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.”
