As a combat veteran, what shocking cultural practice did you encounter during your deployment?

I first learned about bacha bazi, though it wasn't called that, actually in Iraq. I was talking to a local Iraqi, one of our interpreters, about the Afghans and he called them “faggots”. I asked him why he said that and he told me that they have sex with little boys. I became confused and asked him what he meant. In response to my question, the interpreter became confused and just repeated, “They have sex with young boys.” He added, “They say, ’women are for mating, boys are for pleasure.’” When I asked him how he knew this, he said Afghans told him. It wasn’t for another 2 years when I would deploy to Afghanistan that I would understand what he meant.

Bacha Bazi may be an import from Turkic and Russian peoples (https://edchow.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/some-hints-on-the-history-of-bacha-bazi-1865-1913/), but the origins of it are far from certain. What is certain is that it is relatively common. It is a form of pederasty. It has nothing to do with Islam and seems to be cross-tribal, i.e. multiple tribes in Afghanistan/ Pakistan practice it (according to other vets I have spoken to, it can also be found in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and a couple/few others that I can't recall, but since I have no experience with those, I will ignore them here). If you’re unsure what I’m talking about, I will be blunt.

Men, usually the village elders, will pick the prettiest young boy, and start treating him extra special. They will shower him with affection as well as gifts. Then, there will be a party where the young boy will dress up very fancy and dance for all of the men. I have no idea but, I imagine it is far from a strip tease; still, in these ultra-sexually repressed societies, I imagine it doesn’t take much. As the party winds down, the boy is passed around the men for them to rape. The boy then remains the sexual servant of the village elders until puberty.

U.S. forces were told we could do nothing about the practice, as it wasn’t our job to impose our culture on the Afghan people. I think this example shows that you CAN actually judge two different cultures against one another and determine the superiority of one aspect of the cultures. Surely a culture that normalizes the rape of boys is inferior to the society that criminalizes it in the harshest way. Surely, the culture that practices the ownership of women is inferior to the culture that practices the empowerment of women. And this one may be controversial, but surely the society that values reason, logic, and science is superior to the society that values superstition, dogma, and religion.

The following edits were made in response to the comments section in Quora when I originally posted this there:

ABOUT THE 600TH EDIT HERE BUT IT BELONGS AT THE TOP: Quora made my post hidden until I edit it to “be nice”. Which I actually agree with, to a degree. Judging from the comments, people mistook my claim of western cultural superiority to be some sort of racist remark, in reality, it's the opposite. I believe the thing that makes western culture superior is its multiculturalism. It is because western society is so diverse that we are so strong. It is because our culture consists of Afghans, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Kyrgyz, Latvian, Ethiopian, Ugandan, etc... that we are so strong, because what happens is, thanks to the free exchange of ideals through the freedoms of the press, speech, etc., the best aspects of each culture wins out and strengthens society. For example, when Afghans come over, NONE of them try to continue this abhorrent practice. However, Afghans are much friendlier towards guests and strangers, and I bet that rubs off on their community around them. Multiculturalism has become western culture.

EDIT: Because people keep remarking that the practice is illegal, this needs further explanation. Afghanistan has literally never had a strong central government. Outside of a handful of cities, the federal government, and thus their laws, have nearly no power. Furthermore, many of the federal officials of the various areas are from those areas, so it is a part of their culture too, disincentivizing them from stopping it. Yes, the federal government consists of more modern, urbanized Afghans, but most Afghans are still rural, and this practice is still very prevalent in rural Afghanistan.

I am aware that many attempts to stamp out the practice have occurred. The first I know of is King Amanullah in the early 20th Century, and it’s basically been illegal since. But this idea that any of these succeeding generations had stamped it out is false. Even the Taliban’s power was not absolute over the country, and cultural norms dominated. That is basically the only way anyone has ever been able to “rule” Afghanistan. They use the Alexander the Great method. They allow all of the distant tribes from the capital to do whatever they want and they just collect a tax.

With all this being said, if over 100 years of efforts to stop the practice have failed miserably, I believe it is undoubtedly a part of Afghan culture. This is similar to illegal drug use in America. Heroin, Coke, Meth, etc. has been illegal for a long time. Despite this, illegal drug use continues. While it is a counterculture, I would argue that countercultures are part of the culture they are countering, because they are a subset of that culture. Sure, some people LOATHE drug use, some are indifferent, and some enjoy it. But, like it or love it, it’s in our movies, songs, literature, hell even Thomas Jefferson spoke of relaxing on his porch with a pipeful of hash. Bacha Bazi is similarly tolerated in Afghanistan.

ANOTHER EDIT: Now I have to address these false equivalencies between the U.S. and other countries like the U.K. and Australia, and Afghanistan. The overwhelming majority of the populace in countries like these ABHOR child rape. It is HIGHLY criminalized in these countries and can cause you to spend decades of your life in prison where you will be a target of violence to all other inmates. Basically, anyone who finds out you raped a child will turn you in to the police and other prisoners will attempt to murder you in prison. This is a far cry from the situation in Afghanistan. There is no real comparison to be made. Pedophiles in modern countries have to hide like cockroaches. Pedophiles in Afghanistan run clans, villages, and tribes, and practice this ritual openly. And it’s just so widely accepted as opposed to modern nations.

