U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
""" Another example of cultural misinterpretations of Islamic tenants, bent to support homosexuality over heterosexuality, comes from a U.S. Army medic completing a year-long tour in a rural area of Kandahar province.8 She and her male colleagues were approached by a local gentleman seeking advice on how his wife could become pregnant. When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked “How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.” """
The dialogue sounds fishy and constructed to me. Local "gentlemen" surely know the procedure to "get pregnant" and have managed to procreate just as good as anywhere else in the world in the last 30 centuries without asking western medics...
(Might still be fake, of course. But I wouldn't bet on it.)
Thanks for posting, it's good to reflect from time to time.
Then again - I don't believe this is part of Afgan culture at all anyway. I think that happens when survival bias due to war and destruction over a long period of time leads to very fucked up people climbing to the top of a society.
At the end of the day - or maybe rather at its start - the US is partly responsible for Afghanistan being trapped in a downward spiral.
Have a look at this (randomly chosen gallery) about Afghanistan in its 60s - I don't think that culture would be very fond of rapists.
http://www.upworthy.com/afghanistan-in-the-1960s-prepare-to-...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/
Don't let the modernity of 1960s Kabul fool you. I have a teenage student sold into sex slavery in the US. The weak (or in her case, homeless and orphaned) are targeted no matter what the culture. For more moral turpitude, check out Rotherham.
* I work with folks from the US's Office on Trafficking in Persons. It's one of the few programs run by the Department of Health and Human Services that has broad bipartisan support.
Maybe you should watch some documentaries about that to realize that this is by the same token part of any "culture".
As for "culture", we may be better describing this as a societal failure in the case of Rotherham. Note, I mentioned Rotherham, not Jimmy Savile. The sexual exploitation in Rotherham was disgusting and was allowed to happen for years. It was a failure on the part of the predators (obviously) and a failure on the part of the local governmental structure who largely knew about it.
In the Americas we have cases like my student's. Human trafficking is a big big thing and that it goes on isn't because of isolated individuals but because of large organizations of procurers, pimps, money launderers, etc., who are able to work because so many folks choose to turn a blind eye to it.
Let's be clear, here, I'm not saying that human trafficking or pederasty has widespread acceptance in the West. I am saying that there are cultural (or subcultural, whatever) groups for whom it is acceptable.
Modernity ≠ moral
On other hand, they didn't reported it be a rape, more like corruption of young boys.
This new conservative form of Islamic State is a reaction to that modern movement. They have re-defined their scriptures and history to become who they are today. They break the Koran all the time (I had to read it twice in Graduate school). They really have twisted their scriptures and put more on traditions which they have mostly invented.
> I don't believe this is part of Afgan culture at all anyway
You have to be careful with blanket statements. Looks like people have found examples of this type of things and we can see it here in the United States as part of a sub-culture sadly as well as other cultures around the world.
Ethic part of it all is we should be protecting children.
P.S. This is Pediatric Cancer Awareness month. Children have been getting 4% of Federal Cancer Research Funding and American Cancer Society gives 1 penny for each dollar you donate to pediatric cancer. This is why there have been THREE new Chemotherapy drugs introduced in the last 20 years. Children don't always get a big helping hand.
Originally, I guess we went to hunt OBL and punish the Taliban, but then there was the whole oil question (they have it, we want it, etc.).
But we failed to stop the Taliban (Mission Definitely Not Completed), which just shows we failed to learn anything from the Russians and/or the British.
So, why are we there now? Anyone? Bueller?
Sure, we can burn billions of dollars per year doing whatever the hell it is we're doing over there now, but, as history shows, it won't really change anything.
Freedom and democracy is a great thing, but if they're not interested in it at all, then maybe we should just stop trying to cram it down their throats.
That's why the Taliban are comfortably ensconced in Kabul, right?
>So, why are we there now? Anyone? Bueller?
We've withdrawn all but a token force. There are less than ten thousand US troops in Afghanistan.
I chatted to some exiles from Afganistan and they thought the Russian period was the best in terms of economic growth, human rights and the like. It only really ended with the US arming people like Bin Laden to overthrow them and didn't that work out well.
The Taliban also destroyed Buddhist monuments.
You're right. People do not fit into boxes of good and evil.
mind you, there is no such thing as good guys, the groups which we don't pay to kill the others are generally pictured as the bad guys by the media.
That's what makes the Syria situation so hairy, for example. which one are the good guys to help? There are terrifying claims on both sides by now, because at the beginning there wasn't an interest on helping one specific group so no one got special media treatment.
I was thinking more along the lines of Ender's Game... when at the end it is reveled that it is humans, not insectoids, who are playing the role of the genocidal, invading, alien force.
One of its themes is that simplistic tales of good versus evil are an issue with the recent US (with their UK side-kick) wars.
