U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies

I never understood why we are in Afghanistan. Then once we are there, we are told to keep out mouths shut once we witness rape and murder or face UCMJ punishment? The article I am providing, please click on the link below and read the entire article. It will make your blood boil!

KABUL, Afghanistan — In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base.

“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban. But soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages — and doing little when they began abusing children.

“The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.”

The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.

After the beating, the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the military.

Four years later, the Army is also trying to forcibly retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a Special Forces member who joined Captain Quinn in beating up the commander.

“The Army contends that Martland and others should have looked the other way (a contention that I believe is nonsense),” Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who hopes to save Sergeant Martland’s career, wrote last week to the Pentagon’s inspector general.

In Sergeant Martland’s case, the Army said it could not comment because of the Privacy Act.

When asked about American military policy, the spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, wrote in an email: “Generally, allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan military or police personnel would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law.” He added that “there would be no express requirement that U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan report it.” An exception, he said, is when rape is being used as a weapon of war.

The American policy of nonintervention is intended to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militia units the United States has trained to fight the Taliban. It also reflects a reluctance to impose cultural values in a country where pederasty is rife, particularly among powerful men, for whom being surrounded by young teenagers can be a mark of social status.

Some soldiers believed that the policy made sense, even if they were personally distressed at the sexual predation they witnessed or heard about.

“The bigger picture was fighting the Taliban,” a former Marine lance corporal reflected. “It wasn’t to stop molestation.”

Still, the former lance corporal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending fellow Marines, recalled feeling sickened the day he entered a room on a base and saw three or four men lying on the floor with children between them. “I’m not a hundred percent sure what was happening under the sheet, but I have a pretty good idea of what was going on,” he said.

But the American policy of treating child sexual abuse as a cultural issue has often alienated the villages whose children are being preyed upon. The pitfalls of the policy emerged clearly as American Special Forces soldiers began to form Afghan Local Police militias to hold villages that American forces had retaken from the Taliban in 2010 and 2011.

By the summer of 2011, Captain Quinn and Sergeant Martland, both Green Berets on their second tour in northern Kunduz Province, began to receive dire complaints about the Afghan Local Police units they were training and supporting.

First, they were told, one of the militia commanders raped a 14- or 15-year-old girl whom he had spotted working in the fields. Captain Quinn informed the provincial police chief, who soon levied punishment. “He got one day in jail, and then she was forced to marry him,” Mr. Quinn said.

When he asked a superior officer what more he could do, he was told that he had done well to bring it up with local officials but that there was nothing else to be done. “We’re being praised for doing the right thing, and a guy just got away with raping a 14-year-old girl,” Mr. Quinn said.

LINK

When it comes to these type of felony crimes and the U.S. government supports them by taking no action due to wanting to have a good relationship with local government officials well I say the U.S. government is just as guilty as the criminal himself!

This is disgusting and this information needs to be broadcasted on every television channel so that the world can see what perverted minds are running the war in Afghanistan. Either policy changes immediately or everyone pulls out and leave the war to the Afghans.

Some might say to pick the lesser of two evils and I say why? I say don't pick either one and leave them be.

Who should we be fighting......the Taliban or these child rapists?

there is already thread on this...

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

Perhaps the more publicity and the more it exposes how these men who are police officers etc behave at the better. People need to be aware of what goes on in Afganistan because this type of behaviour is not acceptable whether people use the culture excuse of not - its wrong to sexually abuse children. Expose them to the world.

Unfortunately some men think that paedophelia is great and it needs to be punished as a serious crime against a child should be.

We also have a lot of Afgan men coming into Europe and again although if you use 'its their culture' to excuse this type of behaviour, just how safe are our children from these men who have got away with this behaviour in the past and think its great?

I am so angry that I will hold my real opinion. This is so bad that I could cry. Why, why did we go there?

a reply to: DeathSlayer

The issue of abuse of young boys specially teens is not new, in the middle east, when my husband was in the first gulf war, he told me that the prisoners they took mostly adult males with some youngsters had to be separated because adult males will abuse the youngsters openly in the holding pens.

Nobody were to question this practice, but were told to separate them.

Interesting issue of culture.

a reply to: marg6043

Well, I feel like a fool because I have never been able to travel. I did not know that it was "accepted". I have to go bite my tongue til it bleeds right now, I am so disgusted.