This may hurt some people’s feelings that I seem like I am attacking Afghans, but I am not. I am attacking horrendous, outdated cultural practices. And Afghanistan has a lot of them. That’s why so many people are rushing to leave Afghanistan. It’s not a place most people, even Afghans, would want to live.

LAST EDIT: I should also say that Afghanistan is not a country of a single culture. There are many different cultures in Afghanistan with varying views on the pederasty in Afghanistan. Bacha Bazi is certainly practiced by a minority of Afghans, but it is still absolutely a part of the overall culture of Afghanistan.

ANOTHER LAST EDIT: A lot of people are disturbed by the fact that U.S. forces were ordered to stand down as far as ending the practice. This is a tactical decision and, the right one. The reason for this is apparent in the comments of this answer. Look how many people stand up to draw these false parallels between Bacha Bazi and some American practice like child marriage, which is incredibly rare, and frowned upon, and in most cases, criminalized. Or they will chide me for saying that women should not be forced to cover their entire body, head to toe, and live their life looking through a mesh veil.

Now, imagine how that would look internationally. The U.S. invades, installs a puppet government, then starts telling the Afghan people how to treat their children and women. Can you imagine the international backlash? But, more importantly, can you imagine the backlash from Afghans? This would have a strategic effect. The U.S.’s invasion of Afghanistan has avoided the widespread uprisings that doomed the Russians’ efforts to failure. It has done this by using an actual Afghan government that has gained *some* legitimacy in the eyes of Afghans.

The U.S. focused on security and reconstruction. Except when involving security, reconstruction, or corruption, the U.S. has stayed out of Afghanistan’s internal politics and religious affairs (unlike the Russians who sought to ruthlessly modernize the country, through force). This is why the U.S. has avoided the horrendous casualties the USSR faced (roughly 3 times the number of casualties in half as many years). Had we come in and started dictating culture, Afghanistan would have done what it did to the Brits a couple times in the 19th century, then again with Russia in the 20th century: rise up nationwide against the foreign occupiers.

Now, it WAS illegal while we were there. But, we are not law enforcement. Our job is difficult enough trying to NOT kill innocent people in an insurgency. And, the Afghan National Police (ANP) are a paramilitary organization who focus on general security over domestic issues. There is no one to enforce these laws. Their legal system outside of cities is decided by the village elders, the same ones usually engaging in the activity.

This is not to say this did not disturb soldiers. A LOT of what we did disturbed us to varying degrees. I carried the severed legs of a future X-Games silver medalist in a cooler when I was 19. A lot of it is disturbing. We just push that shit deep down inside, ignore it, and make deeply disturbing, disgusting, offensive… BUT HILARIOUS jokes about it all. We just accepted it as our duty, and drove on. Though, there are certainly cases of servicemembers stepping in violently. As sad it is, here's a harsh reality of war: it is difficult, if not impossible to stamp out an ancient practice, even child rape, if security is not established. If all parties involved (coalition forces, the victim, and the perpetrators, AND the innocent civilians around them) DIE, did we really help anyone? I was molested as a boy, and if I'm being honest, I'm pretty happy that the solution did not involve my death. Remember the US's objective here was to stabilize Afghanistan with a government who will prevent terrorism in our absence. The US failed to achieve security, how could we possibly effectively stamp out child rape?

This doesn’t mean that if U.S. forces came across it, they didn’t stop it. I’m sure they did. Maybe even occasionally threatened to kill the guy if they found it again. But, beyond that, there was nothing we could do. Certainly no civilized people would suggest a summary execution. That would look unbelievably bad. Despite a few isolated incidents that are usually prosecuted, the U.S. military doesn’t commit war crimes. So, this option is a non-starter. So, then who do we turn them over to? Not our authorities. The U.S. has no jurisdiction over Afghan citizens in their own country. And the Afghan authorities don’t do anything.

So, I vehemently disagree with anyone trying to put this on U.S. forces. We had a military objective. Our goal was to stabilize Afghanistan enough to prevent the return of the Taliban, who would in turn allow international terror organizations to use Afghanistan as a staging ground for future terror attacks on the West, and anyone the terrorists see as supporting the West (Saudi Arabia). Had we started eradicating Bacha Bazi, our military objective would have been impossible to complete. Eradicating Bacha Bazi would result in mass incarcerations and/or executions, which would cause that popular uprising we talked about earlier.

While I am absolutely convinced of the superiority of Western culture over Afghanistan's, I do not believe it is my place to dictate to others what their culture should be, no matter how horrendous their practices. I can hope to persuade them as to the advantages of our culture and disadvantages of theirs, but I admit I am not infallible, so I should be the authority on the nothing. As soldiers, we were pawns on a chessboard. And NOT attempting to alter their culture was one of the tactics critical to mission success.

That’s the last thing I will touch on (in my second, “last” update). Insurgencies are political struggles, not military struggles. I will not go too much into it here, but I will do a separate article for that another time.