Dancing Boys

The WaPo takes on the re-emerging gay culture in Afghanistan and finds an unexpected apologist for the Taliban:

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.”

This has been getting kicked around since US troops entered Afghanistan (London Times, 2002; NY Times, Feb 27 2002); I took a stint as a Taliban apologist two years ago.  I would have guessed that was my second stint, but neither Google nor Bing is helping me here.

OLD DEFEATIST SNARK:  Lest you question my lack of commitment to whatever it is we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan, here is an old post from Oct 2009 that did not, Google notwithstanding, highlight the pedophilia problem.  However:

Since Obama is going to abandon this war anyway, it might be prudent for him to do so now.

 

Comments

[Ignatz]

The singularity that is Afghanistan either kills you or absorbs you.
Guess the world will never learn.

[clarice feldman]

"The Kite Runner" which touches on this does not show the Taliban acting to stop it. Indeed, it shows them part of the problem and I think that novel was closer to the truth.

[Janet]

Here is FrontPage Magazine article - Sexual Starvation & Jihad Fantasies. The whole article is good.

[jwest]

So… Zimmerman is the Taliban and Trayvon is the Dancing Boy?

Maybe I’m getting my threads mixed up.

[Janet]

Another great article from May 2007 - The Kingdom in the Closet
behold sharia law -

"But what seems more startling, at least from a Western perspective, is that some of the men having sex with other men don’t consider themselves gay. For many Saudis, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with “gayness.” The act may fulfill a desire or a need, but it doesn’t constitute an identity. Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role."
and -
"“Some Saudi [men] can’t have sex with women, so they have sex with guys. When the sexes are so strictly segregated”—men are allowed little contact with women outside their families, in order to protect women’s purity—“how do they have a chance to have sex with a woman and not get into trouble?” "

The whole article is good.

[Janet]

IMO some suicide bombers are murderous, insane thugs...but some are lost, used souls that think they must kill themselves for jihad to be forgiven & to make it to allah's heaven. They feel such shame & sinfulness. There is no "Amazing Grace" in islam.

[Janet]

Here is another sad post on Bacha Bazi boys.

[Captain Hate]

“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.”

So according to UN expert Dee there's no pederasty in Islam? I'm calling bullshit on that. Plus given what some of the UN people did in the Ivory Coast, they're not exactly arguing this from a high moral vantage point.

[narciso]

Some of this, is seen here;

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/10/terrorists-in-love-the-real-lives-of-islamic-radicals-by-ken-ballen/

Yes, just like the Taliban curtailed the opium trade, a likely story.

[Janet]

These stories make the Bible burnings in Afghanistan all the more sad. Heaven forbid that these people be free to learn about other religions & ideas & have a chance to choose. Islam is evil.

[fdcol63]

Ref Janet @ 11:04 AM:

Wow. Sounds like prisons and inmates, doesn't it?

[GMAX]

For what its worth Janet, I have had an interesting discussion with a retired US Major and Army Ranger who did a tour in Iraq and he said much the same thing about Iraqis. He said you did not want to be in the showers in the Iraqi barracks. What a very strange culture...

[Janet]

From the Kingdom in the Closet link - "“It’s the land of sand and sodomites,” she said."

[Jane]

Isn't that stuff typical of most early cultures? Wasn't it common in Greece and Rome? WE are talking 7th century here aren't we?

I can barely read this thread it offends me so much.

[Jane]

Not the thread, the subject matter. Duh

[Captain Hate]

Isn't that stuff typical of most early cultures? Wasn't it common in Greece and Rome? WE are talking 7th century here aren't we?

Probably, yes and yes.

[jeanne]

"Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role"

That's the way it was in the US until relatively recently. After all, the cops had to do something to be able to bust the guys. And of course, that didn't make *them* gay or anything.

[maryrose]

These people are not like us.

[AllenS]

This topic was discussed at the Lew Rockwell blog by Dr. Chris Manion. The title was Should Pro-Family Americans Support the Taliban? Manion ripped "our government-friendly media" and "the indispensable pro-war, 'pro-family' evangelical backers of the war". Good points, all. However, what I found most amazing was the advertising at the top of the article:

Pretty Women from Russia
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Evidently, exploited women from Russia is like totally ok as long as done by people who are not pro-family evangelicals.