Great Moments in Invade the World
12/14/2011
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF

I've long felt that Americans aren't really cut out for world domination. We tend to be a cheerful, positive-minded, naive, and insular people, while the imperial mission demands vast reserves of worldliness and cynicism.

The Derb points me toward this Washington Examiner article by Sara A. Carter, "Afghan Sex Practices Concern U.S., British Forces" on the popularityof homosexual pedophilia among those Pathan soldiers and interpreters who claim to be our allies. (Although the British officers who are old public school boys might be less baffled than they are admitting to their American counterparts.)

And, the impact of those experiences is already being felt in portions of Afghanistan, putting American forces squarely in the middle of complex moral, social and sexual issues. A source at Army Special Operations command tells In From the Cold that Afghan women, emboldened by the presence of U.S. troops. have complained about beatings they've suffered at the hands of their husbands. The domestic violence reportedly stemmed from the inability of the women to become pregnant and produce sons, highly valued in Afghan society.

When U.S. civil affairs teams (and other special forces units) quietly investigated the problem, they quickly discovered a common denominator. Virtually all of the younger men who beat their wives (over their inability to become pregnant) had been former "apprentices" of older Afghan men, who used them for their sexual pleasure. Upon entering marriage, whatever the men knew of sex had been learned during their "apprenticeship," at the hands of the older man. To put it bluntly, some of the younger Afghans were unfamiliar with the desired (and required) mechanics for conception.

To remedy this situation, the Army called in its psychological operations teams, which developed information campaigns in Pashtun areas, explaining the basics of heterosexual relations and their benefits, in terms of producing male offspring. It may be the only time in the history of warfare that an army has been required to explain sex to the native population, to curb the abuse of women and young boys—and retain U.S. influence in key geographic areas.

Army psy op specialists declined to discuss their efforts in great detail. But one of the "preferred sex" campaigns was (reportedly) a direct result of the 2009 survey, and the problems encountered by NATO troops working with their Afghan counterparts.

I'm not sure I totally believe this, but this example of Your Tax Dollars at Work is too good to pass up.

Print Friendly and PDF