler did have youth run in ww2 it was called hitler's youth towards the end :backhand:

[EliteWolf]

Newsflash: saddams lost all power, hope, and is either crying in a corner somewhere or his body is lying in a puddle of his own puke and blood, and even if he created a kid army, it wouldnt be much help now or ever since we basiclly beat the livin **** out of his so called "army". :bash:

[Bing]

Knave wrote (lol sorry i don't know how to use the quote function)
"In 1941-44, Japan was hardly a 'First World' nation on par technologically or economically with Germany, Great Britain or the United States."

On the contrary, the Meiji "dynasty" recognized a need to industrialize, which is how corporations such as Mitsubishi were established. They even based their Navy on our example with the dress whites and navy blue uniforms. Japan at the time could be considered a major player in the international community because it had evolved a very well disciplined army and naval force (remember the Russo-Japanese war prior to WW2 in which the Russian Navy was basically routed, and Russia was considered a major player as well). Before the actual world war, Japan took on Manchuria/China and Korea (declaring Korea a legitimate colony, or something to that effect) and were unhindered because of a weak league of nations (in which we were not a part of).
Of course i agree totally that their rifles were very outdated, but technologically overall, they were rather advanced. The Japanese type 00 aka Zero was an amazing plane which had a pair of powerful 20mm cannons and 7.62mm machine guns to go with the light, aerodynamic body. However, Japan's manufacturing process was not as capable as ours. Some say the reason we won the war was because of our ability to pump out the necessary supplies (i'd like to think that the fighting men did that but oh well) As far as Japan's economy, what they could not produce themselves, they took from conquered territories (oil from the Dutch East Indies) If Japan's economy wasn't great, it could not have been able to produce as many planes, ships, munitions etc as it did. I would like to end this by adding that due to the constant bomb barrage on Britain, the British at the time were perhaps less able then the Japanese to produce war materials which is why FDR proposed the Lend-Lease program (nifty little thing that got around our laws that didn't allow us to sell weapons to warring nations, but we could "lend, or lease" them in return for (cough) navel bases (cough) :D )

[Knave]

Mostly true, Bing. I'll agree with you on most points.

However, economically, they were still not on a scale with Germany in the late 30s or even Italy in around the same time. Their social structures were still very 'traditional,' and very little had changed in Japanese society in several hundred years. The aspects of the Feudal society that preceeded the Militarist Japan that rose in the 30s were not entirely dissimilar. In fact, they were very alike.

The Japanese weapons technology when they entered the war with the US was dated; many firearms types in use were copies of World War I weapons or variations thereof, with some improvements. Aircraft... well, I'll agree that the Zero was a surprise to the Americans when it appeared at Pearl Harbour.... my father is an aviation historian, so I've read and heard about the Zero and many other Japanese types since I was a child. However, a lot of features of the Zero's production dated from a decade before the war; fabric still used in coverings, lack of self-sealing fuel tanks, and so on. It was long obsolete by European standards - already embroiled in an air war for over a year and a half - long before it appeared over the skies of Oahu on a Sunday morning.

And even after the commencement of the War in the Pacific between the Japanese and Americans, new aircraft, tank and ship types with new innovations were slow to come, even though the Military-Industrial complex in Japan was quite nearly all-encompassing.

New ships were simply built under the presumption that bigger is better; the most visible result being the Yamato. New types of aircraft emcompassing better building techniques and innovations were slow to go into production and be developed; the resources certainly existed to develop new and necessary technologies before the American submarine campaign against Japanese shipping began in earnest. Tanks remained virtually unchanged throughout the War.

The conclusion from all this could be drawn that the Japanese simply did not know how to develop new weapons and new technology. Most of what they already had was borrowed and copied; copying is not conductive to innovation.

Germany, under similar circumstances of being under duress of war, and subsequently cut off from resources gained through conquest, developed a vast and innovative range of weapons and systems; the first jet aircraft, new types tanks, new and revolutionary submarines and revolutionary types of firearms - the first assault rifle among them. The industrial complexes for each nation were fairly comparable by your own admission.

