Human Rights via the barrel of a gun?

This is not the working title of my paper for the class I am taking "The Politics of Human Rights." In fact, I am still working like mad on the paper as well as trying to think of a catchy title. My focus is on making the case for the US to put ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers in Colombia as a top priority of their foreign policy. Below is an excerpt from the paper (still in progress). If anyone actually reads this, I would love to hear your thoughts.

" If, as Neumayer states, human rights play, at best, “a limited role in the allocation of aggregate bilateral and multilateral aid”, it should then come as no surprise that human rights plays almost no role in the disbursement of military aid. However, just as Neumayer suggests that one expects human rights to play some role in decisions surrounding development aid because of the assertions of donor countries that it does, so too one could also expect military involvement and aid to take into account human rights—if only because countries like the U.S. increasingly use human rights as grounds for engagement.

Historically, human rights has been the stepchild of U.S. foreign policy, and the promotion of human rights abroad seen as secondary--if no outright contrary to--the protection of national security and interests. While the importance of human rights is often discussed in the context of development aid, the amount of aid from most developed nations pales in comparison to their military spending in the developing world. To place the onus of human rights improvement squarely on the shoulders of development aid is both unfair and inefficient. As the U.S. proceeds to engage in military force on the premise of protecting and advancing human rights—as well as its own strategic interests—it should look to its military assistance and spending in the developing world to actually play a strategic role in the advancement of human rights. Without a defined policy on preventing the recruitment and use of child soldiers in states to which it supplies military support, the U.S. is party to the continuation of human rights abuses in countries like Colombia. This paper makes the case for the United States to place human rights at the top of its agenda for Colombia and use its significant military spending to promote the end of the use and recruitment and use of child soldiers for the interest of its, and Colombia's, long-term national security."

Stay tuned for part 2 ;)