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

People who just follow orders blindly are no better than the Nazis who executed their "orders"... If you're aware of the problem, there, and doing nothing; well, that makes you part of the problem...

a reply to: jhn7537

Morality, to me is not relative.

But we can't go around putting a bullet in a baby rapists head either. We all know its wrong, but in Afghanistan and a huge chunk of the Middle East it is acceptable and legal to have sex with young boys.

We cannot arrest someone or kill someone for what is legal in their country. Our laws do not apply to their people.

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

War is hell, especially in cultures that don't share your values.

Hope may come out of Kabul, not the backwater areas.

"If the case had been heard in Kunduz, he might have been sentenced to 80 lashes and then freed," says Benafsha Efaf, a lawyer with the NGO Women for Afghan Women, which was involved in bringing the case to court.

"But 80 lashes for what he had done would have been nothing, it would not have been justice, nowhere near so.

"That is why we wanted the trial in Kabul."

Rape of three-year-old girl shocks Afghans

When the Taliban ruled, one form of pedophilia was banned. Bacha bāzī

There is an excellent book I read recently that was horrifically eyeopening. there is no goat. I recommend it. Read reviews of it at sites like Amazon.

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


I guess this is more of the current administrations 'muslim' outreach plan.

Pretty much of a case of new boss same as the old boss.

a reply to: neo96

Yep. Who knew children getting raped does not go under The War On Evil and Evildoers.

a reply to: MOMof3

I don't get it when we as a people let our government ally itself with the slime of humanity.

For no other reason than political gamesman ship.

It is so obvious what the right thing to do here is.

Do the RIGHT THING, and let the chips fall where they may.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: neo96

Yep. Who knew children getting raped does not go under The War On Evil and Evildoers.

Ain't nobody got time for that..... apparently..

a reply to: neo96

With "allies" like this, who the hell needs enemies?

Ignoring this, whether ordered to, or not, is wrong in every conceivable way.

Yet this sort of thing has gone on for as long as there have been "allies"...

It's time to stop it. We have that ability should we choose to exercise it.

...and we all know how, don't we?

I never understand why it's framed like this, instead of, "US troops agree to cover-up Afghan pedophile ring!"

Why are they given an out, because someone told them to do it?

Following orders isn't a legal defence as far as I know. It's certainly not a moral one.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Shamrock6

I appreciate your position, but I wouldn't discount moral outrage at what happens there.

Do you honestly think that American forces over there are all okay with it? That the one guy in the article is the only one that has a problem with it?

In a word, no. In more words, hell to the no.

But moral outrage does not equate to legal authority. And that's what it boils down. The current legal interpretation is that it's not illegal to ignore these acts, and that it IS a problem to interfere in any way. Which is why those who have interfered are removed from the country and sent packing.

It's a disgusting, barbaric act. As disgusted as he may be, the average lance corporal has no legal authority to disobey an order and intervene.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
You're asking western questions about an eastern concept. It doesn't work.

Yea, it sucks. And it's horrific. The only way to stop it would be to entirely supplant a couple thousand years of culture. Good luck with that.

As for "standing up" and doing something: okay, go for it. And what did you do? Stop it? No, no you did not. You didn't even manage to stop it for that one person, because as soon as you got carted off it continued to happen. So you're in trouble, your unit is down in manpower, the perpetrator is completely free, and the victim is still a victim.

This is the reality check.

There's the saying, "You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun." And I'll add to that, changing cultural values. Cultural values are changed from within, by the people involved. Better to send in an army of non-military volunteers to effect cultural change. Volunteers who could support those in that culture willing to change. For example, Women for Women

a reply to: seagull

It's time to stop it. We have that ability should we choose to exercise it.

But how do we stop something that is culturally excepted?

I do agree with you, but in what way do we do this?

originally posted by: tsurfer2000h
a reply to: seagull

It's time to stop it. We have that ability should we choose to exercise it.

But how do we stop something that is culturally excepted?

I do agree with you, but in what way do we do this?

It was culturally accepted to kill Jews in ww2... we found a way... it was culturally acceptable to lynch blacks in America until a few decades ago, we found a way...

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

I was referencing the orders to soldiers not to do anything. That we can do something about. The cultural thing is a bit problematic, doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

There's such a thing as right versus wrong.

What do we do? That's the problem, isn't it?

First, we decide how badly do we actually need these "allies", and are we willing to stand by while innocents are harmed in order to keep 'em. IMHO, we don't need any allies that badly. Ever. ...and I'll be telling my reps, and the Whitehouse.gov precisely that.

Once it's been established that we don't need 'em that badly? Well, the solution presents itself, doesn't it .

Maybe we can't change the culture, odds are we can't... But we don't need to tacitly condone it by ignoring it, either.

Here just want to add this...

Afghanistan's dirty little secret

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.
President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.
As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."

www.sfgate.com...

I really do feel sorry for those troops that have to deal with this on a daily basis.

It seems like there is no way that this cultural atrocities will ever be stopped...it is hard to change people culturally that see nothing wrong with these practices.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: tsurfer2000h

I was referencing the orders to soldiers not to do anything. That we can do something about. The cultural thing is a bit problematic, doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

There's such a thing as right versus wrong.

We went into Afghanistan, because we believe in right and wrong, then once we got there we stopped believing in it...

And honestly, if you or I knew about a giant pedophile, and we protected it, because our boss told us to, we'd end up in jail... that's where the people that propped this thing up should be...

originally posted by: tsurfer2000h
Here just want to add this...

Afghanistan's dirty little secret

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.
"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.
President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.
As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."

www.sfgate.com...

I really do feel sorry for those troops that have to deal with this on a daily basis.

It seems like there is no way that this cultural atrocities will ever be stopped...it is hard to change people culturally that see nothing wrong with these practices.

you're feeling sorry for the wrong people...

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

It seems like there is no way that this cultural atrocities will ever be stopped...it is hard to change people culturally that see nothing wrong with these practices.

Difficult, maybe even impossible, to change a culture from outside it. But nothing, save some sick sense of political expediency, forces us to tacitly approve by ignoring it. We shouldn't be ignoring it. We should be condemning it from the roof tops at the top of our lungs.

We don't need allies like this. Period. How were the Taliban worse, again?

a reply to: seagull

I was referencing the orders to soldiers not to do anything. That we can do something about. The cultural thing is a bit problematic, doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

I understood that, but what could be done to end a practice that has been accepted for centuries?

That would probably blow up in our face worse than anything that has yet concerning Afghanistan.

a reply to: CTRTCTRT

Thing is, I wouldn't ignore it. Or protect it. But I'm also fifty years plus old. I'm fairly experianced in the world outside, both the dark, and the light.

Some of these soldiers, though not all of them, are much, much younger, and not nearly so experienced. They shouldn't be ignoring it, but I'm not going to condemn an 20 year old boy, ten thousand miles from home, for not condemning it. I will, however, condemn his political masters for even considering those sorts of orders, much less giving them.