Tolerance: U.S. Soldiers Told To Ignore Rape of Boys Because It's "Afghan Culture"

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Townhall/Tip Sheet:

Katie Pavlich

Sep 21, 2015

 

There is an absolutely horrifying story out in the New York Times today featuring U.S. soldier whistleblowers who say they were told to ignore rampant sexual abuse of young boys by Afghan allies because "it's there culture."

 

 

In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base.

 

“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

 

Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

 

 

Adding insult-to-injury, American soldiers who refused to sit by and allow Afghan commanders to continue abusing boys, and girls, as sex slaves are paying a heavy price for doing the right thing.

 

 

The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.

 

 

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"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

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