For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers.

[pgodbold]

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/28/INF21F2Q9H.DTL#ixzz0yEFok6Ly

[gophates]

1. So have fundamentalist xian preachers nt

[another saigon]

2. and Catholic Priests

.

[Brickbat]

3. Those poor kids.

I object to the writer's use of the word "lover" to describe a 9-year-old. Sad and wrong.

[Bluebear]

8. And "pretty young boy". Agenda. nt

[proteus_lives]

13. Yeah, a pedophile agenda.

[XemaSab]

4. What's the difference between screwing a 9-yo girl and a 9-yo boy?

They're both sanctioned in some parts of the world.

Nobody should be shocked by this.

[whathehell]

7. From what I've heard, It's a big difference in the Muslim world. n/t

[uppityperson]

10. You get to be married to the 9 yr old girl but not to the 9 yr old boy

[uppityperson]

5. If women were treated better, respected more, it would be better for the young boys also.

[Maru Kitteh]

38. It would also be better for the men. How liberating for a man to value and be valued equally.

To have a full partner to lean on, to truly share his life, to make love to his wife without shame.


It will be better for everyone when women are finally respected as equal beings.

[whathehell]

6. Hideous. n/t

[MadHound]

9. And your point is?

Is this right? No, at least not according to our standards. Is this worth continuing our illegal, immoral war in the region? No.

Bring the troops home and let the Afghan people take care of their own problems.

[Quantess]

15. Why does the OP need to say what his "point" is? As though he has some hidden agenda.

It's a disturbing article all on its own.

[MadHound]

21. It is also a common one,

Not just in Afghanistan, but around the world. So I was wondering why the OP felt the need to post this piece specifically about Afghanistan.

[Maru Kitteh]

39. Is there some reason we should ignore it because it's Afghanistan?

[whathehell]

42. In a word "No".

I'd say "the pc stops here"...and a few other places, but that's another conversation.

[Canuckistanian]

11. It's not a soldier's job to enforce the "morals" of the country they're in

In fact, I can't think of a worse kind of person to do that. Soldiers bring their own sense of "propriety" that is almost certainly different than those of the country they occupy.

If the Afghans have been doing this for centuries, then they must have a social mechanism for harm reduction that we don't understand.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[XemaSab]

19. Sadly, I agree

I also think that any appearance of exporting western morality is to be avoided.

[proteus_lives]

20. Agreeing with child-rape is pretty sad.

[Maru Kitteh]

41. The Negro woman soon forgets her protestations when her child is sold away, the Negro woman

simply doesn't feel things the way a white person does, and so therefore it is not a cruelty to her the way it would be for a Christian white.


This was conventional wisdom in this country not so very long ago.

STUPID - wouldn't you agree?

So why do you agree with a poster who states that these children being raped are not really being harmed, and we just don't understand?

It's indefensible.

[uncommon]

54. Children don't have the power to protect themselves - it falls upon adults who come in contact with

them to right wrongs and protect them.

[Bobbieo]

24. Maybe it is a subtle form of populaton control. Quien sabe?

[JI7]

26. There is nothing acceptable about this

[Warren DeMontague]

28. What? Slavery was done "for centuries", it'd be pretty hard to come up with a 'social mechanism for

harm reduction' that pertained to that long-standing cultural institution.

Either abusing kids is wrong, or it isn't. Plain and simple. I'm going to side with "is wrong".

[Hugabear]

47. Don't forget genocide, ethnic cleansing...

Hell, the Bible not only condones but encourages both slavery and genocide!

[cwydro]

31. "social mechanism for harm reduction"

wtf?

Maybe they got one of those there mechanisms for the women-folk gettin' stoned and all that stuff too.

Sheesh, the things I see on DU.

[tabasco]

36. It's a soldier's job to provide law and order.

They should blow the rapist's head off.

[proteus_lives]

43. Oh, you're just a cultural imperialist.

You probably wouldn't even rape a child if you were visiting Afghanistan. Then everyone would know you're such a tourist.

We're not allowed to judge, remember.

God, some of the comments on this thread make me gag.

[Winterblues]

51. I was a soldier once, and that was never a part of my job description.

In fact we were always warned to stay completely out of regional affairs including trying to enforce local laws or customs..It isometimes a LAW in those countries that women be completely covered. Should our soldiers force our women in the military to obey that law. Should our soldiers Only enforce laws from our country or exactly what Laws is it the soldiers job to enforce?

[tabasco]

57. I was a soldier too.

I was an infantryman who provided law and order in both Somalia and Iraq.

You must have been in a more touchy feely Army than the one I was in.

[Winterblues]

58. Right I was touchy feely with the leaches in the jungles of South Vietnam

As an Infantry Soldier I was taught the spirit of the bayonet, not to enforce other country's laws...

