Another young girl used as a 'suicide bomber'. Just when you thought the world couldn't get more grim.

[Pagwatch]

women and girls are disposable

[SilverDragonfly1]

I was just coming to post about this, pagwatch!

The 'girl bomber' tag is abhorrent. She wasn't a bomber, let alone a suicide bomber. She was an innocent child who was murdered in a way that caused the murder of 19 others.

[BeCool]

how can the police & new site even report a 10 yo as being a suicide bomber?

Suicide involves some intention to kill yourself.

Yes women and girls are disposable - its beyond sickening. As is the reporting of this incident - calling a 10yo a suicide bomber makes my blood boil.

[ZeroFunDame]

More than 2,000 people apparently killed last week.

That's war not terrorism.

And not headline news either.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

I wouldn't have thought the terminology was the real atrocity here, but don't the westboro baptists train young kids into 'believers'.

[ExitPursuedByABear]

Cowardly fucking bastards.

I really do despair at how this can ever be resolved.

It makes me turn in on myself and my life and try to shut out the outside world.

[42bunnytails]

Absolutely, it's the cold blooded murder of 20 innocent people.

When I was 10, my DM rolled our car avoiding a flock of sheep.

I can quite clearly remember thinking, quite calmly, oh I'm going to die. No panic, no fear, no inkling of the finality of death.

I was an athiest, but I was not afraid then in the way I would have been now.

To use a ten yearold girl, who I'm certain believed totally that she would find glory in heaven, is beyond evil.

[ZeroFunDame]

It makes me turn in on myself and my life and try to shut out the outside world.

Won't work. We can't even use the phrase "Fortress Europe" anymore.

I don't think we can hide behind our version of "normality" any longer.

[SilverDragonfly1]

I have made a complaint to the BBC about it (first time ever). I agree about the terminology not being the atrocity, but it does strongly suggest that this was a deliberate, considered act by someone capable of understanding the implications, which is absolutely not the case.

My final comment on the complaint form was 'This is a story about a child being murdered in an horrific way, not about a 10 year old committed terrorist.' Which sums up my feelings.

[BeCool]

I think the terminology is an absolute atrocity - it means the 10 yo girl isn't seen as a victim but as a complicit murderess. Which contributes itself to the whole 'life is cheap' mentality involved in treating women and girls as disposable objects.

[Pagwatch]

I am finding the phrase 'suicide bomber' pretty offensive too actually, in spite of cutting it into my title, for the sake of brevity really.
There is no phrase and there should be one. Other reports suggest she seemed to have no real idea what was happening. It's murder. The same as when terrorists used a woman with Down's syndrome.

Someone needs to find a phrase.

[MarshaBrady]

She was killed too. Poor girl and poor people. Horrifying

[SilverDragonfly1]

'Used as a living bomb'?

Not pretty but just about sums it up.

[TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy]

Heartbreaking. There was a news story not long back about one brave girl who had been able to turn herself in to the police and her story always come my mind when I hear these stories now.

Her father had given her over (possibly sold her) to Boko Haram and alongside two other girls, threatened with all sorts to themselves and their family now and in the afterlife if they didn't do as commanded (so less about finding glory in heaven but about horrible things happening eternally to them and their families if they didn't). The three girls had walked into town hand in hand as they were so scared but had been told to spread out. She had been unable to stop the other two but had been brave enough to go to the police herself after the other two...frightened children controlled by those who view them as disposable tools who are so scared that this is better to them than the alternatives Boko Haram are setting for them. It's heartbreaking and mind boggling.

[SilverDragonfly1]

I suppose the issue of women and children being coerced into murderous acts by people who consider them unimportant and disposable and the issue of inflammatory terminology are two different threads really!

What has incensed me about the 'girl bomber' phrase is that, apart from the fact that it can't be considered a purposeful act by her, it is also very divisive and othering of African Muslims. If a child in the West was wrapped in explosives and sent into a market to be blown up, there would be a strong bias in the reporting towards how she had been used, probing into her life to find out how the adults who'd committed the act had treated her- she would be a victim. Yet this child is being portrayed as someone who was so religious she decided to kill a bunch of innocent people, albeit with adult support and training. Our children are innocent victims, yet a Muslim child is already bad beyond redemption at 10.

