Anonymous wrote:The human rights issue is SEPARATE from what the soldier did. The human rights issue is not new, it has been going on for hundreds of years. It is something for the UN to deal with, the US is not and should not be the policeman of the world.

The officer's assault on the Afghan policeman was an unlawful, unsanctioned act of vigilante justice, which is illegal under the UCMJ. It's the second thing, not the first, that he is being punished for. In the military, discipline and chain of command is core and central. If people in the military start behaving like loose cannons and start doing whatever they want, the entire system breaks down.

You keep talking about the officer's assault which is illegal. Which somehow makes the entire system of this being okay on US military bases right.

The US is not the policeman of the world..but once it ABETS people who are doing it and ALLOWS it on its own military bases that is repulsively wrong.

so (1) the US is intimately involved in this instance. In fact its abetting afghan commanders and training these rapists to terrorize the villagers that fared better under the Taliban. This is not some kind of situation where we're sitting afar and now wading in. what part of THIS IS ON OUR MILITARY BASES do you not understand?

(2) I rather someone say something and do something when they see something egregious happen.

Your defense of something wrong that is happening facilitated by the top leadership of the US military is frankly wrong and gross.

Anonymous wrote:The human rights issue is SEPARATE from what the soldier did. The human rights issue is not new, it has been going on for hundreds of years. It is something for the UN to deal with, the US is not and should not be the policeman of the world.

The officer's assault on the Afghan policeman was an unlawful, unsanctioned act of vigilante justice, which is illegal under the UCMJ. It's the second thing, not the first, that he is being punished for. In the military, discipline and chain of command is core and central. If people in the military start behaving like loose cannons and start doing whatever they want, the entire system breaks down.

The UN is totally worthless. One need only look at the countries represented on the UN Human Rights Council to know they will do nothing.

Anonymous wrote:The human rights issue is SEPARATE from what the soldier did. The human rights issue is not new, it has been going on for hundreds of years. It is something for the UN to deal with, the US is not and should not be the policeman of the world.

The officer's assault on the Afghan policeman was an unlawful, unsanctioned act of vigilante justice, which is illegal under the UCMJ. It's the second thing, not the first, that he is being punished for. In the military, discipline and chain of command is core and central. If people in the military start behaving like loose cannons and start doing whatever they want, the entire system breaks down.

So you think that child rape should continue on US military bases and that when people see something they should not do anything about it.

Got it.

The human rights issue is SEPARATE from what the soldier did. The human rights issue is not new, it has been going on for hundreds of years. It is something for the UN to deal with, the US is not and should not be the policeman of the world.

The officer's assault on the Afghan policeman was an unlawful, unsanctioned act of vigilante justice, which is illegal under the UCMJ. It's the second thing, not the first, that he is being punished for. In the military, discipline and chain of command is core and central. If people in the military start behaving like loose cannons and start doing whatever they want, the entire system breaks down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Because the men on the ground knew they had the power to stop it without fear of prosecution. And many did. Obama put in new rules of engagement and apparently punishes for 'cultural insensitivity'.

Can you point to a source supporting this allegation? I know, useless to ask. I'll be told to do my own research.

There are many - I'll provide one that shows how the rules of engagement have changed and put our soldiers in danger and restricted their ability to fight:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/5/increase-in-battlefield-deaths-linked-to-new-rules/?page=all

Regarding the sex issue, you can see the dodge here:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-dodges-on-child-rape-in-afghanistan/article/2572538

"We continue to urge the Afghan and civil society to protect and support victims and their families, while also strongly encouraging justice and accountability under Afghan law for offenders," Earnest said.

The difference is, when it's happening on OUR bases using OUR taxpayer dollars to pay the rapists, we should be acting.

As usual, your "sources" do not support your claim. Can you quote the specific text from either article that says that Obama changed the ROE in such a way as to make punishment for reporting child sex abuse more likely?

Isn't the best proof the prosecution of the green beret? Thats under Obama and he's the commander in chief...

He was prosecuted by being given one bad mark on his record, which then eventually led to him being discharged years later in the drawdown. Calling a bad mark on your record "prosecution" is pretty imprecise.

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/enlisted/2015/08/21/green-beret-striking-corrupt-afghan-got-me-kicked-out/32080843/

Yes argue semantics. The fact that this is happening is disgusting.

Anonymous wrote:The fact that child rape is happening in US military bases gives the message that American soldiers are in cahoots and involved with raping children.

+1

Anonymous wrote:When my friend worked there 99%of the country was illiterate. While many good people are working to remedy that, for most of this war there was no law beyond oral/trobal or sharia. The idea that we are handing off this problem.and those systems would address it is kind of laughable. Its horrible what our Marines and soldiers had to deal with, on top of prosecute a war. As if that isn't stressful enough, but also these completely unsavory partnerships. This is a top down decision, not bottom up. It is an affront to American decency.

I feel for the military there. What a dampener on your morale.

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Because the men on the ground knew they had the power to stop it without fear of prosecution. And many did. Obama put in new rules of engagement and apparently punishes for 'cultural insensitivity'.

Can you point to a source supporting this allegation? I know, useless to ask. I'll be told to do my own research.

There are many - I'll provide one that shows how the rules of engagement have changed and put our soldiers in danger and restricted their ability to fight:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/5/increase-in-battlefield-deaths-linked-to-new-rules/?page=all

Regarding the sex issue, you can see the dodge here:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-dodges-on-child-rape-in-afghanistan/article/2572538

"We continue to urge the Afghan and civil society to protect and support victims and their families, while also strongly encouraging justice and accountability under Afghan law for offenders," Earnest said.

