On pg123. Ishmael writes , "we are not like the rebels, those riffraff a who kill people for no reason."

It is difficult to advocate for any side in this conflict. We are given some brutal details about the attacks of the RUF but it would seem the Sierra Leone Armed Forces were mixed up in a concoction of chaos, brutality and corruption as well. The bottom line is Ishmael was a child and had no business fighting.THe civil war in Sierra Leone was much more complex than simply one side against the other. In any case a child with an AK-47 is never justifiable.