Eyewitness: U.S. Army Encouraged Soldiers to Ignore Afghan Child Rape

Recently it was charged that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan were telling American servicemen to ignore child rape by Afghan Muslim soldiers.

I recently received confirmation in the form of an explosive and chilling letter from a retired American serviceman, Benjamin Baird, a former Staff Sergeant, 2-23 IN of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

I am a medically retired Army infantryman. I was a platoon sergeant during my last tour to Afghanistan in 2012-2013.

We worked with a local commander of the Afghan border patrol who also was a known child molester. I would tell the officers around me that they should take a stand and either arrest him or refuse to work with him at worst. There was, indeed, encouragement from higher ups to ignore these problems. I always said that child rape by a military commander was a war crime, and if I was ever on a mission with this “man” I would have to be restrained. Needless to say, any interaction with me and the rapist was avoided by my leadership.

The war criminal was named Haji Jinohn. May be spelled incorrectly. I will gladly testify to the fact that US commanders ignore the rape of children by their Afghan counterparts. It is a sickening act and sends bad messages to our allies.

In Afghan culture, the rape of young boys is actually not a big deal. It isn’t frowned upon, but neither is it openly praised. In fact, a report came across my desk once that stated that a young boy was being raped by a police commander and his henchmen in Southern Afghanistan/Kandahar province. This boy eventually poisoned all of the policemen working at this outpost, then subsequently shot them before leaving the outpost and joining the Taliban. This report was classified at the time.

Again, I will gladly testify for you on any of this. I would like to be clear, though, that I do not wish to discredit ISAF involvement in Afghanistan, rather I wish to expose the U.S. sanctioning of child abuse and rape by remaining silent and failing to prosecute these war crimes. Rape is not a cultural tradition, it is a universal evil, and I was astounded by our indifference to the subject.

Finally, thank you for the work you do in highlighting these atrocities. I am ashamed that I was somehow indirectly complicit in all of this. But perhaps together we can make things right by building awareness.

I hope so. This is Obama’s policy, and it’s been going on for years. Last month I reported that the U.S. Army kicked out a decorated Green Beret after an 11-year Special Forces career, after he got in trouble for shoving an Afghan police commander accused of raping a boy and beating up his mother when she reported the incident.

This heinous practice, often justified by reference to Islamic texts, is called bacha bazi — “boy play.” For those who try to stop it, it is lethal. Readers of my website, PamelaGeller.com, are long familiar with the horrible murder of American hero Lance Cpl. Buckley. His murderer, in one of a string of insider attacks, was Aynoddin, the “tea boy” of Afghan District Police Chief Sarwar Jan. District Police Chief Jan, who supplied the assault rifle used in the murder, most likely helped plan and certainly approved the attack, was detained. Chief Jan was released, and the Obama administration allegedly turned Aynoddin back over to the Afghans. Buckley’s killer got off scot-free. I reported on this back in 2012 and have spoken and appeared many times with with Cpl. Buckley’s father several times. Watch the videos here and here.

The murder of Lance Cpl. Buckley is the fault of Barack Obama and the suicidal policies he is following in Afghanistan. American troops should stand for American values. If they aren’t doing that, what is the point of our being there at all? The Obama military’s sanction of bacha bazi must end, and the United States must once again become the protector of human rights for all.

Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.