Decorated Green Beret booted after striking Afghan police commander who raped boy, 12, and beat up mother

[kscarbel2]

Army Times / August 21, 2015

A decorated soldier who has worked for the U.S. Army Special Forces for 11 years is being kicked out after he stood up for a young rape victim and his beaten mother in Afghanistan.

Sgt. First Class Charles Martland and his detachment commander, Capt. Daniel Quinn, received a “relief for cause” from that 2011 deployment to Konduz province, Afghanistan, for the assault, according to documentation provided to Army Times by the office of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California.

Martland, 32, said in a memorandum to the Army in his defense that he understood they were “absolutely wrong in striking one of our ALP (Afghan Local Police) commanders."

Martland had fallen under the Army's Qualitative Management Program, a process that can be triggered by derogatory information on their record. Though technically not a draw-down tool, it is aiding in force reduction efforts by weeding out less desirable soldiers; a black mark on their record, such as a relief for cause, can trigger a formal QMP review and result in involuntary separation.

Hunter, in an Aug. 18 letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, has asked him to intervene on Martland's behalf. The congressman took on Mortland's case after receiving a plea from help from the soldier.

In 2011, Martland's Special Forces unit was conducting village stability operations in Konduz province, requiring frequent coordination with police.

Martland, in his letter to Hunter, said he had encountered corrupt police officials who were conducting beatings, honor killings and rapes — and going unpunished.

When Martland learned that a police commander he had trained had raped a boy and then beated the boy's mother, Martland said it was too much.

He and his team leader, Daniel Quinn, confronted Officer Abdul Rahman - who had also allegedly beaten the 12-year-old's mother for reporting the sexual assault - and 'shoved him to the ground'.

Despite Rahman walking away only bruised, Martland and Quinn were disciplined. The Army reportedly halted their mission, put them in temporary jobs, and then, finally, sent them home.

In a memo to the Army Enlisted Records and Evaluation Center, Martland admitted to striking the Afghan.

"My detachment commander and I felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our ALP to commit atrocities," he said in the memo.

Hunter's spokesman Joe Kasper said the Afghan police officer confessed and laughed in the soldiers' faces when confronted.

“It's sad to think that a child rapist is put above one of our elite military operators,” Hunter said in a statement on the Army's decision to discharge Martland. “The Army should stand up for what's right and should not side with a corrupt Afghan police officer."

Hunter stressed in his letter to Carter the quality of the character references he had collected regarding Martland, who has served for 11 years and earned a Bronze Star with "V" Device. His evaluations provided by Hunter's office were largely positive. One evaluation did mark him down to "needs some improvement" for "responsibility and accountability," citing the "physical altercation with a corrupt ALP member."

Congressman Hunter said: 'It's sad to think that a child rapist is put above one of our elite military operators.

Duncan added: 'Sergeant Martland was left with no other choice but to intervene in a bad situation. The Army should stand up for what's right and should not side with a corrupt Afghan police officer.'

Special Forces Maj. Samuel Kline, his current commander at the Special Forces Dive School in Key West, Florida, — where Martland has worked as an instructor since 2012 — recommended Martland remain on active duty.

“Of the NCO’s I have worked with throughout my career, SFC Martland has indisputably exhibited the greatest amount of loyalty and reliability of those I have encountered,” Kline’s wrote in a memo.

Company Sgt. Maj. John Theis noted in his supporting letter that Martland was runner-up for the “Special Warfare Training Group 2014 Instructor of the Year” out of 400 instructors.

Martland isn’t the first Green Beret for whom Hunter has advocated. He has also railed against Army investigations into Maj. Mathew Golsteyn and Lt. Col. Jason Amerine.

Golsteyn was accused by the Army of murdering an unarmed Afghan bomb-maker and destroying the evidence. An investigation into the claim allegedly made by Golsteyn during a CIA job interview during a polygraph yielded no witnesses, physical evidence nor charges. The Army ultimately recommended a general discharge.

Amerine testified to Congress that the Army investigated him in retaliation for his efforts to inform Congress of problems with the nation’s processes for recovering foreign-held hostages, including conversations with Hunter.

[carlotpilot]

NO COMMENTS?

