There’s a pretty damning new report out in The New York Times today saying that USA soldiers stationed in Afghanistan were told to ignore the sexual abuse of boys by Afghan officials.
The Pentagon on Monday denied there was any policy directing USA service members to ignore abuse of teenager boys by their Afghan allies, but insisted the issue should be handled by local Afghan law enforcement.
A U.S. Special Forces captain who roughed up a militia commander for keeping a boy chained to a bed as a sex slave was relieved of his command and pulled out of Afghanistan.
“The American policy of nonintervention is intended to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militia units the United States has trained to fight the Taliban”, reports NYT.
An Afghan journalist, Najibullah Quraishi, produced a documentary, “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan”, that was shown in London in late March 2010 (run time: 52 min; this version is available on vimeo.com). Buckley Sr. accused the Marine Corps, the Navy, Department of Defense, and the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service and former Marine Corps Commandant General James Amos, in his lawsuit, stating that they were hiding the truth behind his son’s death.
The practice of “bacha bazi”, or “boy play” by those in authority, including Afghan military commanders, was “absolutely abhorrent”.
Goldstein gives no indication that this “policy of treating child sexual abuse as a cultural issue” was in place before 2009, i.e., before Barack Obama became President.
Child rape is happening of US military bases, according to court documents, but American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene.
The father of Lance Cpl.
Mr Buckley said his son – who was shot dead in 2012 – told him: “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it”. He has since left the military. Sgt.
What’s more tragic is the fact that most of these events occurred on military bases, in the vicinity of US soldiers. First Class Charles Martland, a Green Beret, is set to be involuntarily discharged November . 1 because he attacked an Afghan Local Police commander in 2011 who allegedly raped a boy and then beat his mother for telling the USA military. Martland wants to remain in the military. Unfortunately, Martland is not the only one who has had to go through this process.
The abuses, which are said to be common within the Pashtun culture, were often committed by former warlords engaged by the U.S.in a policing capacity to help hold territories taken by the USA military. “Stop imposing your values on others”, was the message for the American soldiers. Martland. “We do not have any power or the ability to use our hands to compel them to be what we see as morally better”. In some cases, US troops claimed they had been disciplined for trying to shine a light on the disturbing scenes they’ve witnessed.