State Dept. Revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers
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[quote=Reuters]Tillerson accused of violating law on child soldiers in foreign militaries
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.
A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.[tmsnrt.rs/2jJ7pav]
Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.
Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers. [tmsnrt.rs/2Ah6tB4]
“Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government’s primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.
Reuters reported in June that Tillerson had disregarded internal recommendations on Iraq, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The new documents reveal the scale of the opposition in the State Department, including the rare use of what is known as the “dissent channel,” which allows officials to object to policies without fear of reprisals.
The views expressed by the U.S. officials illustrate ongoing tensions between career diplomats and the former chief of Exxon Mobil Corp appointed by President Donald Trump to pursue an “America First” approach to diplomacy.
INTERPRETING THE LAW
The child soldiers law passed in 2008 states that the U.S. government must be satisfied that no children under the age of 18 “are recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers” for a country to be removed from the list. It currently includes the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
”The Secretary thoroughly reviewed all of the information presented to him and made a determination about whether the facts presented justified a listing pursuant to the law,” a State Department spokesperson said when asked about the officials’ allegation that he had violated the law.
In a written response to the dissent memo on Sept. 1, Tillerson adviser Brian Hook acknowledged that the three countries did use child soldiers. He said, however, it was necessary to distinguish between governments “making little or no effort to correct their child soldier violations ... and those which are making sincere - if as yet incomplete - efforts.”
Hook made clear that America’s top diplomat used what he sees as his discretion to interpret the law.[/quote]
The rest of the article is here: [url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tillerson-childsoldiers/exclusive-state-dept-revolt-tillerson-accused-of-violating-u-s-law-on-child-soldiers-idUSKBN1DL0EA]Source[/url]
Tillerson is destroying the State Department and hacking off America's diplomatic hands. The dept has lost over a hundred senior career diplomats and has yet to even nominate ambassadors and other senior representatives to important posts, [I]including South Korea[/I]. The number of new people expected to be added to the State Dept. this year is 1/3 of the usual, and it's fewer than have already left and the resignations keep coming.
Meanwhile, while the State Department is floundering, more money is being poured into the military. America is regressing in front of our eyes.
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;52912451]Tillerson is destroying the State Department and hacking off America's diplomatic hands. The dept has lost over a hundred senior career diplomats and has yet to even nominate ambassadors and other senior representatives to important posts, [I]including South Korea[/I]. The number of new people expected to be added to the State Dept. this year is 1/3 of the usual, and it's fewer than have already left and the resignations keep coming.
Meanwhile, while the State Department is floundering, more money is being poured into the military. America is regressing in front of our eyes.[/QUOTE]
And Trump's shithead supporters will still see this as a win, cause who cares about diplomacy when all Trump needs to do is glass the whole Middle East and the rest of our enemies.
(This is not sarcasm: I have worked with people who have expressed this kind of genocidal foreign policy view.)
Whoever that guy was who predicted the US would fall as a major power: can I still get in on that bet?
[QUOTE=CyclonatorZ;52912604]And Trump's shithead supporters will still see this as a win, cause who cares about diplomacy when all Trump needs to do is glass the whole Middle East and the rest of our enemies.
(This is not sarcasm: I have worked with people who have expressed this kind of genocidal foreign policy view.)[/QUOTE]
Idiots laughing at our "liberal tears" as they pour gasoline over the house we share.
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