The Problem of Child-Rape

This was originally a reply in the comments section to Brian's "Canada-Afghanistan Blog." It turned out to be too long to be a comment so I'm posting it here. It's all about this article:

In Afghanistan, Child Rapist Police Return Behind US, UK Troops

I'd posted the link at Brian's and asked for a reply. Here it is, followed by my reply:

Thwap: I'll assume, probably foolishly, that you are asking the question in good faith.

Nobody denies the horrible problems that have plagued that Afghan police force since the overthrow of the Taliban. While the Afghan National Army is generally regarded as effective and trustworthy, the police have been almost universally condemned as corrupt and shady.

However, it should also be acknowledged that signing up as an Afghan police officer is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world right now. Police substations are magnets for Taliban attacks, and to work in one is a seriously ballsy job to take on.

There is a massive program in many provinces right now, including a Canadian-led one in Kandahar, to retrain police officers, give them new uniforms and equipment, and get them on to an electronic payroll system that prevents corruption. In a year or two, this program should make a huge difference in many provinces.

The place where the Marines are operating in Helmand has had almost no NATO/Coalition presence since 2001. This is surely one of the reasons behind the disgraceful and criminal behaviour of the Afghan police who were hired to work in the area. One hopes that if the Marines stay long enough and implement the retraining program, the bad cops will be weeded out, the good cops will keep their jobs, and the Afghan peopl.e will be able to regain trust in their police force.

Anyone who said the mission in Afghanistan would be easy is guilty of stupidity. Training a professional Afghan police force is one of the many extraordinarily difficult tasks that is necessary for a stable democracy to ever take hold.

One thing is for sure: the only way to turn things around is for the international community to keep their resolve and not give up on Afghanistan. Withdrawing international security forces is the surest way to hand the country over to the people you profess to abhor.

Brian,

How could I NOT be asking the question in good faith??? It's similar to the sort of questions I've been asking all along. Questions which (up to now) you've been quite reluctant to answer.

We're talking about the rape of children, by a police force of a country paid for with our tax dollars!!!

Listen, you and your buddy Glavin don't have a monopoly on concern for human life, in Afghanistan or anywhere else. The heights of your self-righteousness are truly terrifying to behold.

I'll say one thing for you though, you possess greater moral and intellectual courage than the detestable Glavin. For someone who so pompously goes on and on about how he's the champion of the people of Afghanistan, and people like me are scum for wanting them to suffer forever under religious fanaticism, he has a strange way of proving it.

To wish to avoid discussing the fact that the Afghanistan police rape children because it doesn't fit with his self-image or his delusions is an abdication of all of his moral pretensions. I posted that link FIVE TIMES to his stupid blog and he erased it within an hour every time.

Gutlessness. Pure gutlessness.

Before digging into the meat of your reply, I'll point to your final insult:

"Withdrawing international security forces is the surest way to hand the country over to the people you profess to abhor."

Is it too much for me to ask you to kindly refrain from such drivel?? Or shall I speculate as to whether you only PROFESS to abhor those child-raping police? That you only PROFESS to care about the people in Afghanistan? That you only PROFESS to regret when they die at check-points or in NATO air-strikes?

Now, on to your actual reply:

"it should also be acknowledged that signing up as an Afghan police officer is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world right now. Police substations are magnets for Taliban attacks, and to work in one is a seriously ballsy job to take on."

I'm going to assume that you aren't using any of that as an excuse to justify the raping of children. (And I'll do you the honour of not attaching "assume - probably foolishly" because that's just the sort of straight-up kinda guy I am.) Since you're not using it to excuse raping children, it's entirely irrelevant.

"There is a massive program in many provinces right now, including a Canadian-led one in Kandahar, to retrain police officers, give them new uniforms and equipment, and get them on to an electronic payroll system that prevents corruption. In a year or two, this program should make a huge difference in many provinces."

New uniforms and equipment aren't the issue. It's their sheer moral depravity. I can see the possibility that the Afghan National Police (ANP for short) members might rob people to supplement their meagre, irregularly-paid salaries, but raping their children??? Also, did you note the section of the article:

"The restoration of Akhundzada to power gave the warlord and his militia the opportunity to use the police to take revenge on their Ishaqzai rivals. If you are the police under these circumstances, Neumann said, 'you take the people's land, their women, you steal from them - it's all part of one package.'

The predatory rule of Akhundzada and his militias was interrupted for a second time when the Taliban took control of large areas of the province in 2008."

So not only do you have to train these fellows, you also have to alter the fact that they're lording it over their ethnic or clan rivals. (I read the same thing in a newspaper editorial from "Espirit-des-Corps" wherein another local warlord governor had given himself total control over the water supply in his area and was using it to completely dominate the people, who were from some rival group or other.)

The point is, these guys aren't just blank slates who need to be brought up to speed. They're deliberately inflicting these depredations as conscious policies.

"The place where the Marines are operating in Helmand has had almost no NATO/Coalition presence since 2001. This is surely one of the reasons behind the disgraceful and criminal behaviour of the Afghan police who were hired to work in the area. One hopes that if the Marines stay long enough and implement the retraining program, the bad cops will be weeded out, the good cops will keep their jobs, and the Afghan people will be able to regain trust in their police force."

There's that possibility, as well as this one mentioned in the article:

"But the Afghan national police command has little real power over the police in Helmand Province. As of mid-2007 the national police command controlled the appointments of only four of the 13 districts in Helmand Province, according to an International Crisis Group (IGC) study in August 2007. The remaining nine were evidently controlled locally - meaning that the Akhunzada was able to keep his own men in position in most of the districts.

Although the IGC study did not specify which districts were not controlled by the national police command, the districts which are the objects of the U.S.-British military operation in Helmand are especially sensitive because they include the main opium poppy fields in the province.

Akhundzada maintains his power in Helmand in part because of a firm political alliance with President Hamid Karzai."

It all goes back to the problem that Karzai's government depends upon gangster warlords and their raping and marauding private armies. (That is, when Karzai's survival doesn't depend upon foreign troops.)

I'll attack your arguments further at some other time. But I thank you for at least answering.

Ah, but there's this:

"Anyone who said the mission in Afghanistan would be easy is guilty of stupidity."

I never said I expected it to be easy. I've said consistently that it is NEVER going to happen because the people in charge don't give a shit about the people of Afghanistan.

"Training a professional Afghan police force is one of the many extraordinarily difficult tasks that is necessary for a stable democracy to ever take hold."

Yes, well we've been there for eight goddamned years, haven't we? And if you try to dodge the monumentality of THAT failure by saying that it's "extraordinarily difficult" to rebuild a country in the middle of a war with a ruthless insurgency, then I'd reply by saying that DOING NOTHING ABOUT or ADDING TO the factors that contribute to the GROWTH OF THE INSURGENCY is going to make a successful resolution even more difficult.