Hacker News Reader

Comment by numair | Hacker News Reader

Once again, my fellow Americans, if you are ever confused about how the Taliban won the hearts and minds of various groups within their country so quickly — while being such utterly backwards, terrible people — remember that we collaborated with pedophiles to “manage” Afghanistan, to the disgust of our own troops:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-to...

I’ll never stop reminding people of this, because 1) it’s INSANE; 2) any sane person would say “yeah if you’re on the non-pedophile side I’d probably choose you over the other guys.”

View on HN

> if you are ever confused about how the Taliban won the hearts and minds of various groups within their country so quickly

How is it America's fault that Afghan police officers are child molesters? I'm sure if Americans had punished them, the Taliban could have PR spun that too to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans. Sounds to me that Afghanistan has big problems with its own citizens they need to figure out for themselves, and no amount of hand-holding by a powerful nation will help them out of the quagmire they are in.

Afghanistan wasn't like South Korea. The Afghans were not super eager for our help, didn't ask for it, and didn't seem super eager to fight along side us to purge an oppressive regime (unlike the South Koreans).

We funded the child rapists. Gave child rapists guns. We had non child rapists around, but we gave arms and vehicles to child rapists which enabled them to take children and rape them. Then we ignored the fact that they were raping children.

Go try looking up a sex offender in your area and doing the same sort of stuff. You will be held accountable, trust me.

Remind me again, why did the US deployed military in Afghanistan in the first place?

I read so much about it and I still have no clue.

Punishment for unwise choice of house guests and unwillingness to turn over said house guests.

I think it had something to do with this guy on CNN.[0]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orawG7vt68o

Well, a lot of people seems to think it was to protect human rights. I guess this is when it gets confusing when the military leaders ignore the human rights of those kids raped in the US bases...

> How is it America's fault that Afghan police officers are child molesters?

It's not just some police officers. Sexual abuse of young boys is a deeply ingrained feature of Afghan cultures, and the Taliban's revulsion at it was and remains a major motivation to fight:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

I'm not saying this justified the war, and I generally agree with your comment, but we ought to be realistic about the depth of depravity we're dealing with over there.

It was common as early as Classical Greece, which went on to influence the whole Hellenic world (including what's today Afghanistan) and Ancient Rome as well. In fact, this kind of practice is even thought to be the underlying factor behind Paul of Tarsus' unreserved condemnation of Graeco-Roman sexual customs in the Christian New Testament.

This is 100% spin. Bacha Bazi existed before, during, and after the Taliban's reign. Not only that, there were plenty of circumstances where the victims were charged with homosexuality crimes during the Taliban's reign instead of the perpetrators. It's deeply entrenched in Pashtun culture and has been a thing for centuries. I'm not suggesting this makes it an acceptable practice, but it does explain why it remains prevalent to date and is not a determinant factor in "winning the hearts and minds" of the Afghan people.

Afghanistan is an extremely fractured nation where the central government does not have absolute control or ability to govern many of the provinces. Pashtuns are tribal and a lot of conflicts stem from Pashtunwali, essentially a code of conduct, which one of its core pillars is revenge. This creates never ending conflicts between tribes that have wronged each other. They're simply not united. Even during the Taliban's reign, they did not have complete control over the country. The Northern Alliance still controlled the Northern part of the country (which is the vector from which we begun operations with Special Forces assisting the Northern Alliance in defeating the Taliban).

This, along with the racial tensions where the affluent in Afghanistan tend to be Tajiks and have wielded a lot of political power despite being a vast minority in the state are probably bigger contributors. All the Taliban need to do is convince the warlord of a given area and they will effective control that area.

Simple questions for you: you seem to have a very detailed opinion of the way the Afghan people think and behave. How many are within your group of friends with whom you communicate on a regular basis? How many have provided an opinion or insight on your analysis of their situation? Have you spent any time anywhere near the region?

I’ve witnessed this first hand and the comment you are replying to is accurately representing the history here.

Really, one hundred percent? Not just ninety-five? :)

> [Bacha Bazi] is not a determinant factor in "winning the hearts and minds" of the Afghan people.

This rather famous report written by the US military disagrees:

By some accounts, the first incident that brought Mullah Omar and the Taliban to prominence in the eyes of the Pashtun people actually involved a dispute between two warlords over a particularly attractive halekon. This dispute took the pedophilia of the warlords to such an extreme that the locals themselves were repulsed and happy to embrace a force of reform.

and:

Even where the halekon tradition is not "celebrated "per se, it appears to underlie a number of Pashtun social structures, most notably the recruitment of very young "soldiers" by commanders of paramilitary groups. (This is so much true even today, that current law prohibits "beardless boys" living in Afghan military and police stations.) This in turn fits under the traditional warrior ethos which defines the role of men within Pashtun culture. This dynamic played a major role in the functioning of the warlord culture that preceded the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

From https://info.publicintelligence.net/HTT-PashtunSexuality.pdf - "Pashtun Sexuality"

This report doesn't actually disagree with my assessment and in fact largely reinforces it. Cherry-picking one line that is contemplating on the motives behind Afghans celebrating the Taliban's intervention is not an argument against the premise that bacha bazi is deeply entrenched in Pashtun culture and thus would not be a determinant factor in gaining widespread support of a nation comprised mostly of Pashtuns.

Well... you might be right. This report does also highlight the widespread recognition that the Taliban are hypocrites who "hid their halekon in their madrasas".

You're also right that the line I quoted pertains only to the early days of the Taliban's rise, and not necessarily to the rest of the conflict.

>yeah if you’re on the non-pedophile side

You're assuming there's a non-pedophile side?

Yes, that's the Taliban. From https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/10/28/bacha-bazi-an-afghan-tr...:

"The Taliban had a deep aversion towards bacha bazi, outlawing the practice when they instituted strict nationwide sharia law. According to some accounts, including the hallmark Times of London article “Kandahar Comes out of the Closet” in 2002, one of the original provocations for the Taliban’s rise to power in the early 1990s was their outrage over pedophilia. Once they came to power, bacha bazi became taboo, and the men who still engaged in the practice did so in secret."

If the Taliban is so opposed to pedophilia, why are there so many reported stories of girls as young as 12 being forced to "marry" men more than twice their age?

No, you're right, my response wasn't actually very relevant to your point. The Taliban are in fact not at all opposed to pedophilia as long as it's their preferred kind.

The Taliban profess to be opposed to the institutionalized child sex abuse we know as Bacha Bazi, and that appeared to be a significant factor in their early rise to power. But you're right, there is no "non-pedophile side" in any meaningful moral sense.

Nonetheless, thanks for posting that 7 year old article. I've followed Afghanistan news on and off and I was not aware of how widespread that practice is. It's almost certainly a factor in the Taliban's resurgence.

How in the world do you say "forced", truly hearsay. I'm a Muslim, I have a bunch of Afghani/Arab friends, and things aren't "forced", except in a few cases.

As far as age: did you know the legal age of marriage was 13 in the United States (NH), up until 2019. Thirteen.

Wow I was unaware of that.

Its been a very long time since reading or watching something has made my blood boil like it is right now.

The idea that their opposition to bacha bazi played a significant role in the Taliban's appeal is exactly the kind of myopic American cultural reasoning that has led to this disaster in Afghanistan.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com