Child Rape in Afghanistan?
- By: Dave Lindorff, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
(Photo: TSgt Laura K. Smith / U.S. Air Force; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t) [print_link]Dateline: Wednesday 10 March 2010
The stated goal of the US-led war in Afghanistan, according to the Obama administration, is to defeat the Taliban and establish a stable democratic government over the entire country. Critical to that goal is establishing a professional Afghan Army and police force that is not corrupt and that has the respect of the Afghan people.
But reports out of Canada suggest that, far from creating such a military and police force, the so-called International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is turning a blind eye to the thuggish criminality of those organizations, both to avoid growing opposition in ISAF member countries and to avoid offending those organizations in Afghanistan.
The issue in question is routine rape of children by Afghan soldiers and police operating on Canadian-run bases in the Kandahar region.
As reported last fall in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, Canadian military chaplains and some soldiers have been complaining as far back as 2006 that Afghan security forces have been sexually assaulting young boys on their base. These military whistle-blowers charge that the military brass has been ignoring or burying their complaints, fearing the bad publicity they could generate.
Kudos to the Canadian grunts, MPs and chaplains who found the sexual abuse of children more than they could stomach, and who brought their concerns to public attention at home in Canada when their own commanders sought to cover it up.
This leaves us with two possibilities:
1. US soldiers and marines are just not as willing to go outside the chain of command and go public with their complaints, or
2. The US media are not interested in investigating this kind of story. It involves only Afghans, and who cares about Afghans? What American journalism covers is Americans. (Remember the big spate of stories about the sex escapades of guards at the US embassy in Kabul?)
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net. Lindorff may be reached at dlindorff@yahoo.com
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KICK-OFF COMMENTS
Wed, 03/10/2010 – 16:57 — US Military Veteran (not verified)
Wed, 03/10/2010 – 18:30 — Dave Lindorff (not verified)
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.netThu, 03/11/2010 – 00:17 — jack kane (not verified)
Of course there are cases of child rape over there. But so what? The major point is that for 8+ years Nato troops and planes, funded by the civilized Western taxpayers, have been slaughtering and massacring innocent people over in the primordial mountains of Afghanistan.
Naturally, there have been rapes, murders, suicides, decapitations, poisonings, dismemberment, knifings, torture, and other vile acts, inflicted by the remorseless invaders. This is how war works.
The only people to profit from the war have been the usual suspects from the military-industrial-congressional-complex.And YOU and I are paying, voluntarily or not, for all this madness.
Thu, 03/11/2010 – 02:33 — Anonymous (not verified)