The "Good" War

"The Taliban reportedly banned these practices when it was in power," says Kelley B. Vlahos of an issue that "has put us in a moral and ethical quandary too painful and perhaps too shameful to contemplate more openly" — The Rape of the Afghan Boys. She quotes Patrtrick Cockburn as reporting that "one reason Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them." She asks, "Does it turn your stomach to think that American money went to train the police who now stand shoulder-to-shoulder each night with Afghan men gaping at underage boys dancing in silk with bells on their feet?"

Gareth Porter argues that "after eight years of operating there, the U.S. military still has no understanding of the personal, tribal, and other local sociopolitical conflicts" — Ignorance of Afghan Society Led to Botched Raids. "I don’t want to say we’re clueless, but we are," he quotes Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's chief of intelligence, Gen. Michael Flynn, as saying. "We’re no more than fingernail deep in our understanding the environment."

"Activists behind a website dedicated to revealing secret documents have complained of harassment by police and intelligence services as they prepare to release a video showing an American attack in which 97 civilians were killed in Afghanistan," reports Matthew Campbell — Whistleblowers on US 'Massacre' Fear CIA Stalkers.