[whathehell]

40. I don't see why they "must" at all...

It's a hideous "custom" based, it seems, on the most extreme dehumanization of women as "vessels" which must, under threat of death, bear the entire burden of family "honor" in their vaginas.

Political correctness will simply NOT justify this sick, entwined system of pedophilia and female oppression.

[HEyHEY]

46. That said, I've heard stories of teenaged boys walking around with their bowels hanging out

After being gang raped by groups of soldiers.

[snooper2]

52. Yeah, the social mechanism is -

"As one boy, in tow of a man he called "my lord," told the Reuters reporter: "Once I grow up, I will be an owner, and I will have my own boys."


Fucking Sick as your post...

[uncommon]

53. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? Remember slavery? Segregation? Ownership of women?

Did we have a fucking "social mechanism for harm reduction" for all of these things?

Your moral relativism is showing, and it's really fucking ugly.

[Xithras]

56. People don't want to hear it, but you're right. It would be a war crime to stop this.

The practice is legal under Afghani law. Under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power is required to respect the religious, moral, and cultural traditions of the nation they're occupying. They are also pointedly prohibited from banning or suppressing the practice of those traditions.

If the Afghani civilian government were to ban the practice, our soldiers could intervene and do something about this. Because this is a centuries-old cultural tradition in Afghanistan, it would be a war crime for us to intervene against the will of the people and civilian government.

[Sisaruus]

12. I think the appropriate word would be victims.

Certainly not "lovers."

[Barack2theFuture]

16. We need to get the Vatican into the coalition of the willing . . .

[Steely_Dan]

17. And So Did...

Roman warriors.

-P

[hedgehog]

29. I've read that St. Paul's so-called denunciation of homosexuals

was in fact aimed at men who took young boys as lovers, especially when it was an owner-slave situation.

[Touchdown]

30. Oh' please. It was about homosexuality.

Christianity proscribes it. Judaism condemns it. God abhors it. It's all in there.

Attempting to wiggle out some kind of softer or different "interpretation" is cherry picking and contorting the message.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Ah so fifth century BCE Athens

...

What can I say?

[SweetieD]

22. Some things are just wrong and this is one of them

Yes I know this has been in practice since antiquity. But it is still wrong. The thing that makes this shocking to us is that these people are open about victimizing these young boys. Yes children are molested all over the world. And yes children (not just boys by the way, girls too) have been molested in churches. But still it is sickening to know this practice is just accepted as the norm and open in Afghan tribal culture.

[Philosoraptor]

23. A buddy of mine stationed over there confirms this tradition

He says they have man-boy love night once a week at the local bars, everyone just accepts it as tradition

[Bobbieo]

25. What are good Muslims doing in bars?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. Frontline did a documentary on this...link Dancing Boys of Afghanistan

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys

[pgodbold]

32. Thank you for link and info. You can watch it online at the link. nt

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

33. It is so powerful and so disturbing.

[wmbrew0206]

34. Pedophlia is a major issue in Afghanistan. The story about Mullah Omar rising to power is started

with a tale about him and some of his students taking on two warlords who were fighting over a young boy they both wanted as a lover.

[Brooklyns_Finest]

35. Repressed Heterosexuality

I don't think these guys are pedophiles in the western sense of the word ( I could be wrong). I think their culture restricts heterosexual activity so much that they are forced to have sex with boys.

I was in Iraq in 2003 and while I never saw grown men violating chidlren, the stories were always out there.

[whathehell]

44. I would disagree, only in the sense that they are "forced".

No one is "forced" to rape children...but I do agree that the rigid rules surrounding women encourage it...sick, sick, sick..and I don't give a damn if anyone thinks I'm being "culturally imperialistic".

[Poiuyt]

37. My nephew experienced that when he was stationed in Iraq

He was in Air Force Security and was a guard at one of the prison camps. The Air Force personnel didn't guard the real hard-core prisoners, just the ones that everyone knew were innocent (another story). Apparently there would be some joking back and forth with the prisoners making advances towards my nephew. They told him that having sex with women was for making babies and with men was for having fun.

[HEyHEY]

45. No, actually, the term "lover" implies it's consentual.

Many of these boys are bought and sold and raped.

[proteus_lives]

48. Don't use the word "rape" you're being a cultural imperialist.

:puke:

[HEyHEY]

49. Oh, sorry, I mean bought and sold and..uh... enthusiastically wooed

[uncommon]

55. Seriously right? But there are people basically saying that we should be okay with that.

Fucking sick.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

50. Of course. So did the ancient Greeks. The bottom line cause is a culture that puts women on par

with dirt.

It's logical: cultures that despise women so intensely must result in men seeking gratification, love and companionship with younger pretty boys. Females are not worthy of that kind of partnership.