[Dirtymilkman]

What can you say? Those people are so fucked up, and our leftist, politically correct leadership will just cave for it. It makes me sick.

[41chevy]

From a past USS Oklahoma Families Newsletter. Pretty much says it all.

"Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001 ?
Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania ?
Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?
And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet?
Well, I don't. I don't care at all.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia
I'll care when ISIS tells the world they are sorry for hacking off heads while they scream through their gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" (ISIS) come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave Marine standing up against the abuse of women and children or roughing up an Afghani terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care for the skewed view that it is wrong to stand up for whats right.
When I see a fuzzy photo of enemy prisoners who have been humiliated, rest assured that I don't care.
When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care.
When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I do not care.
In addition, oh, by the way, I have noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and ---- you guessed it - - I don't care ! ! ! ! !

[Bobby j]

Thank you '41 Chevy very humbling article........I think that puts in perspective how WE all as Americans should feel I know I do.......Bobby j.

[david wild]

Just more of the Obama train sucking up to every corrupt piece of crap, but then again birds of a feather tend to flock together.

[kscarbel2]

Marine told to turn a blind eye to child sex abuse, murdered in Afghanistan

Associated Press / September 21, 2015

The father of a Marine shot dead by a teenager and alleged sex slave in Afghanistan has slammed the US military for making him seem like an enemy to abused local children.

According to Gregory Buckley Sr, American officers were ordered to turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse of Afghan boys - even on military bases - because that was not the 'priority of the mission'.

It was this policy, he believes, that led to his son Lance Corporal Gregory Buckley Jr, 21, being gunned down on Helmland Province in 2012 by 17-year-old Aynoddin, an Afghan 'tea boy' for local police chief Sarwar Jan - who had previously been reprimanded for child abduction.

'As far as the young boys are concerned, the Marines are allowing it to happen and so they’re guilty by association,' Buckley Sr told the New York Times. 'They don’t know our Marines are sick to their stomachs.'

His words come as he files a landmark lawsuit against the military, with testimony from US Marines, describing how local boys would be chained to beds and abused daily by America-backed Afghan officers - but they were barred from intervening.

One officer, Dan Quinn, was even discharged for beating up an Afghan commander who allegedly chained a boy to a bed, raped him multiple times, then beat up his mother when she tried to save her son.

And two other officers, Major Jason Brezler and Charles Martland, claim they are earmarked for forcible retirement because they flagged the issue of child sex abuse.

According to Pentagon policy, sexual abuse is deemed a local concern for the Afghan Local Police unless it is deemed to be an act of war.

'My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture,' Buckley Sr told the New York Times.

It was the last thing they ever spoke about over the phone before his death.

'At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,' Buckley remembers his son saying.

And now he is convinced that his son's killing may have occurred because of the alleged sexual abuse by the Afghan police chief, who was an ally to America.

Buckley Jr, from Long Island, New York, was one of three officers gunned down by Aynoddin, armed with an AK-47, while they worked out in the gym at Forward Operating Base Delhi, in Afghanistan's Helmand province on August 10, 2012.

It was later revealed that the teen may have been one of the sex slaves that Jan supposedly brought onto the base. He was not vetted and later talked about killing the soldiers in the name of Jihad.

Jan had been arrested by Afghan police in 2010 for child abduction and support for the Taliban, according to the New York Times. By 2012, he had been appointed police commander at Forward Operating Base Delhi. It is not clear how or if he was reprimanded and how he came to be appointed.

As he was drawing up the lawsuit last year, Buckley said: 'Aynoddin shot my son point blank with an AK-47. Shot him four times in his chest and once in his neck.

'He was in the gym with a pair of shorts and a tank top on. How is that allowed?

'I want them to admit that they were wrong. And I want someone to be held responsible for my son's death.'

Before the attack, fellow Marine Major Jason Brezler warned his comrades stationed overseas about Jan's background in an email.

He reported that Jan was a noted child abuser and there were allegations he sexually abused minors on U.S. bases in the past.

However, Brezler was subsequently honorably discharged for sending the email from his personal, unsecured, Yahoo account.

It comes as another decorated soldier who had worked for the U.S. Army Special Forces for 11 years is being discharged after claims he stood up for a young rape victim and his beaten mother in Afghanistan.

