Afghan Rapes & Canadian Soldiers' Duty

[The Bread Guy]

I think "communion" may have been used as a euphemism here. 

Paint me naive, but is it at all possible, since a padre was involved, that it could have been a "late night CONFESSION"?  The original quote

... At CMTC one night two people decided to get intimate in a blue rocket.  The padre happened to be conducting a late night cummunion in the next rocket ... 

suggests to me it wasn't the padre being physically intimate, but perhaps hearing more of the intimacy than he may have liked.

 

[PMedMoe]

Paint me naive, but is it at all possible, since a padre was involved, that it could have been a "late night CONFESSION"?  The original quotesuggests to me it wasn't the padre being physically intimate, but perhaps hearing more of the intimacy than he may have liked.

I didn't mean to imply that the Padre was being intimate, he may just have been answering a "call of nature", but you're right, could have been a confession, too.

At any rate, we digress...... 

 

[The Bread Guy]

Just spotted this at ceasefire.ca:

It is shocking that the Canadian government has stood idly by for so long while these abuses continue. Ceasefire.ca is very concerned about this situation and believes that more public attention to this issue is necessary.

Two questions for ceasefire.ca & Co.:
1)  Do you have evidence that "these abuses continue"?
2)  Any solutions to offer up, apart from "more public attention"?

Now back to your regularly scheduled, more informed debate...

 

[helpup]

So is this the right forum to place that I am very concerned on Ceasefire.Ca's information and thier stance?

J/K

 

[Greymatters]

So is this the right forum to place that I am very concerned on Ceasefire.Ca's information and thier stance?

They appear to be drawing their information from published sources and not making it up...   

 

[Sprinting Thistle]

Perhaps ceasefire.ca could put together a team of advisors to work with the Afghan government in changing the cultural mindset.  Its easy to sit back and armchair general but in order to make informed decisions and provide intellectual commentary, they should experience first hand the environment.  Just a thought.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

They appear to be drawing their information from published sources and not making it up... 

Yup, and published sources 'always' get it right ;D

 

[The Bread Guy]

Reviving necrothread with a just-out study on Pashtun sexuality (PDF attached), showing how ingrained it is (and hard to change).  More in the San Francisco Chronicle here.

CAVEAT:  I respect the work being done by Human Terrain Teams in general, but if this is the same AnnaMaria Cardinalli who did the attached report (more here), I scratch my head re:  how some of these folks get hired for military work - happy to be educated on this.

 

[tomahawk6]

If the Imam's condone the behavior then no westerner is going to make any headway at all. This behavior goes back to the Greeks and Alexander the Great. Its centuries old and is as ingrained as corruption is. Lets concentrate on teaching the ANA how to fight so that they can defeat the taliban on their own.

 

[OldSolduer]

A bit of a tangent here, but men who are incarcerated here in Canada often turn "institutionally gay". During my time in Corrections, more than one inmate was observed putting a crude form of make up on.

 

[PanaEng]

Reviving necrothread with a just-out study on Pashtun sexuality (PDF attached), showing how ingrained it is (and hard to change).  More in the San Francisco Chronicle here.

CAVEAT:  I respect the work being done by Human Terrain Teams in general, but if this is the same AnnaMaria Cardinalli who did the attached report (more here), I scratch my head re:  how some of these folks get hired for military work - happy to be educated on this.

what? Are you trying to say that just because she sings and plays the guitar she is not qualified for the work she has done/is doing for DoD, FBI and others?
Did you read her bio - the part about her PhD? She seems to amply qualified.
sure, other pers in theatre may have been able to do that job but may have been busy with other things like fighting, development, mentoring, etc. (speculation)

She probably got offered the job by recommendations from other agencies and not went looking for it. (speculation - maybe the job requisition required a PhD in Theology and human cultures with specific insights into Christian-Islam relations)

cheers,
Frank

 

[The Bread Guy]

what? Are you trying to say that just because she sings and plays the guitar she is not qualified for the work she has done/is doing for DoD, FBI and others?
Did you read her bio - the part about her PhD? She seems to amply qualified.

I should have been clearer.  I did read the bio, and the experience with LEA and others (who, if they hired her, obviously trust her & her work), but music + a PhD on "the early roots of today's Spanish flamenco as they are preserved in the liturgical tradition of the New Mexican Penitentes--a society whose worship presents a time-capsule of medieval Spanish spirituality" just struck me as an unusual career path towards work on a paper on Pashtun sexuality in AFG as part of a HTT, nothing more.  Hence the call for anyone with more direct experience to educate me.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

CAVEAT:  I respect the work being done by Human Terrain Teams in general, but if this is the same AnnaMaria Cardinalli who did the attached report (more here), I scratch my head re:  how some of these folks get hired for military work - happy to be educated on this.

Her credentials actually look very solid.  A Phd in Theology combined with field work in Iraq with the FBI before going to Afghanistan would seem to fit the bill.

That she studied flamenco just means that she conducted a disciplined study into a cultural phenomenon.  This would indicate to me that she possesses a method to look at the types of issues that the military tasked her to do.

