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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 6:38:12 GMT -5
Don't be confused by Sum Dum Gai's mention of "lawful orders" though. The military is NOT "civilian law enforcement".
It's not an "unlawful order" for the chain of command to say something along the lines of "law enforcement, not including threats to our forces, is to be left to local police forces and other local support as THEY may deem necessary"
So, yes, a soldier could legitimately disobey an order to (for example) "Kill those children" or "destroy that family's hut" or "sink that fisherman's rickety old boat", but the order MUST BE ILLEGAL
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 18:25:53 GMT -5
Stand down and do nothing while listening to children being raped on base is an unlawful order. Especially for military police which are charged with security and law enforcement of military bases. It would be like police officers to be told by their commander to sit in a patrol car and listen to a child being raped while doing nothing. The order not to interfere might be lawful if it was happening off base/post. It's definitely not when it happens on base/post though. Military bases are US soil. Our laws apply to the conduct that goes on while inside the perimeter.On a US Military PERMANENT Base (like one of the bases in Germany or England or Japan, for example), you would be correct. On the "bases" in Afghanistan I'm not so sure because they are not, nor will they likely ever be, permanent bases. Just like when non-US troops are "temporarily based" on our bases, they have to follow our rules, we may have to adhere to local laws if we are only a "visiting presence" in Afghanistan. Remember, we turned the country over to the new government there, once we ousted the Taliban. I don't know of the Status of Forces agreements we have with them... do you? (ETA: I typed this before I went looking for the SOFA) You might find this interesting: Status of Forces Agreement 2014 (between Afghanistan and NATO, including all NATO members, which includes the US {note the bolded})
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 18:49:32 GMT -5
Based on the SOFA... looks like our hands are tied on what we can do.
Does it suck? Yes. Absolutely... but it's what we are stuck with. Plus... while it's bad for the boys in those situations (and it IS bad, don't believe for a second that I think they are enjoying themselves or something equally stupid), think of all the people that we couldn't help if we violated the SOFA and got kicked out. We have to look at "the big picture".
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 19:00:37 GMT -5
Based on the SOFA... looks like our hands are tied on what we can do. Does it suck? Yes. Absolutely... but it's what we are stuck with. Plus... while it's bad for the boys in those situations (and it IS bad, don't believe for a second that I think they are enjoying themselves or something equally stupid), think of all the people that we couldn't help if we violated the SOFA and got kicked out. We have to look at "the big picture".No we don't. We could look at the child being raped and decide to stop that.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 19:16:43 GMT -5
Based on the SOFA... looks like our hands are tied on what we can do. Does it suck? Yes. Absolutely... but it's what we are stuck with. Plus... while it's bad for the boys in those situations (and it IS bad, don't believe for a second that I think they are enjoying themselves or something equally stupid), think of all the people that we couldn't help if we violated the SOFA and got kicked out. We have to look at "the big picture".No we don't. We could look at the child being raped and decide to stop that. And how many more would suffer because we did that? So, yes... we do. ETA: Breaking that SOFA would put all of our SOFA's in question... would we abide by our agreements or not? It could cost us across the globe... and that could cost us in ways we can't even guess. Imagine, if you will... Japan, Saudi Arabia, and all of Europe deciding we aren't trustworthy to uphold our SOFA's anymore... so they evict us (remember, our bases abroad are "at the pleasure" of the countries we are guests of). How would we be able to help those in need without global reach?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 19:23:06 GMT -5
No we don't. We could look at the child being raped and decide to stop that. And how many more would suffer because we did that? So, yes... we do. You do not know how the world would react if the United States decided to act based on what is moral instead of protecting special interests of those who want us fighting people in the Middle East. maybe one of those boys getting raped today while American soldiers sit and listen, maybe he grows up and blames America. There are often unplanned for consequences to acts we take, maybe allowing rapes of children have some bad unplanned consequences.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 19:55:30 GMT -5
Maybe they do. But we have to go with the most likely. And the most likely here is, it would put all of our agreements in jeopardy.