Sergeant 1st Class Charles Martland, 33, was serving in the country's war-torn Kunduz Province in 2011 when he apparently learned an Afghan police commander he had trained had raped a boy.

He and his team leader, Daniel Quinn, confronted Officer Abdul Rahman - who had also allegedly beaten the 12-year-old's mother for reporting the sexual assault - and 'shoved him to the ground'.

Despite Rahman walking away only bruised, Martland and Quinn were disciplined.

The Army halted their mission, put them in temporary jobs, and then, finally, sent them home.

Upon their return, Quinn quit the Army.

However, Martland, from Massachusetts, launched a fight to remain a Green Beret.

But now, the dedicated soldier has been 'involuntary discharged' from the Army following a 'Qualitative Management Program' that was apparently carried out in February this year.

Buckley Sr's lawsuit accuses the Marine Corps, Department of Defense, the Navy, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service and former Marine Corps Commandant General James Amos of withholding the full truth surrounding his son's death.

Asked about the sexual assault of young Afghan boys, whether the current policy is under review and why US military personnel are being told turn a blind eye, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest read the following statement:

‘The United States is deeply concerned about the safety and welfare of Afghan boys who may be exploited by members of the Afghan national security and defense forces. This form of sexual exploitation violates Afghan law and Afghanistan's international obligations.

‘More broadly, protecting human rights, including by countering the exploitation of children, is a high priority for the US government. We monitor such atrocities closely and continually stood up for those who suffered exploitation and a denial of basic human freedoms.

‘The United States works closely with the Afghan government, civil society and international organizations in Afghanistan to put an end to the exploitation of children, but also to incorporate human rights training into our law enforcement programs to heighten awareness in prosecution of such crimes.

‘We continue to encourage the Afghan government and civil society to protect and support victims and their families, while also strongly encouraging justice and accountability under Afghan law for offenders.'

Asked if the president – the nation’s Commander-in-Chief of the armed services - would tell a military leader to intervene if he sexual assault happening, Earnest declined to provide a direct answer.

‘For the policies that sort of govern the relationship between US military personnel serving in Afghanistan and their Afghan counterparts, I'd refer you to the Department of Defense,’ he said, adding that the statement he read aloud ‘indicates just how seriously we take this issue and how this kind of behavior.’

It ‘doesn't just violate Afghan law, and Afghanistan's international obligations, but it certainly violates, I think, pretty much everybody’s notion of what acceptable behavior is,’ he said.

Pressed to explain the circumstances in which US military personnel would allow assault to happen on their watch, Earnest again dodged. ‘For the rules of engagement and the kind of structure that's in place,’ contact DOD, he said.

Asked point blank later in the briefing if the president is ‘tolerating’ sexual assault of women and children abroad and is ‘acceding’ to the policy that his military advisers at the Pentagon have established - not to intervene in crimes unless they are an act of war – Earnest deflected once again, invoking the Defense Department. He said he would not answer questions ‘about a policy that governs the conduct of US military personnel in a dangerous place.’

He also said the president has not, to his knowledge, asked for a review of DOD’s policies.

[Super Duty John]

Sickening, the result of the religion of peace and Obama's regime.

[kscarbel2]

Navy analysis found that a Marine’s case would draw attention to Afghan ‘sex slaves’

The Washington Post  /  September 1, 2016

Last fall, the Navy Department had a controversial disciplinary case before it: Maj. Jason C. Brezler had been asked by Marine colleagues to submit all the information he had about an influential Afghan police chief suspected of abusing children. Brezler sent a classified document in response over an unclassified Yahoo email server, and he self-reported the mistake soon after. But the Marine Corps recommended that he be discharged for mishandling classified material.

The Navy Department, which oversees the Marine Corps, had the ability to uphold or overturn the decision. However, rather than just looking at the merits of the case, Navy officials also assessed that holding new hearings on the case would renew attention on the scandal surrounding child sex abuse in Afghanistan, according to military documents newly disclosed in federal court.

