articles francais a droite/deutsche Artikel rechts
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Former Cpl. Travis Schouten claims he witnessed an Afghan boy being sexually assualted by Afghan security personnel at Canada’s Forward Operating Base Wilson in Afghanistan in 2006.
Photograph by: Handout, Travis Schouten
[JdN: For those who understand the concept of chakras, that is, and of the spiritual body we all have that parallels our physical body, the chakras are spiritual organs that resemble “wheels” that actually rotate and give off colors and an aura. Any trauma to the lower chakras, in the groin area, such as the horrifying rape this article relates, affects our sexuality, our self-confidence, and our will to self-preservation. I have written often of my own expericne being sexually abused and the devastating effect on my own life, marriages and progress in life. I will limit myself here to saying that rape can cripple a boy’s self-image and affect him for decades. What this forthright Canadian solider is bravely denouncing is a truly very, very serious crime, which most of all rapes the boy’s MIND. OUt of compassion, I am now corresponding with the Massachusetts state prisoner Joseph Druce, a convicted murderer who in prison strangled to death the infamous child-molesting priest John Geoghan., who had abused ONE HUNDRED THIRTY BOYS and was shuttled around various parishes inthe Boston area by the equally infamous Cardinal Bernard Law — who was then rewarded by a cushy job at the Vatican by Pope John Paul II after public outrage forced him to leave Boston. While I condemn both of Druce’s murders: 1) murdering a homosexual who had come on to him and 2) strangling the fiendish Geoghan (then serving a life term), I do write this prisoner regularly to as a way to express at least my understanding for his rage and my compassion for his situation in a maximum-security prison. Joseph Druce himself, like so many adult men in prison, was once molested as a boy. My noble, late friend Phil Wheeler, who did this year at age 103, once ran a foundation against child abuse, and showed me a mind-blowing videotape where a psychiatrist at a Canadian super-max prison said that of the one hundred men incarcerated there, all one hundred had been abused as kids………………..]
But the former corporal said the assault is just the tip of an iceberg and underneath lies the systemic sexual abuse of boys at the hands of Afghanistan’s police and army. It’s something he said the Canadian Forces has turned a blind eye to.
“It’s disgusting,” said Schouten, now retired after eight years in the military. “We’re telling people that we’re trying to build a nation there and we let this happen?”
“We allow rampant abuse of young boys at the hands of what is supposed to be their finest police officers and army officers, then what does that say?”
Schouten’s allegations that Afghans were sexually abusing children at a Canadian base near Kandahar made headlines in 2008 but earlier this year, military investigators dismissed the claims as unfounded.
He is, however, not alone in voicing his concerns. Defence Department records show military police were upset about such incidents but were told not to interfere. Army officers also met in 2007 to discuss the issue of Afghan security personnel “having anal sex with young boys” but their main concern was the media would somehow find out.
Others in the military note they were told such practices were an age-old part of Afghan culture. One soldier who e-mailed Canwest News Service stated he served at the same base at another time and troops had orders to stop any rapes. But he also noted they were told the practise of “Man Love Thursdays,” as it was called, involved consenting Afghans and no one was raped by older men. The children involved were given small gifts or money in return for sex, soldiers said.
Schouten, however, questions whether a five- or six-year old child, or even an 11-year-old, can consent.
“The Canadian Forces wants people to think it’s a cultural thing, that everyone is doing it, because it takes the onus of responsibility off them to stop it,” he said.
The United Nations has also questioned arguments that sex with children is a cultural issue. In July 2008, a UN special representative spoke out against the Afghan practise. “What I found was nobody talks about it; everyone says, ‘Well, you know, it’s been there for 1,000 years, so why do we want to raise this now?’ ” said Radhika Coomaraswamy. “But somebody has to raise it and it has to be dealt with.”
And not all Afghans are so accepting of what some claim is tradition. Afghan villagers this summer complained to British troops in Helmand province that Afghan police were abducting children to be used for sex.
Last year also saw an extremely rare event; three Afghan police officers who gang-raped a 12-year-old boy and his father were sent to prison. Although reports in a Toronto newspaper noted that Schouten saw the aftermath of the attack on a young boy, he said that is not accurate.
He actually entered the headquarters and witnessed two Afghan security personnel sodomizing the child.
“I walked in and they were raping a kid,” he recalled. “The kid was bleeding. The guy with the camo fatigues had a knife in his hand.”
He left the headquarters shaken. The Canadian unit already had been dealing with other problems with the Afghans and his immediate options were limited. “I wasn’t going to start doing something at the scene,” he said. “I’m in the middle of the ANP headquarters. What do I do? Start shooting Afghan police? I’d get myself shot.”
Afterward, he was approached by an Afghan interpreter who worked with troops. The man had with him a couple of five-year-old boys who had also been allowed on the Canadian base. “He brought up the fact he likes to rape little boys,” Schouten said. “He’s telling me how he likes to use a knife on them.”
Schouten said after the incident, his life fell apart. He began drinking heavily. After returning from Afghanistan, he was involved in a car accident which injured one of his passengers. He went absent without leave when he was supposed to be at a psychiatrist’s appointment.
The army’s reaction was to try to dishonourably discharge him but Schouten successfully fought that. In August, he was honourably discharged on medical grounds.
[JdN: This is a classic case of PTSD, which can result from a decent person witnessing an act of monstrous evil and doing nothing, then feeling racked with guilt. After all, why does an idealistic young man become a soldier? To be a knight in shining armor, and defend against evil!]
Schouten wasn’t surprised the military investigation concluded his allegations were unfounded and his chain of command had not been informed
of any such incidents.
Back in Canada, he told a lieutenant colonel and Defence Department officials of the incident, who in turn, informed others in the army’s leadership.
However, since none of those people was in Schouten’s direct chain of command, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service could conclude
nothing was reported, he explained.
Other soldiers also were reluctant to come forward. “Guys have mortgages, they have kids,” said Schouten. “If they go and get involved in this
their careers will be stopped. Look what the army did to me.”
Schouten isn’t expecting anything different from an army board of inquiry launched last year. Although soldiers know Afghan security forces are
having sex with kids, the issue is too explosive to deal with, he added.
Schouten said the rape and its aftermath shook his faith in the military. “In my mind, when I signed up, it was a brotherhood to me,” he explained.
“I thought I was there for an established set of values and I loved that. I was wrong.”
Schouten is now rebuilding his life and is going to university. “I’m putting myself back together,” he said.
“But at the same time, I do feel people should be held accountable and people should know this is what is going on over there.”
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Former+Canadian+soldier+speaks+against+disgusting+child+rape+Afghanistan/2014450/story.html#ixzz0tmBMm1f3
====================JEWISH ACTOR PETER LORRE IN “M,” 1931 GERMAN CLASSIC ABOUT A CHILD MURDERER/PEDOPHILE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_%281931_film%29
A powerful film from the time just before Hitler came to power and radically eliminated perversion, crime and psychopathic antisocial behavior. This was the Hungarian Jew Peter Lorre’s first major movie role, and he played a creep quite convincingly. Like all psychopaths, he felt regret not for his deeds but for his punishment……
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