[Pagwatch]

Yes.
Living bomb or human bomb.

I remember finding out about the taxi drivers that were used in a similar way and thinking that was so terrifying, so depraved, so inhuman. Yet here and now it's happening to children. Children.

It's beyond comprehension.

[DoraGora]

The Viet Cong sent children with grenades to blow up American soldiers. I'd imagine that being blown up as a ten year old girl is preferable to being used by the Lord's Resistance Army as one. What the ten year old boys have been asked to do is beyond description.

[DoraGora]

One of the things that I find difficult to understand is that wars are among the most disastrous group of activities than men can engage in and yet there is never any shortage of battles. It's very odd. I mainly put it down to the fact that the people who organise them send other people off to fight.

[morethanpotatoprints]

This has happened throughout history during times of war.
We did it ourselves with the drummer boys, who were made to feel proud at leading a regiment.
They were sent to attract attention, hence the drum/waving a flag, shouting we're here.
It is so awful that children are used in this way, I guess the difference with children being used in the past, at least the soldiers followed behind and met with the same fete.

[DoraGora]

I think the instigator of any conflict and his opponent should lead the charge, as in days of old. And, they shouldn't be allowed to have a battle bodyguard, either.

When did we start having a policy that only the third in line to the throne could fight? That would have put George W Bush up in the skies above Baghdad. He did walk around in a flying suit, I remember. But, I think that was mainly for the cameras.

But, with drones, IEDs, mines, submarines, you name it, war is becoming depersonalised. Many armies can't afford all this junk. But, they can afford live people.

Maybe Putin should put a rocket launcher over his shoulder and stride out into the middle of Ukraine. I seem to remember Mrs T at the controls of a tank.

[Pagwatch]

I don't care really who did what in the past. It's 2015. The fact that someone can strap explosives to a child or a person with Down's syndrome is horrendous.
It's so fucking depressing.

[DoraGora]

Actually, getting rid of the cowardice which causes minefields and booby traps to be laid, whether wrapped around a human or not, might be a really bad idea, because, if leaders had to be brave and fierce, they'd probably also be psychopaths like Caesar, Alexander, The Conqueror, Edward I, Cromwell. I'm not sure if Richard III was a psychopath or not. But, apparently he was good with a sword.

Yes, leaders who enjoy fighting (Napoleon, Ramesses II) and are actually any good at it, are probably a really, really bad idea!!

[GlacindaTheTroll]

Aside from the mass kidnap, the appalling actions of Boko Haram receive very little coverage here.

And those of LRA even less.

But apart from hand-wringing, what can be done? Especially as international military monitoring isn't working. A week ago, an army base and the whole town of Baga was seized, death toll still unconfirmed as no one can get there, but could run to thousands - possibly their deadliest atrocity to date, but barely reported here.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

What should we do about Boko Haram? If you could persuade them to stand in a bunch in the middle of a desert I'd be ok with a really big bomb, but it's not that easy is it.

[DoraGora]

A national army is usually the last keeper of peace and security. I think, in most of the places that we're talking about, where outrages are taking place, civil society has broken down. When that happens unspeakable things inevitably follow.

Maybe we could put some more effort into preventing civil societies from breaking down in the first place. Not invading them, dismantling their armies and hanging their leaders might be a start.

The Americans don't support the ECHR and were the main instigators of the Iraqi invasion. An argument could be made that they are quite content with societies breaking down.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

The first gulf war was right, we were invited by the victims and it was a coalition to stop an invasion. After that it got political and mostly wrong.

But we can't go back and change that. What do we do next? The only way I can see for us to deal with Boko Haram and others like them is drones and bombs, but a lot of people think that's a terrible thing to do.

So should we do nothing to avoid being blamed for making it worse?