The documents, filed Tuesday in a lawsuit by Brezler against the Navy Department and Marine Corps, also show that Marine and Navy officials in Afghanistan were aware in 2012 of allegations of abuse against children by the Afghan police chief but that the chief was allowed to keep his position in Helmand province anyway. This became a major issue after a teenage boy who worked for the chief — and was abused by him — opened fire on a U.S. base Aug. 10, 2012, killing three Marines and badly wounding a fourth.

The five-page legal review, written last October by Lt. Cmdr. Nicholas Kassotis for Vice Adm. James W. Crawford III, the judge advocate general of the Navy, recommended that the Marine Corps’ actions against Brezler be upheld. Calling for a new administrative review, known as a Board of Inquiry, would delay actions in the case another six to nine months and possibly increase attention on the case, “especially in the aftermath of significant media attention to the allegations regarding the practice of keeping personal sex slaves in Afghanistan,” Kassotis wrote. A month later in November, acting assistant Navy secretary Scott Lutterloh upheld the Marine Corps’ decision.

Brezler’s case has drawn new attention in recent months as critics of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have compared her email controversy to Brezler’s, noting that the officer’s military career is on the brink of being over. He sued the Marine Corps and Navy Department in 2014, saying that he was a victim of reprisal for discussing his case with a member of Congress, and it has languished in court since. Brezler wants to block his dismissal, which is now on hold.

Navy and Marine Corps officials declined to discuss the case or the new documents filed in it, citing the pending litigation. A spokesman for the Justice Department, which is handling the lawsuit for the government, also declined to comment.

The Navy Department’s observation about Brezler’s case was made as another U.S. service member’s career was in jeopardy because of his response to child sex abuse in Afghanistan. In that instance, Army Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland made headlines after the Army decided last year to involuntarily separate him from the service because of a reprimand he had received for hitting an Afghan Local Police (ALP) official in 2011 after the man laughed about kidnapping and raping a teenage boy. The Army overturned its decision in April and allowed Martland, a Green Beret, to stay in the military after Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) intervened.

The Martland case opened a dialogue in which numerous veterans of the war in Afghanistan said they were told to ignore instances of child sex abuse by their Afghan colleagues. The Defense Department’s inspector general then opened an investigation into the sexual assault reports and how they were handled by U.S. military officials who knew about them.

Brezler’s attorney, Michael J. Bowe, said Wednesday in an email that his client is entitled to a “real review” of his case — “not a whitewash designed to avoid uncomfortable press stories about child rape by our ‘partners’ in Afghanistan.

“Our service members deserve better,” he added.

A spokesman for Hunter, Joe Kasper, said that the Navy Department is “right to be worried about granting Brezler a new, impartial review of his case” because it “can’t sustain a case based on the facts and the moral imperative” that prompted Brezler to send the warning to other Marines that landed him in legal trouble.

“The Navy surely watched the Army struggle with the Martland case, and the Army was ultimately left no choice but to retain Martland,” Kasper said. “The Brezler case is no different in that, at its foundation, there’s a corrupt Afghan commander that exploits children. It’s something that Americans won’t tolerate, and good luck to the Navy as it tries to explain that Brezler was better to keep quiet, avoiding scrutiny altogether, than attempt to save several Marines that were killed. On that aspect alone, the Navy loses.”

Acting Defense Undersecretary Brian P. McKeon, said in a letter to Hunter last month that Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, reaffirmed in May “tactical guidance” for U.S. troops that directs them to report potential instances of sex abuse to their commanders.

“General Nicholson also issued a specific human rights policy directing further education of U.S. and coalition military personnel on their responsibilities to report human rights violations,” McKeon wrote.

The Marines killed by the police chief’s servant were Staff Sgt. Scott Dickinson, Cpl. Richard Rivera Jr. and Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley. A fourth Marine suffered five gunshot wounds but survived. The teenager who killed them has been identified by the Marine Corps as Ainuddin Khudairaham. He is said to have bragged about the attack afterward, boasting “I just did jihad.”

A 300-page, declassified copy of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) probe of Brezler’s case filed this week as part of his lawsuit said that an officer in Afghanistan, Capt. Brian Donlon, sought information about Sarwar Jan because he recalled being told that he was “a bad guy who raped and tortured the people.” The police chief and Brezler had encountered each other previously in another part of Helmand province, Now Zad district, and Brezler had helped get him removed from his job.

