Publication Date

4-2013

School

Helms School of Government

Major

Government: International Studies

Primary Subject Area

Political Science, International Law and Relations

Keywords

Jihad, Chiristianity, Children, Sharia, Terrorism, Radical Islam, US Foreign Aid

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities

Abstract

This paper proposes that the United States has a moral obligation to care for the children whose lives are affected by terrorism and to ensure that they do not grow up aligned with the radical ideology of Islamic Fundamentalism. This paper examines the American sentiment towards Islam, what hinders her, despite all her resources and provisions, from investing in the future of these children and providing them with foreign aid. It suggests that as America falls further from her Christian traditions, she becomes less equipped to fulfill these moral obligations. Examined are personal accounts of both child-survivors and child-soldiers, accounts of humanitarian efforts to provide aid and education to this generation, and accounts of converted Christians who grew up under radical Islam. An analysis of Sharia law and the objectives of jihad reveal that the fulfillment of global jihad depends on the recruitment and exploitation of child-jihadists; accordingly, as global jihad expands, more children will become its victims. This paper concludes that the West, led by the United States, should take the necessary measures to see to the needs of the children affected by terrorism. They should do so not only because they have the moral duty and appropriate means, but such preventive action will halt the spread of jihad to their homeland.

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