The difference is, when it's happening on OUR bases using OUR taxpayer dollars to pay the rapists, we should be acting.

As usual, your "sources" do not support your claim. Can you quote the specific text from either article that says that Obama changed the ROE in such a way as to make punishment for reporting child sex abuse more likely?

Isn't the best proof the prosecution of the green beret? Thats under Obama and he's the commander in chief...

He was prosecuted by being given one bad mark on his record, which then eventually led to him being discharged years later in the drawdown. Calling a bad mark on your record "prosecution" is pretty imprecise.

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/enlisted/2015/08/21/green-beret-striking-corrupt-afghan-got-me-kicked-out/32080843/

When my friend worked there 99%of the country was illiterate. While many good people are working to remedy that, for most of this war there was no law beyond oral/trobal or sharia. The idea that we are handing off this problem.and those systems would address it is kind of laughable. Its horrible what our Marines and soldiers had to deal with, on top of prosecute a war. As if that isn't stressful enough, but also these completely unsavory partnerships. This is a top down decision, not bottom up. It is an affront to American decency.

The fact that child rape is happening in US military bases gives the message that American soldiers are in cahoots and involved with raping children.

Will writing to my congress person to protest this help? I am outraged.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Because the men on the ground knew they had the power to stop it without fear of prosecution. And many did. Obama put in new rules of engagement and apparently punishes for 'cultural insensitivity'.

Can you point to a source supporting this allegation? I know, useless to ask. I'll be told to do my own research.

There are many - I'll provide one that shows how the rules of engagement have changed and put our soldiers in danger and restricted their ability to fight:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/5/increase-in-battlefield-deaths-linked-to-new-rules/?page=all

Regarding the sex issue, you can see the dodge here:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-dodges-on-child-rape-in-afghanistan/article/2572538

"We continue to urge the Afghan and civil society to protect and support victims and their families, while also strongly encouraging justice and accountability under Afghan law for offenders," Earnest said.

The difference is, when it's happening on OUR bases using OUR taxpayer dollars to pay the rapists, we should be acting.

As usual, your "sources" do not support your claim. Can you quote the specific text from either article that says that Obama changed the ROE in such a way as to make punishment for reporting child sex abuse more likely?

Isn't the best proof the prosecution of the green beret? Thats under Obama and he's the commander in chief...

And another comment in the nytimes from a vet:

The Times is absolutely correct in its indignation toward the practice of sexual slavery in Afghanistan. The Times misses one key point: this practice was explicitly upheld by American force. These militia commanders were not praying upon their own children, but the children of the villages they were supposed to protect. If, and often when, these villages rose up against this and other corrupt behavior, they were branded Taliban and crushed by the might of the U.S. military. [u]

As an Afghan vet, it was precisely this use of force to sustain corrupt rapist in positions of power that turned me against the war. No amount of killing is going to force people to accept injustices as severe as the rape of their own children. In fact, it it precisely this rapacious behavior that Mullah Mohammed Omar rose against and created the Modern Taliban in the first place. Why we facilited the same injustice that drove the Taliban's creation as part of the counterinsurgency campaign is nothing short of failure. We knew it.

I liked one comment: When a no brainer against child abuse becomes a brainer, you have no moral foundation to stand upon.

It does not matter what procedure this soldier was violating. This is a basic human rights issue. Obama has been president for 8 years, and by being commander in chief and letting this continue on US military bases he is tacitly condoning this. The posters trying to defend this by talking about procedures are pretty inhuman and a clear example why this has been allowed for so long. So the current president absolutely has responsibility for this.

This nytimes editorial sums it up pretty well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/opinion/ignoring-sexual-abuse-in-afghanistan.html?_r=0

The incidents of sexual assault on children described by American service members who served in Afghanistan are sickening. Boys screaming in the night as Afghan police officers attacked them. Three or four Afghan men found lying on the floor of a room at a military base with children between them, presumably for sex play.

No less offensive is that American soldiers and Marines who wanted to intervene could not. According to an account in The Times by Joseph Goldstein, they were ordered by their superiors to ignore abusive behavior by their Afghan allies and “to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

By instructing American soldiers and Marines not to interfere, even if the incidents occurred on American bases, the Pentagon has chosen — reprehensibly — to sacrifice vulnerable children in order to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militias it needs to fight the Taliban.

The American military’s defense of the policy is laughable. In an email, the spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, argued that allegations of child abuse committed by members of the Afghan military or police “would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law.” But the track record for Afghanistan bringing sexual predators to justice isn’t encouraging. In 2010, two Marine officers persuaded the Afghan authorities to arrest a police commander after a litany of abuses, including corruption, support for the Taliban and child abduction. But just two years later, he was back with a different unit in Helmand Province.

The Geneva Conventions and federal law also impose an obligation on the United States to investigate and prosecute violations of the laws of war under its jurisdiction, including military bases in Afghanistan. “There are no gray areas here,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

Fourteen long years of war and billions of dollars invested have proved that the United States cannot remake Afghanistan. But there should be no question that the American military cannot allow such practices on its bases or give Afghans at any level the impression that such practices are condoned. Nor should service members like Captain Quinn and Sergeant Martland be penalized for refusing to turn a blind eye when a boy is kept as a sex slave.