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

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#51

Post by aikah »

sahreeg wrote: post #13
erikb wrote: post #7

"Afghan soldiers told to ignore American Allies' eating pork" 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 acc…

Correct me if I am wrong, but while your argument might have some legitimacy, in this particular case it sounds as if you believe that rape is actually something culturally acceptable in these parts of the world. It is not, and FYI, Islam forbids 1- homosexuality, 2- rape. This phenomena SHOULD be fought against -because it is wrong, and the child is being abused here- especially by the people who are there to spread…

> Islam forbids 1- homosexuality, 2- rape.

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.

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#52

Post by JupiterMoon »

adrianN wrote: post #8
erikb wrote: post #7

"Afghan soldiers told to ignore American Allies' eating pork" 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 acc…

So were does cultural acceptance stop? If it were common not to rape boys but to eat babies after torturing them to tenderize the meat, should we also be accepting of that? There has to be a point where we draw the line. Most people here I think would agree that rape is on the other side of that line.

I start with the principle, "your freedom ends where my face begins" following this acts that involve harming another human are unacceptable. I.e. rape, genital mutilation, forced marriage etc can never be cultural issues to me. In my opinion they are always wrong no exceptions.

I consider myself lucky to live in a country where the laws (mainly) reflect my own stance on many of these issues.

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#54

Post by xiaoma »

simonh wrote: post #46
sidcool wrote: post #2

It's a sad world we live in. Looks like countries who ban stuff the most, have the most offenders...

Buses in London used to have signs saying 'No Spitting'. They don't have them anymore, but not because it's now OK to spit on buses. You don't make rules against things that nobody does.

I suspect that will change as tourism becomes more widespread.

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#55

Post by xiaoma »

simonh wrote: post #46
sidcool wrote: post #2

It's a sad world we live in. Looks like countries who ban stuff the most, have the most offenders...

Buses in London used to have signs saying 'No Spitting'. They don't have them anymore, but not because it's now OK to spit on buses. You don't make rules against things that nobody does.

I suspect that will change as tourism becomes more widespread.

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#56

Post by sigma2015 »

On HN regularly posters demand the US not to impose their values upon other "cultures".

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-...

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#57

Post by LoSboccacc »

crpatino wrote: post #29
cup wrote: post #23

The sad irony here is that the Taliban gained a lot of public support for abolishing this practice, and with the international communities diminishing engagement, the Taliban is set to return and gain more grass rooots support for putting this practice down again.

Has to make you wonder if the Taliban have not been the "good guys" from the very beginning?

eh, memory is such a short and controversial thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqWjJdXKIXA

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.

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#58

Post by sigma2015 »

steven2012 wrote: post #41
erikb wrote: post #7

"Afghan soldiers told to ignore American Allies' eating pork" 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 acc…

Your analogy is utterly wrong and broken, because you are mistakenly calling raping young boys "cultural". It's not cultural, and it's not something that happens across all of Afghanistan, otherwise all Afghani males could be considered pedophiles. It's a select group of pedophiles that have attained military status such that they won't be prosecuted for their crimes. That's not culture, that's corruption. It's the s…

The assumption that only pedophiles rape very young children is wrong - there is a "phenomenon" of substituting preferrred sex partners with what is available.

That's why there is a rape problem in prisons which is certainly not caused by gays ...

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#59

Post by inDigiNeous »

yardie wrote: post #27
inDigiNeous wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say this when you very well know, eating pork means killing innocent animals, keeping them locked down, in the same way these people are holding small children locked down and abusing them. 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…

This is literally the stupidest thing I've read on HN in a very long time. Bravo intrepid commenter for declaring the consumption of meat to be worse than the sexual abuse of small children. You've done a disservice to vegans and vegetarians, everywhere.

That's your view. My view is that all life is equally important. Why is abusing a child worse than killing another living being ? Can you elaborate ?

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 ?

Re: U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse of Boys

#60

Post by coldtea »

coldtea wrote: post #19
cturner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture is a distraction. 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 th…

> The key issue is individual rights vs might-is-right. Culture is a distraction. 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).

>No, the "individual rights" are declared by UN

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.

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