Donlon did not open the file Brezler attached to an email sent from the United States and reported his violation, Donlon told investigators afterward. Donlon sent an email to Brezler informing him the document he sent was classified, and then both Marines reported it to their respective commanding officers.

Marine officials have said that while Brezler did send a classified email to Donlon, he actually faced scrutiny from the Marine Corps because he had other classified documents illegally stored that he planned to use while writing a book.

Brezler’s attorney has countered that virtually no instances of inadvertently spilling classified information have led to penalties as stiff as his, and that if he had not voluntarily turned over his electronics after reporting his violation, he would not be in trouble now.

[kscarbel2]

The U.S. has been mired down in Afghanistan since 2001......16 years.

(If we hang in there four more years, we can exceed Vietnam's duration of 20 years and set a new record)

Dealing with a 'primitive culture", we've accomplished nothing. The country has as many issues today as it did in 2001.

It would have been cheaper, and at far lower costs to western soldiers, to build a "Trump wall" around it's perimeter.

We even allow the Afghans to export heroin to the U.S. and other countries around the world, so that Americans can spend their income on frying their brains.

[kscarbel2]

The Washington Post  /  April 4, 2012

The 9-year-old boy with pale skin and big, piercing eyes captivated Mirzahan at first sight.

“He is more handsome than anyone in the village,” the 22-year-old farmer said, explaining why he is grooming the boy as a sexual partner and companion. There was another important factor that made Waheed easy to take on as a bacha bazi, or a boy for pleasure: “He doesn’t have a father, so there is no one to stop this.”

A growing number of Afghan children are being coerced into a life of sexual abuse. The practice of wealthy or prominent Afghans exploiting underage boys as sexual partners who are often dressed up as women to dance at gatherings is on the rise in post-Taliban Afghanistan, according to Afghan human rights researchers, Western officials and men who participate in the abuse.

“Like it or not, there was better rule of law under the Taliban,” said Dee Brillenburg Wurth, a child-protection expert at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, who has sought to persuade the government to address the problem. “They saw it as a sin, and they stopped a lot of it.”

Over the past decade, the phenomenon has flourished in Pashtun areas in the south, in several northern provinces and even in the capital, according to Afghans who engage in the practice or have studied it. Although issues such as women’s rights and moral crimes have attracted a flood of donor aid and activism in recent years, bacha bazi remains poorly understood.

The State Department has mentioned the practice — which is illegal here, as it would be in most countries — in its annual human rights reports. The 2010 report said members of Afghanistan’s security forces, who receive training and weapons from the U.S.-led coalition, sexually abused boys “in an environment of criminal impunity.”

But by and large, foreign powers in Afghanistan have refrained from drawing attention to the issue.  

“It is very sensitive and taboo in Afghanistan,” said Hayatullah Jawad, head of the Afghan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Organization, who is based in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. “There are a lot of people involved in this case, but no one wants to talk about it.”

An open secret

A recent interview with Mirzahan and a handful of his friends who sexually exploit boys provided a rare glimpse into the lives of men who have taken on bacha bazi.

The men agreed to be interviewed together in a mud hut in this tiny village in Balkh province, accessible only by narrow, unpaved roads and just a few miles from areas where the Taliban is fighting the government for dominance. The men insisted that only their first names be used. Although the practice of bacha bazi has become something of an open secret in Afghanistan, it is seldom discussed in public or with outsiders.

Sitting next to the 9-year-old Waheed, who was wearing a pink pants-and-tunic set called a shalwar kameez, Mirzahan said he opted to take on the boy because marrying a woman would have been prohibitively expensive. The two have not had sex, Mirzahan said, but that will happen in a few years. For now, Waheed is being introduced to slightly older “danc­ing boys.”

Sitting nearby was 23-year-old Assadula, who said he’s an Afghan soldier assigned to a unit in the southern province of Kandahar. Assadula said he has been attracted to teenage males for as long as he can recall. Two years ago, he took on a 16-year-old as his bacha. The relationship will end soon, he said, sitting next to his companion, Jawad, who is now 18.

“When he starts growing a beard, his time will expire, and I will try to find another one who doesn’t have a beard,” Assadula said.