 

[PanaEng]

I should have been clearer.  I did read the bio, and the experience with LEA and others (who, if they hired her, obviously trust her & her work), but music + a PhD on "the early roots of today's Spanish flamenco as they are preserved in the liturgical tradition of the New Mexican Penitentes--a society whose worship presents a time-capsule of medieval Spanish spirituality" just struck me as an unusual career path towards work on a paper on Pashtun sexuality in AFG as part of a HTT, nothing more.  Hence the call for anyone with more direct experience to educate me.

yeah, I know... I just wanted to be on a high horse for a bit  ;D
frig, she got her PhD at 25 AND did all the music and singing stuff... (somehow I feel inadequate)
I seem to recall similar job postings a while ago for DFAIT or others, for a contract term, where the emphasis was on cultural awareness. (did a quick search but could not find it)

anyway, seems like a well put together report. Lots of references to look further.

cheers,
Frank

 

[sean m]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/view/

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone here with experience in Afghanistan ever witnessed  or heard of the practice of bacha bazi. It is interesting how in such a patriarchal society, such a practice exists. It is interesting  yet very sad how wide spread and popular the practice is today in  Afghanistan.

Wikipedia has a history of the practice,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

 

[Fishbone Jones]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/view/

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone here with experience in Afghanistan ever witnessed  or heard of the practice of bacha bazi. It is interesting how in such a patriarchal society, such a practice exists. It is interesting  yet very sad how wide spread and popular the practice is today in  Afghanistan.

Wikipedia has a history of the practice,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

With a little bit of searching, you'll find that this has already been covered quite extensively. http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/77328.0.html

 

[The Bread Guy]

Latest (via Toronto Star) from the former Afghan Ambassador to Canada on this one ....

As Canada’s military continues its five-year investigation into charges that its officers told subordinates in Afghanistan to ignore cases of child abuse, Afghanistan’s former ambassador to Canada says both countries are guilty of ignoring the scandal.

Omar Samad, ambassador from 2004 to 2009, said he advised the Afghan foreign ministry in 2008 about media reports that some Canadian soldiers said they had been told not to get involved in cases of child sexual abuse involving Afghan soldiers, police and interpreters.

Samad said he never received a reply to his messages.

“All sides are to blame, both the Afghan government and the western occupying forces,” Samad said in a phone interview from Washington. “Every effort has to be made to fight this problem through education, public awareness and through programs that can protect children, and enforcement, and the Afghan government has not done enough.”

( .... )

Samad said that neither the Afghan foreign ministry nor its interior ministry properly investigated the child-sex allegations. He suggests several reasons for that.

“For starters, the government in Kabul has had so many other issues on its plate, and it doesn’t know how to deal with this because it’s so complex,” he said. “Another factor is that there were so many reports about Afghan officials, who were in a position of authority and who were also abusive themselves, that it was hard for us to make a case about others being abused.” ....

Here's what Samad had to say, when he was in the Ambassador saddle, in 2008 to The Canadian Press ....

.... Afghanistan's ambassador in Ottawa welcomed the investigation, but stressed the goverment of President Hamid Karzai was expecting to work alongside the Canadian military and that any criminal activity would be dealt with by his country's justice system.

"At this point, these are allegations and we all need to gather facts," said Omar Samad in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"I would like to see us get to the bottom of this. I would like to find out what may have happened and see how we can deal with such issues. We want to be able to deal with this using the full force of law." ....

.... and to another media outlet:

Afghanistan is welcoming a Canadian military probe into whether soldiers were ordered to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse involving Afghan soldiers. But Afghanistan's ambassador to Ottawa stresses his government expects to work alongside the Canadian military.

Omar Samad says any criminal activity would be dealt with by Afghanistan's justice system. A board of inquiry has been ordered by the Canadian army's top commander, Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie ....

 

[GR66]

“All sides are to blame, both the Afghan government and the western occupying forces,” Samad said in a phone interview from Washington. “Every effort has to be made to fight this problem through education, public awareness and through programs that can protect children, and enforcement, and the Afghan government has not done enough.”

Does anyone else find this a strange choice of words coming from a former Ambassador to one of those "occupying" nations?  Glad our sacrifices have been so appreciated by the representatives of the government we've been supporting.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Does anyone else find this a strange choice of words coming from a former Ambassador to one of those "occupying" nations?  Glad our sacrifices have been so appreciated by the representatives of the government we've been supporting.

I noticed that, too - how things change when you're not longer in a country's employ and a think tanker and consultant.  I guess he has all the answers now.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Bumped with the latest, from the Info-machine:

A Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) inquiry has found no evidence to support allegations that CAF members in Afghanistan were told by superiors to ignore incidents where Afghan soldiers and interpreters sexually assaulted young boys.

Indeed, “this accusation was vehemently denied by every CF member interviewed,” the Board of Inquiry (BOI) said in a report released today.

The inquiry noted that at the time the incidents were reported to have occurred, (2006-2007), “CF personnel were involved in a new, highly complex and dangerous mission,” and were “under constant and deadly attacks from a determined enemy.” But it also concluded “that overall the CF did not deal effectively with this issue.”

The BOI made a wide range of recommendations and these were broadly accepted by the approving authority. The CAF has already made significant progress in addressing many of the Board’s recommendations, as steps were taken as early as 2008 to begin rectifying the most pressing shortfalls ...

A bit more in the Backgrounder, and the Executive Summary of the BOI - all public docs here attached in case the links don't work for you.