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NEWS AND COMMENTARY
BY DAVID T. WRIGHT

STORY

The Times
Kandahar comes out of the closet
  Tim Reid
Saturday, January 12, 2002
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001570030-2002020060,00.html


COMMENT

We know the Taliban repressed women, stopped children from flying kites,
and banned music and other entertainment. But even those ghastly crimes
seem somehow inadequate to explain the hatred of our Establishment for
Mullah Omar and his grisly thugs. Now comes enlightenment from London's
TIMES, which tells us that the Taliban cruelly suppressed child
molesters:

> Kandahar's Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality
> for centuries, particularly their fondness for naive young boys.
> Before the Taleban arrived in 1994, the streets were filled with
> teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationship....
>
> Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy -- locals tell you
> that birds fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering
> their posterior -- that the rape of young boys by warlords was one
> of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilising the Taleban.

But now pederasts in Kandahar, known as the sodomy capital of south
Asia, have been liberated -- freed once again to healthily
express their natural sexuality:

> In the days of the Mujahidin, there were men with their ashna [catamite]
> everywhere, at every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it
> was completely open, a part of life, said Torjan, 38, one of the
> soldiers loyal to Kandahar[apost]s new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai.
>
> But in the later Mujahidin years, more and more soldiers would
> take boys by force, and keep them for as long as they wished. But
> when the Taleban came, they were very strict about the ban. Of
> course, it still happened -- the Taleban could not enter every house
> -- but one could not see it.

Remember, the Mujahidin were the people we now call the Northern
Alliance. And they are among those returning to the quaint traditional
ways:

> But for the first time since the Taleban fled, in the past three days,
> one can see the pairs returning: usually a heavily bearded man,
> seated next to, or walking with, a clean-shaven, fresh faced youth.
> There appears to be no shame or furtiveness about them, although
> when approached, they refuse to talk to a western journalist.
>
> They are just emerging again, Torjan said. The fighters too now
> have the boys in their barracks. This was brought to the attention of
> Gul Agha, who ordered the boys to be expelled, but it continues.
> The boys live with the fighters very openly. In a short time, and
> certainly within a year, it will be like pre-Taleban: they will be
> everywhere.

Another victory for democracy and freedom, brought to the grateful
people of Afghanistan by our enlightened rulers. And to think I had my
doubts ...


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