Another example of how Wikileaks is "endangering the lives of our troops"...
NOT!
Our military covering up and condoning the rape of Afghani boys...
US contractor bought Afghan policemen drugs, little boys, cable reveals
US State Dept. called ownership of Afghan 'dancing boys' a 'culturally sanctioned form of male rape'
The Afghanistan interior minister was so concerned about an incident where DynCorp, a US contractor charged with training Afghan police, bought drugs and paid for young "dancing boys" that he asked the US embassy to work to "quash" the story, a secret US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks indicates.
In Afghan society, "dancing boys" are little boys dressed as girls, commonly abused and kept by some men as possessions.
As Joel Brinkley reported for SFGate.com, many Afghan Pashtun tribal men take boys age 9 to 15 as lovers. The US State Department recently called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."
Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.
"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."
"Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover," wrote Brinkley. "Literally it means 'boy player.' The men like to boast about it."
"Everyone tries to have the best, most handsome and good-looking boy," a former mujahideen commander told Reuters in 2007. "Sometimes we gather and make our boys dance and whoever wins, his boy will be the best boy."
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun. Brinkley's sources say that one or two members of Karzai's family had taken boy lovers, but that was unconfirmed.
According to the newly leaked cable, the then-Ministor of Interior Hanif Atmar worried that if the story became public then lives would be in danger. Atmar also warned that a video of the incident might be released by the media,
"On the Kunduz Regional Training Center (RTC) DynCorp event of April 11 (reftel), Atmar reiterated his insistence that the U.S. try to quash any news article on the incident or circulation of a video connected with it," the cable said.
"Atmar said he insisted the journalist be told that publication would endanger lives. His request was that the U.S. quash the article and release of the video," the cable continued. "Amb Mussomeli responded that going to the journalist would give her the sense that there is a more terrible story to report."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/contractor-bought-afghan-policemen-drugs-boys-cable-reveals/
