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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

#71

Post by bane »

coldtea wrote: post #16
afarrell wrote: post #4

This has been known since 2009. This US Army Human Terrain Team report is interesting reading, if you find strange & violent forms of misogyny and pederasty morbidly fascinating https://info.publicintelligence.net/HTT-PashtunSexuality.pdf """ 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 i…

> 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" surel…

You'd be surprised what people without access to education on procreation believe.

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

#72

Post by rimantas »

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…

Ok, let's talk about female genital mutilation. Will you claim that is not cultural? Or the "honor" killings? Something being a part of culture or tradition does not make it right or valuable.

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

#73

Post by berntb »

coldtea wrote: post #60
coldtea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I won't bite on your hooks. Like your examples from 50+ years ago in a [edit: completely different society from now], that drone killings are humane warfare (at least compared to traditional alternatives like bombing whole villages) and that you argue human rights over criminal misuse of authority that have generated a sh-tstorm of outrage when it reached the public attention.

I'll just note that you argue that a wrong can be ignored because of other wrongs. And that you defend (/make relativist argument for) rape of children.

Sorry to disappoint. I have work to do, so you have to find someone else to anger which is easily trolled... :-)

Edit: I will agree that hypocrisy and realpolitik is standard for democracies, which often have as cynical foreign policy as dictators. They lie equally bad, too. I assume that is because foreigners don't have votes at home.

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

#74

Post by 6d0debc071 »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #36

Things might have gone better if they'd been told to ignore drugs instead.

I honestly don't understand why this was down-voted. The planting of opium formed a major part of the Afghan economy - roughly 50%[1] of their GDP in fact - and outlawing parts of that economy is both expensive - the US spent $7.6 billion trying to stop it[2] - and likely to alienate the people who you rely on for intelligence.

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...

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

#75

Post by newjersey »

garrettgrimsley wrote: post #30
crpatino wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Or do people not neatly fit into little boxes marked "Good" and "Bad?"

The Taliban allegedly destroyed poppy fields.

The Taliban also destroyed Buddhist monuments.

You're right. People do not fit into boxes of good and evil.

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

#76

Post by drivingmenuts »

Which sort of begs the question: why the hell are we over there, now?

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.

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

#77

Post by rusabd »

sigma2015 wrote: post #56

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…

It is really old part in Persian culture. Russian observers reported that in 19th century when Central Asia became part of the Russian Empire (e.g. http://rus-turk.livejournal.com/80321.html)

On other hand, they didn't reported it be a rape, more like corruption of young boys.

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

#78

Post by baldfat »

sigma2015 wrote: post #56

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…

Yes the urban Islamic countries were very modernized. Yes women were educated. If you look to early Muslim culture you would see tolerance for non-Muslims in Jerusalem and other important areas that they conquered.

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.

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

#79

Post by simonh »

vixen99 wrote: post #64
simonh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all this practice has nothing whatever to do with Islam> This has been pointed out to you several times already and your persistent linking of this practice with that religion is at this point a pretty obviously deliberate slur. Please stop. Secondly, considering whether a practice has unwilling victims is a perfectly reasonable objective measure to apply when evaluating a practice. As a matter of fact, the…

'Has nothing to do with Islam' and the proven numerous cases of Catholic (among others) priests having sex with boys have nothing to do with Christianity either? I'm on the fence on that one though we can agree it's not ordained in either faith. 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…

> ...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?

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.

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

#80

Post by erikb »

simonh wrote: post #49
erikb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for giving the reasoning for your downvote. But your argument is exactly the point of view that I already responded to in my initial comment. Not a single line shows that you try to accept that other people follow another moral codex. You say "No, because in my moral codex that's a really bad thing, therefore I can't be tolerant." and that is exactly what Muslims argue if we talk about eating pork, dressing of…

First of all this practice has nothing whatever to do with Islam> This has been pointed out to you several times already and your persistent linking of this practice with that religion is at this point a pretty obviously deliberate slur. Please stop. Secondly, considering whether a practice has unwilling victims is a perfectly reasonable objective measure to apply when evaluating a practice. As a matter of fact, the…

I don't link anything to anything. Stop pretending I do and we can live on happily.
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