http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=561752002&tid=1
is this:
(a) biased reporter getting quotes, quotes which support his bias,
(b) relatively unbiased reporter who got quotes from soldiers, which quotes reflected mainly the bias of a few soldiers, and which quotes yield a compelling (or at least verbally arresting) story
© up and up reporting
© Non-biased reporter telling the humorous stories of some squadies.
What makes you think otherwise?
I vote for (b). The homophobia of the soldiers is probably without doubt, but the glee with which the reporter reports them, and his sweeping statements, is indicative of his own bias.
Further, physical contact between straight guys in South Asia is not taboo - so the reference to “mincing” is probably incorrect.
I read a very similar story a few months back on the Afghan tradition - banned by death by the Taliban - of young boys groomed as sex companions by men. It was in the UK times (see below).
While I think the squaddie quotes in the linked story above may be slightly exaggerated, I doubt it’s a complete fabrication. It makes sense that after a long period of severe, forced repression of natural desires/habits, one might go on a huge binge.
However it should be noted - before this descends into an Afghan=paedophiles rant thread - that these boys are 15/16, so while they might be considered minors by certain societies, they appear to be post-pubescent hence really “young men” not “young boys”.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j012102.html - site quoting from Times
http://www.washblade.com/forum/columns/viewpt/020308a.htm - site suggesting that Times article was overstated, but not essentially untrue
http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/Forum46/HTML/000289.html - a bulletin board with people discussing it (ya gotta love “bcsm57’s” comment - can’t wait until he drops by here and is roasted and banned in 5)
http://www.afgha.com/article.php?sid=11344 - original Times article, archived on Afgha.com
http://www.afgha.com/article.php?sid=13392 - another report, quoting from Times
http://www1.excite.com/home/entertainment/celeb/page_six_article/0,13907,01_26_2002_2,00.html - yet another feature sparked by the Times’ coverage
Remember that this is not meant to be a serious, thought-provoking report, up to the standards of The Times - the exact same article appeared in The Sun last week.
It is meant to be a light-hearted look at a couple of stories from the soldiers on the front line. All the reporter has done is repeat the words of the soldiers; he hasn’t made any claims about Afghan taboos.
It came from The Sun, remember!
Dammit!! I had actually had a (d) and and (e) in mind (in point of fact, (e) had been what i wrote as © in the OP, so i suppose i should say i had a © and a (d)), and one of them was “Is this just a tabloid report?”, meaning here in the states Tabloid means like ‘national enquirer’ or some shit.
i can’t for the life of me remember what (e) had been.
jb
Ahh - I’ll go for (d), then.
Note: a tabloid in the UK is not quite a US tabloid - the British tabloids are just (daily) newspapers that cover everything, but put a populist spin on what they report.
For instance:
The Times: British Troops greeted by Afghan homosexuals.
The Sun: Our Boys chased by Afghan drag queens.
The National Enquirer: British soldier is an alien.
It strikes me as something the Weekly World News would put out, only Batboy is missing.
Notice how the names of the soldiers are fairly generic and they’re not identified with any particular unit (except “Whiskey Company”) and it’s all enlisted men. No officers or official spokesmen (again, except for Major Phil Joyce).
Sounds suspicious to me.
Freyr - I don’t think an official spokesman is going to comment on a small story like this. The Ministry of Defence have better things to do.
As regards the soldiers, the story in the paper was accompanied by a photo of one of the groups.
It seems highly unlikely that The Sun has just made this up out of thin air. Why would they? I wouldn’t be surprised if the soldiers had exaggerated for the sake of a good story, but nothing about the events seems suspicious to me.
We are talking about a British newspaper here, not The National Enquirer. Objectivity certainly isn’t their strong point, but they are not given to works of fiction.
Freyr - I don’t think an official spokesman is going to comment on a small story like this. The Ministry of Defence have better things to do.
As regards the soldiers, the story in the paper was accompanied by a photo of one of the groups.
It seems highly unlikely that The Sun has just made this up out of thin air. Why would they? I wouldn’t be surprised if the soldiers had exaggerated for the sake of a good story, but nothing about the story seems suspicious to me.
We are talking about a British newspaper here, not The National Enquirer. Objectivity isn’t their strong point, but they are not given to works of fiction.
From personal professional experience, I can tell you that UK tabloids will enhance, but never deliberately invent or lie.
For example, I have had the phrase: “through shark-infested waters”
subbed to the somewhat more sensationalist: “surrounded by dozens of man-eating sharks”
but never has anything untrue, invented, or deliberately wrong been added to any copy wired.
One important point:
That would be whisky company - it being a scottish regiment. You’re thinking of their irish equivalent 
Major Phil Joyce certainly seems to be a real person.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_2005000/2005199.stm
I also don’t see anything particularly generic about the name ‘Vaz Pickles’.
What one needs to realise is that The Scotsman isn’t a tabloid, either in the British or the US sense of the term, but a well-respected, rather staid broadsheet. The whole thing is clearly just a light-hearted piece based on less than in-depth research among the returning squaddies at Bagram. Doubtless, its tone does reveal something about the unexamined prejudices of The Scotsman and its readers, but the report itself is almost certainly accurate and my guess would be that something of the sort may well have happened.
I figure that this is simply a parallel to atrocity stories. It makes people feel better about the war because the people we’re fighting are so ‘other’, so strange (in this case because they’re accused to be flamingly gay, in atrocity stories, because they are evil). It makes fun of their masculinity as well, which certainly explains why it would be popular with soldiers. However, given the nature of this story, I would imagine that if it were real and if there were proof that it would be big news by now. This is of course ignoring the Muslim prohibition of sexuality, the fact that good eyeliner is probably not to be had in the middle of the Afghan wilderness, and so on.
But what about the goats being blown off hilltops?
“BAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa…” spalt giggle 
Oh, is that what they meant? I thought it was a beastiality reference.
yeah, sorry 'bout that. i was trying to be clever.
I suspect APB has the truth of the matter.
But to keep this from being just as “me too” post, I’d have to add:
“No true Scotsman would commit repertorial bias!”
Poor goats.