It touches on this issue, though without specific talk of sexual abuse. It does suggest that the "police" were basically just a bunch of warlord militias and so when the west turned up and started helping them, they were immediately seen as part of the problem not the solution by many of the locals.
Simple rules that work for travelers too. There are many cultural issues that don't coincide with Western values and its best to get over any idea our views are superior because you cannot survive with that attitude while in another country.
Structurally what do you think of the idea that soldiers were ordered to do so.
Rape of children is outside the limits of what I will tolerate from any culture.
First things first, the idea that those of my own culture and country condone the rape of children for political ends in a foreign country is something for which they should be facing charges and entitled to proper legal defence in my culture and my country.
That doesn't mean that the intelligence will stop coming, it's worse than that. It means it won't be reliable. The trouble, when you get into this sort of application of force, is that you end up being nothing more than an enforcer for the local grievances. They'll tell you where something is when they want you to squash it - and in the mean time, because it is illegal, people profit off it who you don't want walking around with a lot of money. No-one trusts you, because your behaviour pattern appears unreliable unless you know who's talking to who, you don't manage to stamp the things out, and you inflict a lot of grievances.
The smart move is not to try to exact control on an issue when it is not practically attainable. The U.S. hasn't been able to control drugs within its own borders, where they all speak the same language and there aren't the same degree of major tribal issues, let alone in Afghanistan. And it seems to me to have had the same sorts of disastrous outcomes there as it has in the U.S.
----
1. http://www.cato.org/publications/foreign-policy-briefing/how...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/world/asia/16drugs.html?pa...
2.http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/21/world/asia/afghanistan-dru...
Sorry itself is sickening.
We seem to have a classification problem.
Plus, the individuals mentioned in the linked story are actually warlords that are fighting against the Taliban, in conjunction with the US forces. This is complicated further by the fact that I think many of the warlords switch sides between Taliban, US & freelance depending on whatever seems to be the most lucrative at any point in time.
Well, reading this you might think "how can that compare to raping boys? Boys are human beings and human beings have rights, just like you and me? But at the same time a Muslim may consider refusing to eat pork a law by god which is way higher than anything considering humans.
The point I try to make is this: In an intercultural environment you need to accept the other one doing things you consider immoral. Otherwise there will be no cooperation at all. You must not judge. We all know that and when we talk about it we think about clothes, how to say hello, and kinds of food. But if you really want to achieve important cooperation you also need to consider points like this. That's the tough part, accepting these things that are really undiscussable in your culture. In an intercultural environment they should be.
Now please, don't just downvote. Write a comment. Thanks.
Rape violates several of those rights.. while eating pork violates none of those rights.
So there is a line that was already drawn years ago.. and rape is clearly on the other side of it.
How many lives can be saved right now and in the next X years just because you achieve this cooperation? How many things the other side has to accept from you that they consider really bad? Do you help the boys by not agreeing to cooperate and going home or do you help them more by accepting what happens and providing medical/psychological help afterwards? How many of them are even like that? Maybe most of them also disagree with raping boys but somehow can't enforce it? Can you even choose to not cooperate or will the people above you not allow it? It is very complex and should not be answered in general. Sometimes even every decision is bad. How many of them are even like that? Maybe most of them also disagree with raping boys but somehow can't enforce it?
I'm happy that you open up for that question, because that's really the point. When should we stop? Thanks!
I consider myself lucky to live in a country where the laws (mainly) reflect my own stance on many of these issues.
Culture is NOT an excuse!
Locally normal and immoral don't exclude each other. In my opinion immoral doesn't differ all that much depending on culture. The biggest factor in defining what things are immoral would depend on some believes: do animals have right, are you an extremist in your believe, are there any animals holy, ... Personally I think any sane person would decide what is moral purely by considering suffering
To secure control of the area, friendly allied governments and cheap oil.
Why they'd sent soldiers there, for "humanity"? They could send them to Emirates or Palestine if that was the issue (if we ignore the whole "not their business in the first place" thing).
It is not that they hate the local population, but they don't gain anything by defending them and may loose a lot by playing the role of Knight in the Shinning Armour.
Like all religions Islam says one thing and its contrary. consistency has never been a strength of religions. Some muslims say that only homosexual acts are forbidden , as for rape , I'll let you read the quran and the hadiths again.
Animal rights aside (because that has nothing to do with the restriction of pork), only the person eating pork is harmed. When Americans consume pork, it doesn't harm the Afghans who don't consume pork. Meaning, everyone eating pork is freely volunteering to do so. No one involved in eating of pork is involved against their will. Whatever the punishment might be in the afterlife, it only involves those who consume pork. In a sense, it's a victimless crime. Again, putting animal rights aside.
However, having sex with young boys involves the unwilling young boy. There is a victim that needs protection here.