This reminds me of an excellent movie called "The Kite Runner", which I'm sure you can find online. It's worth a watch. In it, a young boy is kidnapped and sexually abused by a Taliban member. It's pretty harrowing. I don't understand the link between Islam and paedophilia.

a reply to: MOMof3

That is what my husband say, it was disgusting but nobody in the pens would help the youngsters the males that were not doing the abuse will not stop the ones that were doing it.

So I guess its a cultural thing, I am glad that they opted for separation of the adults from the youngsters, interestingly the adults will not abuse each other they only abuse the young boys.

You guys don't know the half of it. And it's not just Afghanistan.

a reply to: angeldoll

No, is not only Afghanistanis, your are right.

Do you remember the movie Platoon?
The Americans were up to this in Vietnam too.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

Any action that directly results or contributes to harming a child is unacceptable and there is nothing under the God-damn sun that would convince me otherwise.

I loath with every fibre of my being any oxygen thief that would do this to an innocent child. Those soldiers are heroes in my eyes and the instigator(s) of the stand-down order are scum.

The perpetrator(s) of such disgusting acts deserve to immediately meet their maker.

This is an issue all over the Middle East.

We knew about it when I was in Afghanistan, but I never personally encountered it while I was there.

It's a messed up culture in a lot of ways. When we were told about it the discussion centered around cultural differences and acceptance of child rape as the norm.

Thank God I left that #hole.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

There are no words to fully convey the horror and evil of this. I first heard of it in 2004 from a friend just home from deployment. Not just this, but other atrocities. I really didn't want to hear any of this, and it literally gave me nightmares, but these kids needed someone to talk to and they had no one else. I understand better than I ever wanted why so many soldiers return with major PTSD, and why some cannot live with the horrors they've seen (and feel they've been part of or supported or protected) and take their own life. My dad used to say that when we send a man to war, we are not just putting his life at risk, but also his soul. I'm happy to say we found help for the young men we know, but the VA was not much help.

I don't know why the NYT decided to publish this now, but I do know it's not new information. It needs to be known. We all need to know. But I'm wondering why now, and am very suspicious of their motivations.

I just want to sound like a Jackass lost in thought for a second... So, Muslums and most Arabs hate Homosexuality, and yet pubescent boys get raped on a daily basis by Arabs, which is a homosexual act. And yet, their God would kill them for such an act.

No wonder the Gods didn't back up them. Guys sound like mixed up little girls trying tough men.

Their own God will kill them.

a reply to: Boadicea

This issue was brought up after the 9/11 when US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, but during the first gulf war many soldiers like my husband witness this practices.

The media back then never brought it up and neither after 9/11, is just stayed as stories, told by soldiers returning from the middle east.

Don't be so surprised, we're dealing with a culture that in many cases is completely fine with all kinds of rape.

Whether that is cultural or not is beside the point, the fact that it is so pervasive amongst muslims is what's of importance. Look at the crime statistics in Europe, gang rape amongst teenagers is far too common(and especially disturbing as this demonstrates just how prevalent this mentality can be; for a whole group to be doing such a sick act together takes a certain amount of cultural saturation and acceptance). Sadly even indirectly suggesting this might be the case will get you in a heap of trouble, might lose your job.

originally posted by: Specimen
I just want to sound like a Jackass lost in thought for a second... So, Muslums and most Arabs hate Homosexuality, and yet pubescent boys get raped on a daily basis. And yet, their God would kill them for such an act.

No wonder the Gods didn't back up them.

It's beyond that. The only thing I can figure out is they define "homosexuality" in a different way.

a reply to: TheLaughingGod

Liberal apologists making the World a better place one cowardly act at a time.

What in the name of decency do "liberal apologists" have to do with this? Show me one civilized human being who thinks this is okay.

An absolutely absurd thing to say.

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: Boadicea

This issue was brought up after the 9/11 when US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, but during the first gulf war many soldiers like my husband witness this practices.

The media back then never brought it up and neither after 9/11, is just stayed as stories, told by soldiers returning from the middle east.

I figured as much. I did not hear about it then, but it obviously isn't a new thing. I only knew a couple guys who served in Desert Storm, and they never mentioned it.