U.S. Soldiers told to ignore Sexual abuse of boys by Afghan Allies

I’m not that ignorant. For instance, I know what it would be like to be a child raped by an adult and told that it just make things worse for everybody if word got out.

Did you read the part of the OP’s link about the teenage girl who was raped? A US soldier reported it: the rapist spent a day in jail and the girl was forced to marry him.

Yes, things can get worse, but I guess the up side is she wasn’t killed. You’re not in Kansas anymore.

It’s very easy to do the right thing from a distance. I highly encourage it.

It’s a different story when you are out there. I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in a very different culture, with a very different moral compass, and I faced decisions every day- every day- that wore at my soul. Sometimes I made the right call. I still lose sleep over some of my choices.

A kid wants to help clean your house for a small fee. Child exploitation? What if you know that fee feeds a dozen siblings? And you know these dozen siblings. You’ve seen them fight over food. The kid asks for money to start going to school again. You don’t have money for a dozen siblings. What do you do? The kid steals from you. Nothing big, but you no longer feel trust. What do you do?

You are at work and you know your coworkers are sleeping with teenage students. The thing is, marrying a teacher is like winning a lottery for the students. Do you say something? What if they are ALL doing it? Students are invited to serve as hostesses-- with a sexual undertone-- at school functions. This is totally normal. It happens at every school in the country. You have as much chance of changing that as you have of changing the route of the sun. Do you refuse to go? What if you know your refusal won’t make sense to anyone.

A girl confesses she is a lesbian. She wants to know what to do. Do you have an answer for her? Can you have one that means something, when in reality she has no options?

A girl comes up to you at a public party. She is deliriously drunk, unsafely so. She is young. She is probably a prostitute. She is asking to stay in your room. It’s a common setup for robberies. She looks about 14. You don’t know anyone else there, the men seem predatory.

People come and ask you for money every day. You have some money, but not enough. Most are scamming, but all need it, too. You may save a life here and there. You also have a job that you are supposed to be doing that will become impossible of people think you are Santa Clause. You aren’t convinced your job is that valuable.

You are asked to cheer for a parade. What is the parade? You are told it’s a girl’s circumcision.

Working in another culture is hard. Working in another culture, trying to do the right thing, trying to do your job, knowing which battles you can fight and which you can’t, seeing horrific stuff every day, knowing you can fly home any day and everyone you know is stuck there forever…

It’s not easy. It’s never clear. Nobody who has done it walks away with a clear conscious, without scars.

I can find news accounts in this country(maybe even Kansas) where outrages against children were reported and what eventually happened didn’t bode well for those children. Does that mean we quit looking after the welfare of our own children because we can imagine scenarios where bad things might happen?

Yep. We got a few Internet Heroes here, but I’m afraid they might be a little too much like Team America, World Police.

You, as an American, have a pretty good feel for how things work out in America. In Afghanistan, not so much. Have some humility before you rush in to save these folks from themselves. That’s all.
You see a kid being raped on the roadside… by all means do whatever you can.

You think you’re going to bust up a Bacha Bazi ring? Think twice.

Then you’re not doing it right. It really shouldn’t take much more than 20 minutes.

I said what I’d hope to do – I don’t know for sure that I would actually do so. I hope I would act to protect a rape victim.

Umm, it seems just the opposite:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,201892,00.html

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=6332

Right, what could we do? We have no legal authority to stop this.

Two problems:

What if the best way to protect them is to butt out? After reading articles about what happens to girls who are raped, I’m not sure I’d even report it. If she urged me not to, I almost certainly would not.

The story in question (not one of they hypotheticals) happened on an Afghan Military base. What, exactly, would you do?

Those are different situation than the one I initially was responding to. I don’t know exactly what I’d do, though I’d probably do whatever a rape victim asked me to do (if she says be quiet, then I’d be quiet) in the former. In the latter, I suppose I’d report it – using force on a foreign military base would only end badly, most likely.

OK. Looking back, i can see your first response was in reaction to actually seeing a rape in progress. Let’s keep in mind that the OP is about a Bacha Bazi ring being run on an Afghan Military base. That is what I have been responding to, unless otherwise noted. I don’t think you and I are far apart, if at all, on this.

But do you know what it would be like to be a child raped by an adult in a highly religious tribally based culture in which the actions of one family member can have immediate and deadly repercussions on the rest of the family that could last for generations? Do you know what it would be like to a victim in culture were honor is paramount to survival and admitting to a being raped results in conditions worse than the actual rape?

LOL you see this is why I have a rule not to post in controversial subject threads, having a kid and being sleep deprived half the time means even when I try I mess up my phrasing.

My inner PR person is passed out at his desk.

I never saw a good explanation for this in the thread, and now it’s kinda bothering me. Can someone explain what the hell this means, please?

I agree with you.

There’s no fucking way I could sit there and listen to that evil for more than 2 seconds, especially with an AR sitting in my lap.

Scorched fucking earth would be my personal policy towards those rapists. Damned my career and my freedom…

But now you are as aware of it as the soldier is. The practice is common and widespread, not some isolated incident that only someone in the military would be privy to.

You could catch a flight to Kabul yourself tonight. An individual soldier has no more ability to do anything about it than you do, he’s only a few hours closer to it than you are.

This horrible practice is ancient, deeply ingrained in the culture, and practiced by sitting Governors, Generals and Police Chiefs. In the rare case that one of the boys brings charges against his abuser, it is the boy who winds up going to prison. Very tough situation. The only time in recorded history it wasn’t a widespread, open practice was under the Taliban and we knocked them out and installed these guys ourselves.

So, as I’ve asked others, what exactly are you going to do? Remember, this is being done on a Afghan Military Base. Outline your plan for us, Rambo.

I don’t believe this whole story for a second. The President of the United States is on record, stating he has “no patience for countries that try to treat gays and lesbians and transgendered persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.”
In view of that, to suggest that the current US administration would instruct our soldiers to tolerate child rape, is absurd. The whole story must be a hoax.