Open Season on Little Boys' Bums in Kandahar

For Gung-Ho Steve, the Afghanistan mission was all show, no go and now that it's lost its lustre and partisan, political advantage, it's "out of sight, out of mind" for the Cons. To help that along they've conveniently gagged the Armed Forces. Harper's PMO will let you know everything they want you to believe about Afghanistan. Why? Because our media sheep let them get away with it and there's nobody within their party willing to stand up for Canadians and our soldiers. But I digress.

There's an awful scandal going on in Afghanistan. It concerns complaints of Canadian soldiers that they've had to watch, helpless, as Afghan soldiers and interpreters rape young boys. In June, the Toronto Star reported that several soldiers said they had complained but were ignored by higher ups.

Now the uproar is that the Canadian military's National Investigation Service has said it could take up to two years to investigate the soldiers' claims. Two years for them to come back and tell us that - oh my gosh, our side, the good guys, the folks we're fighting to prop up, really do have a thing for little boys' bums. Who could've known, quelle surprise!

Their dirty little secret is that we've known about this and quietly gone along with it literally since we got there.

This is from The New York Times, February 21, 2002: "Though the puritanical Taliban tried hard to erase pedophilia from male-dominated Pashtun culture, now that the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is gone, some people here are indulging in it once again. "During the Taliban, being with a friend was difficult, but now it is easy again," said Ahmed Fareed, a 19-year-old man with a white shawl covering his face except for a dark shock of hair and piercing kohl-lined eyes. Mr. Fareed should know. A shopkeeper took him as a lover when he was just 12, he said.

An interest in relationships with young boys among warlords and their militia commanders played a part in the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan. In 1994, the Taliban, then a small army of idealistic students of the Koran, were called to rescue a boy over whom two commanders had fought. They freed the boy and the people responded with gratitude and support. "At that time boys couldn't come to the market because the commanders would come and take away any that they liked," said Amin Ullah, a money changer, gesturing to his two teenage sons hunched over wads of afghani bank notes at Kandahar's currency bazaar.

Yeah, that's right kids. We ran the Taliban out of town in 2001 and since then it's been open season on little boys' bums. But don't worry, little Afghan girls get their share too. Fathers selling pre-pubescent teen daughters to other old guys is relatively common. They're not being bought for their culinary skills either. If they don't go along with sexual slavery their fathers can sling them into prison, indefinitely. Two years ago there were detailed news reports of one such prison where girls as young as 12 were being held, indefinitely, just down the road from the main gate of our base in Kandahar.

You can't blame the foot soldiers for this. They have to follow orders and procedures. But you can damn well blame those who are giving those orders, dictating those procedures. And you can damn well blame those who are covering this up, because they're silently condoning pedophilia and, right now, that chain of command goes right to the top. Steve, are you getting this? These animals are ass-raping kids, Steve, on your watch, Steve. So, what are you going to do about it Steve or are you just going to cover it up, pretend not to notice? At this point, Steve, isn't that condoning pedophilia by omission? You can gag the Armed Forces all you want Steve but this one is on your books and it isn't going away.

By the way, if you found the language of this post coarse and offensive - good - that's precisely what I wanted. This is a subject that deserves no less.