American Samizdat

Thursday, December 02, 2010. *
Foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing boys', WikiLeaks cable reveals

Episode fuelled Afghan demands that private security firms be brought much more under government control

Jon Boone
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 December 2010 21.30 GMT

A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young "dancing boys" to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try and "quash" the story, according to one of the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.

In a meeting with the assistant US ambassador, a panicked Hanif Atmar, the interior minister at the time of the episode last June, warned that the story would "endanger lives" and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public.

The episode helped to fuel Afghan demands that contractors and private security companies be brought under much tighter government control. However, the US embassy was legally incapable of honouring a request by Atmar that the US military should assume authority over training centres managed by DynCorp, the US company whose employees were involved in the incident in the northern province of Kunduz.

There is a long tradition of young boys dressing up as girls and dancing for men in Afghanistan, an activity that sometimes crosses the line into child abuse with Afghans keeping boys as possessions.

...

Two Afghan policemen and nine other Afghans were arrested as part of investigations into a crime described by Atmar as "purchasing a service from a child", which the cable said was against both sharia law and the civil code.

He insisted that a journalist looking into the incident should be told that the story would endanger lives, and that the US should try to quash the story. But US diplomats cautioned against an "overreaction" and said that approaching the journalist involved would only make the story worse.

"A widely-anticipated newspaper article on the Kunduz scandal has not appeared but, if there is too much noise that may prompt the journalist to publish," the cable said.

The strategy appeared to work when an article was published in July by the Washington Post about the incident, which made little of the affair, saying it was an incident of "questionable management oversight" in which foreign DynCorp workers "hired a teenage boy to perform a tribal dance at a company farewell party".

In fact, the episode was causing palpitations at the top of government, including in the presidential palace.





Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) asks questions about:
Dyncorp Sex-Trade, Pentagon Missing $2.3 Trillion & 9/11 Wargames


She never got the promised written reports... and was attacked and outspent by the Israeli lobby... She lost her seat for asking questions of the powers that be...
posted by Uncle $cam at 10:54 PM
2 Comments:
Anonymous DaveS said...
U$_

Cynthia McKinney... what a freakin' stud! I voted for her, in fact I took a photo of my ballot so that I'd have proof of what a good American I am. I can't believe all the stupid knuckleheaded idiots with whom I share a country. Anyone who voted for Obama... I spit in your eye for not holding that man accountable for his actions.

Everyday there are more and more revelations about how the big banks and investment houses lied, cheated and stole from America, and yet those people are not just free, but are continually rewarded for their antisocial behavior.

When do Americans realize they're living under a Fascist regime? When does some county sheriff get the balls to arrest a few of these greedheads when they're skiing in Teluride, Aspen, Jackson Hole or some similar place? Hmmm, that gives me an idea.

Four-twenty a.m., time to change the world.

Peace
DaveS
3:29 AM  
Anonymous Uncle $cam said...
Where da money at: Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.
10:54 AM  
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