Alas, having an industrial complex that is slow to innovate, a society still largely Feudal in nature - which was Japan in the 1930s.... are not comparable to Great Britain, the United States or Germany during the same time frame.

You can draw a lot of parallels between Japan of the 1930s and a modern-day nation such as India, or China. Much of their technology is derived from direct carbon-copies of imports, and, even though they have a large industrial base, they are slow to come up with new technology. Both of those countries have societies and economies which lag behind the 'modern' Western world in their development. It'd be difficult to say that India or China are on par with First World Nations.

[Bing]

oh yea of course...don't forget the japanese nambu pistols which were basically issued jam-o-maticks and weak in terms of firepower (and this was their own design as well).

I think the reason why the zero lacked the armor and self sealing tanks was because of weight. Their engines weren't powerful enough to keep the plane flying fast enough with the the armament that it carried so they made up for it in a weaker body but also a streamlined one as well. The zero's concept i think can be compared to the A-10 in that the plane was built around the gun (20mm cannon for the zero) but unlike the zero, the A-10 can take a heavy beating and come home :) Interesting note, one of the students at my school, her grandfather helped design the zero.

As for China, China is interesting in that it is a nuclear power, yet the majority of its population lives in 3rd world nation conditions (i know its not politically correct), India has small nukes as well. And China is in the security council.

[papabear]

This "China" Hype is quite typical for the US... I do not know why. Fact is, if you take the relevant numbers, Japans economy is more than three times as large. Japan is technological far superior and its industrial production is gigantic, far bigger than the one of China...in fact they are producing around as much industrial products as the USA which have a comparatively small industrial base nowadays. Japan could be a major military power and a near dominant player in East Asia if they only wanted to. Of course, the Chinese are building impressive skyscrapers in some of their cities...and at present their economy is growing fast. But they are far behind Japan and will be for the next 30 years or so. Japan is still in a kind of economic slump...that is true, but the Chinese would be glad to have the japanese economy along with its "problems".

Never mind the fact that Japan has a problem maintaining its population and is currently in decline, a fact that the government recognizes and is trying to ameliorate, without much success. A similar problem affects other 'industrialized' counrties (e.g. most of Western Europe, along with Russia) and even small nation-states like Singapore. In centralized economies, drops in population can have a very devastating effect.

The only way Japan could be a major military power to make it for the loss of economic power would be to play the technology angle and acquire nuclear weapons. Otherwise, their place in E. Asia will replaced by China, which despite its coercive attempts to control its population, will be the largest nation. (According to projections, though, the population of India will surpass that of China--how these two giants will butt heads in the future remains to be seen. Border disputes continue...) Small wonder that the Russians are worried about their borders with China...

[Kitsune]

Well, papabear...Japan has 120 million people at present and its population is growing by 0.15%. That means of course that the number is practically stagnating. Of course it would seem more "vibrant" if there population would explode but remember...they have quite a high population density, already. Anyway the japanese won't die out any time soon.

If Japan wants to heighten its military might, it just has to spend more money for it. At present they use around 1% of their GDP for defense (40 billion $). America spends between 3 and 3.5% of its GDP at present! So Japan could easily increase its military budget to 2% of her GDP (80 billion $) which is the same relative amount Great Britain uses of her GDP.
The Chinese are spending around 50 billion $ at present (estimated, officially it is only around 20 billion $ but in fact they seem to spend a bit more ;) .)
Additionally, Japan has a very advanced technological level (especially on the areas of electronics and communication systems) that China definitely does not have (they are manufacturing DVD Players, sure...but thats only because female chinese are very effective and cheap in assembling those things :lol:). So Japan could definitly hold her own against China...of course to do this entirely on their own they would have to acquire nuclear weapons.