Many of the men who have bachas are also married. But Assadula said he has never been attracted to women.

“You cannot take wives everywhere with you,” he said, referring to the gender segregation in social settings that is traditional in Afghanistan. “You cannot take a wife with you to a party, but a boy you can take anywhere.”

Boys who become bachas are seen as property, said Jawad, the human rights researcher. Those who are perceived as being particularly beautiful can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars. The men who control them sometimes rent them out as dancers at male-only parties, and some are prostituted.

“This is abuse,” Jawad said. “Most of these children are not willing to do this. They do this for money. Their families are very poor.”

Although the practice is thought to be more widespread in conservative rural areas, it has become common in Kabul. Mohammed Fahim, a videographer who films the lavish weddings in the capital, estimated that one in every five weddings he attends in Kabul features dancing boys.

Authorities are well aware of the phenomenon, he said, as he played a video of a recent party that featured an underage boy with heavy makeup shaking his shoulders seductively as men sitting on the floor clapped and smiled.

“Police come because they like it a lot,” Fahim said, referring to parties with dancing boys.

When the boys age beyond their prime and get tossed aside, many become pimps or prostitutes, said Afghan photojournalist Barat Ali Batoor, who spent months chronicling the plight of dancing boys. Some turn to drugs or alcohol, he said.

“In Afghan society, if you are raped or you are abused, you will not have space in society to live proudly,” he said.

When Batoor completed his project on dancing boys, he assumed that nongovernmental organizations would be eager to exhibit his work and raise awareness of the issue. To his surprise, none were.

“They said: ‘We don’t want to make enemies in Afghanistan,’ ” he said, summarizing the general response.

A post-Taliban revival

Afghan men have exploited boys as sexual partners for generations. The practice became rampant during the 1980s, when mujaheddin commanders fighting Soviet forces became notorious for recruiting young boys while passing through villages.

In Kandahar during the mid-1990s, the Taliban was born in part out of public anger that local commanders had married bachas and were engaging in other morally licentious behavior.

Afghanistan’s legal codes are based mainly on sharia, or Islamic law, which strictly prohibits sodomy. The law also bars sex before marriage. Under Afghan law, men must be at least 18 years old and women 16 to marry.

During the Taliban era, men suspected of having sex with men or boys were executed.

In the late 1990s, amid the group’s repressive reign, the practice of bacha bazi went underground.

The fall of the Taliban government in late 2001 and the flood of donor money that poured into Afghanistan revived the phenomenon.

Wurth, the U.N. official, who is leaving Kabul soon after three years of work on child-welfare issues in Afghanistan, said the lack of progress on combating the sexual exploitation of children is her biggest regret. Foreign powers have done little to conduct thorough research or advocate for policy reforms, she said.

“It’s rampant in certain areas,” Wurth said. “But more than that we can’t say. Nobody has facts and figures.”

Wurth said she was encouraged by recent discussions with Afghan government officials, who she said have begun to acknowledge the problem and have expressed concern about the rising popularity of the practice. The sexual exploitation of boys recruited to the Afghan police force was one of the reasons it was added in 2010 to a U.N. list of armed groups that recruit underage fighters, Wurth said.

But, so far, the government has taken few meaningful steps to discourage the abuse of bachas. Wurth said she was not aware of any prosecutions.

“A kid who is being sexually exploited, if he reports it, he will end up in prison,” she said. “They become pariahs.”

[BillyT]

No good deed goes unpunished! Incomprehensible!

[mowerman]

Oh ya there's a big surprise with obambi running things anything's possible......my barber shop has a poster of John F Kennedy and old Bambi the caption says and 1961 Kennedy put men in space and in 2016 of Bambi put men in the ladies room

 

[kscarbel2]

3 hours ago, mowerman said:

Oh ya there's a big surprise with obambi running things anything's possible......my barber shop has a poster of John F Kennedy and old Bambi the caption says and 1961 Kennedy put men in space and in 2016 of Bambi put men in the ladies room

 

It seems you've already forgotten about the Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld show, with guest star Condoleezza Rice. It was significantly worse.

[mowerman]

Still waiting for this place to advance instead falling further behind