Militarisation of Children

I have posted here a photo from the Associated Press of a Palestinian child. You can see that he is very young, wearing military fatigues, face paint and beret, and sporting a pretty realistic looking toy machine gun. Is anyone else as disturbed as I am by this image? People are taking children well under the age of twelve and indoctrinating them in the religion of violence, aggression, and hatred. I find this more horrible than I can possibly express in words. And just in case any of us get too smug and happy that "we" are not like that in this country, I am including yet another photo. Yep...an even younger child, dressed in the military uniform of the U.S. Navy and proudly waving his own flag, that of the United States of America. How barbaric are we, as a race, that we militarize our children before they even have any idea what is going on? This second child was photographed for Military Child Week, a 'celebration' of the families and children of military members. Oh, you can say, "This child is just dressed that way to honor his father, who is obviously a sailor." Yes, probably true. And yet, the Palestinian child is probably dressed that way to honor his own father who is probably a member of Hamas, or maybe has even been killed either by way of suicide bombing or by the targeted assassinations Israel has become so fond of in the last few years. Both children are growing up in a strongly military culture, being taught to love and honor those who fight, and being fawned over as looking "soooo cute!" in their military uniforms. This is not even to address the horrific reality of actual child soldiers in conflicts in other countries. I nearly despair of any hope for the human race when we cannot even wait until our children grow up before exposing them to the political, racial, and religious divisions that wreak so much pain, death, and suffering in our world.