I do not mean that the chinese cannot play an important role in the future. They have a population of 1.3 billion people, (India will probably surpass them around 2015-2020) but this will take time. But they are NOT able to challenge the US supremacy in the near future. It will take decades until they are the worlds dominant super power (if that happens at all). And Japan is not gone from these world. (Fact is there are some who think that the US have a "bubble economy" nowadays...look at the US trade deficit or the low industrial base of only 18% of american GDP! Could be that in ten years the USA are in the midst of an deep economic crisis, and Japan is back with a vengeance...who knows how things are in the future).

So it seems to me that ist is too early for the US to start Cold War (Episode II) now with China as opponent. China has power. But not that much...at present.

[papabear]

Hello, Kitsune, I'm going by the statistics obtained through www.pop.org--in a pamphlet discussing the situation in Japan, it is stated that the average number of children is 1.38--which is below the replacement rate. While there may be some growth, this is probably due to the fact that the deaths have not caught up yet--the life expectancy in Japan is rather high. Low birth rates usually do no have an immediate impact in the presence--the effect of such trends have to be measured 20 to 30 years down the road. Thus the pamphlet goes on to quote UN estimates--by 2050 Japan will have 35 million people than it does now, and the median age will be 54.

China does have a population more than 1 billion--however, it also has a problem with the shortage of marraigeable women, because of selective abortions, infanticide and the like. I can't quote what the figures are right now, but I believe it's something like an imbalance of 80 million--there are reports of girls being kidnapped from villages and the like--one can only imagine what sort of other problems might develop because of this.
Can such "excess energy" be harnessed into a military threat?

I agree with you--at present China does not appear to have any ambition to become the conqueror of E. Asia--nevertheless, there is an element of national pride at stake in reclaming territory that was lost in the 19th and 20th centuries--in 40 or 50 years it may not need to resort to military force to regain these territories--the Russians won't be able to stop what is happening naturally, with Chinese immigration in the North. However, if they need to reinforce this with military force, it seems to me that the government could very well choose to go this route.

Assuming that internal stability within the country is maintained between now and then...

[Bing]

it's not that Japan doesn't have the technology to build a nuke, in fact, any country could build a nuke because the physics of a nuke is known. The reason why not everyone has a nuke is because they don't have the necessary plutonium or whatever material u want to build it. And acquiring the stuff is basically impossible (russian black market :lol: )

[Kitsune]

Sorry Bing...that is not entirely true. The stuff to build a nuclear bomb is basically the same to that one needed to power a nuclear plant. Perhaps some further "enrichment" may be needed, though.

But if Japan wanted to, it could easy build nukes.

[Bing]

i doubt any country without an established nuclear program could easily build nukes. With Japan's economy, it has the money to fund such a program. The same thing works with the nuclear power plant, it needs to be funded, and that takes a lot of time to allocate the funds and build it. Plutonium is manmade, therefore any country could establish a plant to produce it. But it takes a lot of time and money to get everything you need for it (allocating funds, then building the plant, then finally using it to produce the material). Remember, i never said Japan couldn't build a nuke. In fact i never said anyone couldn't build a nuke. I said the reason why not everyone has a nuke is because they don't have the material to build the nuke.

[Knave]

The difference between reactor-grade materials and weapon-grade materials is a very large difference; you need to enrich both the plutonium and then create the Uranium 235. For both, you need the necessary technology and know-how; this is where the development process comes from.

It's not necessarily "easy" to build a nuke... in order to do so, you need to first construct the plants to enrich the plutonium and uranium... these are usually the most obvious indicator of a weapons program. These plants cost money... lots of it.

As for nations with nuclear capabilities.... Canada would be a forerunner of non-nuclear weapons states with an abundance of knowledge and ability, but not the facilities to make nuclear weapons. A good number of the world's nuclear reactors are CANDUs; in fact, India and Pakistan's nuclear weapons both derived from their CANDU reactors Canada gave them in the 60s and 70s.