ETA: Not to mention "moral" based on who's morality? the US is NOT the world morality police (thank god(s)!)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 20:07:43 GMT -5
Maybe they do. But we have to go with the most likely. And the most likely here is, it would put all of our agreements in jeopardy. ETA: Not to mention "moral" based on who's morality? the US is NOT the world morality police (thank god(s)!) The boy's morality. Ask him if he wants to be forcibly raped. Or if he thinks it wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 21:38:38 GMT -5
Based on the SOFA... looks like our hands are tied on what we can do. Does it suck? Yes. Absolutely... but it's what we are stuck with. Plus... while it's bad for the boys in those situations (and it IS bad, don't believe for a second that I think they are enjoying themselves or something equally stupid), think of all the people that we couldn't help if we violated the SOFA and got kicked out. We have to look at "the big picture". The SOFA says we can't arrest or detain Afghan civilians. I see no mention of taking the boys to the base security forces building until their parents can be contacted to come collect them. If the Afghan security personnel raping said boys object I hope they do so physically, because I can guarantee we don't sign SOFA agreements that don't give our forces the right to defend themselves. We can't force the Afghan's to prosecute these pigs, but we can absolutely intervene on behalf of the children being raped, get them back to their families, and blacklist the pigs raping them from our bases. Our hands are tied. Give me a fucking break. We're over there because we invaded them in the first place. The current government is only in power because we put them there. We're still there because said government doesn't think they'll stay in power without our continued presence. We have a ton of influence and absolutely could use it to try and do something about this. To pretend otherwise is pretty naive. It's not pretending to include how the rest of the world's governments would/could react in the processing of what we can/cannot do and when we can/cannot do it. The naive people are the ones that think we should just throw everything else away because this one situation is so terrible. That's the ultimate in naivete. To pretend otherwise is, quite frankly, ludicrous. ETA: and the SOFA doesn't say "civilians", it says " shall not arrest or imprison Afghan nationals"... an Afghan Chief of Police would likely be an "Afghan national"... wouldn't you think? I should think so.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 21:47:38 GMT -5
Maybe they do. But we have to go with the most likely. And the most likely here is, it would put all of our agreements in jeopardy. ETA: Not to mention "moral" based on who's morality? the US is NOT the world morality police (thank god(s)!) The boy's morality. Ask him if he wants to be forcibly raped. Or if he thinks it wrong. Can't do that. The morality in question is the morality of the society... because if we did that, then it could be just as reasonable to ask the morality of it based on the rapist (just a guess, but he'd probably say it's fine, and there's nothing wrong with it). In our society, in the US (and in most of the modern/"Western" world) "Society's morality" is based on the individual. That's not true there. There the morality is based on something else.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 22:06:47 GMT -5
And how do we do that without doing the equivalent of "police action" (which would fail provision 1 of my earlier quote of the SOFA "the duty of Members of the Force and Members of the Civilian Component and NATO Personnel to respect the Constitution and laws of Afghanistan and to abstain from any activity inconsistent with the spirit of this Agreement and, in particular, from any political activity in the territory of Afghanistan. It is the duty of NATO Forces Authorities to take necessary measures to that end."... and possibly provision 2) by forcibly going into his area and taking something (the boy) from him physically?
Short of teleporting the boy, I don't see how it's possible. And currently teleportation technology isn't quite up to par quit yet.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2015 23:02:33 GMT -5
Or maybe we do "give a shit about them" but don't want to force our morality upon them... because we wouldn't appreciate some other "power" (government or religion) else forcing their morality upon us.
Anyway... I'm out of this discussion. Helping those kids would be nice. But it's just not practical, reasonable, logical, or legal.
feel free to disagree.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Sept 25, 2015 19:43:25 GMT -5
So these boys don't have parents or did the parents sell their boys?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2015 20:01:34 GMT -5
By the way, while boy play is rampant in certain parts of Afghanistan it is illegal under their own laws. It's just not enforced very vigorously. We aren't imposing our values in them. They made rape a crime, just like nearly every other nation on earth. Lots of laws aren't "enforced vigorously"... That doesn't make it the US Military's job to enforce them though. Here's a law in Louisiana that's not "enforced vigorously"... Let's work on vigorously enforcing our own laws before we work on enforcing someone else's.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2015 22:05:34 GMT -5
I won't argue with you regarding it being past time for us to leave there... either that or have them "grant" us a permanent base with the right to enforce US law on base soil.
However the other point you made is wrong... they aren't "miles apart" in the context of my post... both are equal in NOT being "enforced vigorously". Which was kind of my point... Let's fix/enforce our own laws, at home, before we try and do so elsewhere.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2015 1:36:56 GMT -5
I won't argue with you regarding it being past time for us to leave there... either that or have them "grant" us a permanent base with the right to enforce US law on base soil. However the other point you made is wrong... they aren't "miles apart" in the context of my post... both are equal in NOT being "enforced vigorously". Which was kind of my point... Let's fix/enforce our own laws, at home, before we try and do so elsewhere. You're free to your opinion. I think stopping the rape of children should always take precedence over removing old outdated city ordinances from our legal code, but maybe I'm just weird. When it's actually an option, somewhere we actually have the authority to do so... I'm in full agreement with you. Unfortunately for both of us though, Afghanistan ain't that place.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on Sept 26, 2015 9:20:37 GMT -5
So these boys don't have parents or did the parents sell their boys? I wonder about this too.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Sept 26, 2015 9:30:09 GMT -5
. I don't know about most parents but I'd have to be dead for someone to take my child.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2015 23:59:57 GMT -5
. I don't know about most parents but I'd have to be dead for someone to take my child. Yeah... You've heard the saying "they can have my gun when they pry it out of my cold dead hand"?... well... they'd get my gun before they got my child.
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