Eating pork is as much abuse as is abusing little children, or even more, as the animal is brutally killed, a thinking, living being. You cannot just put animal rights aside like that, this is probably along the lines people who abuse children are thinking, that it is their right to abuse children, like the western world thinks "It is our right to kill, slaughter and eat animals".
Maybe if we wouldn't think that we can just raise, kill and eat other living, conscious, thinking, feeling beings, just like we are, all the time, then we would have less abuse of ourselves too?
Compassion goes a long way. If we cannot have compassion to other living beings inhabiting this planet, how can we have compassion to other people inhabiting this planet. Can you see the analogy ?
And if you're making the comparison to intelligence as being the factor that limits what we should eat and kill, then I can remind that it has been studied that pigs are as intelligent or even more intelligent than dogs even. Now, what do you think such intelligent beings are thinking when they are being held captive and tortured in their poor living conditions, just to be force fed, force breeded and then violently killed just to fill our bellies ?
You've done a disservice to vegans and vegetarians, everywhere.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
I know and realize this is a stupid argument to have, especially on Hacker News, but if people are ready to make arguments about the subject that animals have no right, on a certain level we are ready to make the argument that maybe foreigners or "lower level people" as many tend to think don't have the same right to live. You see the connection I'm trying to make ?
Or let me put it that way: The analogy is bad if you apply your moral codex. The analogy is good if you consider it a statement that is as bad as the headline in our moral codex, but from their point of view. This is the thinking step you should apply. And that's where the analogy comes from.
The injunctions for illegality and immorality you cite for the Muslim world apply equally to those for Christianity of course.
Reading https://info.publicintelligence.net/HTT-PashtunSexuality.pdf there seems to be a problem for men not being allowed to see the face of potential mates; is this custom associated with Islam or not? Catholic priests are not allowed to marry. What are they supposed to do with their sexual impulses. We know the unconvincing answer.
Well, that's a digression on to a different topic. There's no law in traditional Islamic jurisprudence that requires wearing a veil, only modest forms of dress, and in fact it was not a common practice in the earliest history of Islam. Veils for women were adopted in later Islamic ruling courts as a fashion copied from Byzantium, as Greek women had worn veils since ancient times. Of course if you ask people in Afghanistan why they wear veils they will invoke Islam, but historically that's not the whole story.
In case that's taken in a pejorative sense, as a Christian I have to accept that many of the practices in Christianity have accumulated through later history in the same way. That's just how tradition and culture work.
The actions in the articles against boys and girls fail the live-and-let-live principle on the most basic levels. The word 'uncivilised' gets thrown around a bit, and loses weight. Here we see it in the raw. These practices are uncivilised behaviour. They favour might-is-right over the freedom of the victims.
People should not be slaves. Humans should be able to live their lives to pursue their own interests.
Your very conception of "individual rights" (and what they should be) is cultural itself.
(Not to mention abused all the time to support hypocritical interests).
The UN is just a bunch of big powers bullying and doing what they like to lesser countries. And those big powers don't even sign or ratify all decisions made by the UN, or selectively pick what they care for and ignore those that don't favor them. The US for example has refused to cooperate in a international war criminal court that asks to trial its own.
Or how about the fact that in the 60's, decades since the signing of those rights, blacks still have to fight against seggregation in schools, hotels, etc? And modern stuff like torture, drone killings, rampant police killings of innocents, death penalty (including for minors) and all that stuff against basic human rights?
Heck, when the declaration of UN was signed, most of the countries doing the signing were still colonies, and all of the major ones had colonies themselves. Hurray for hypocrisy -- and selective enforcing of them as an excuse and as a weapon against lesser countries.
Culture is a lie. It must be re-told in order to perpetuate.
Abandon any culture that allows - or requires - one to hate and destroy the life of others.
Its as simple as that. Cultures are lies. Stop telling the lies; end the hate. Abandon any culture that allows you to hate.
There are things we should not accept - end of story. Nonconsensual sex and cult brainwashing are some of them.
It's the same thing with the Catholic Church. Widescale sexual abuse of young boys by priests occurred, but not because it's a cultural aspect of the Catholic Church. It's a disgusting corruption that somehow manifested itself by pedophiles that infiltrated the Church and abused their positions, just like in Afghanistan. So there's no lens of morality to view things with. What happened in both cases is that it's a crime that has grown due to widespread corruption. I'm sure you will find that a lot of money was stolen by the Afghani military as well, but theft is not cultural as well, that's corruption and abuse.
The same thing happened in the British government where a widespread sexual abuse ring was discovered recently. Is that also "cultural" aspect of British people? No, it's corruption and a heinous crime.
That's why there is a rape problem in prisons which is certainly not caused by gays ...
I'm not.
the whole video is worth a watch