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Report: Wikileaks cables show Texas company "helped pimp little boys to stoned Afghan cops"

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BridgeTheGap Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:04 AM
Original message
Report: Wikileaks cables show Texas company "helped pimp little boys to stoned Afghan cops"
In the Houston Press, an extensive blog post untangling an alarming story from the state department cables: "another horrific taxpayer-funded sex scandal for DynCorp, the private security contractor tasked with training the Afghan police," and apparent proof that the company procured male children for bacha bazi ("boy-play") parties.

The story boils down to this: this company, headquartered in DC with Texas offices, helped pimp out little boys as sex slaves to stoned cops in Afghanistan:

For Pashtuns in the South of Afghanistan, there is no shame in having a little boy lover; on the contrary, it is a matter of pride. Those who can afford the most attractive boy are the players in their world, the OG's of places like Kandahar and Khost. On the Frontline video, ridiculously macho warrior guys brag about their young boyfriends utterly without shame.

So perhaps in the evil world of Realpolitik, in which there is apparently no moral compass US private contractors won't smash to smithereens, it made sense for DynCorp to drug up some Pashtun police recruits and turn them loose on a bunch of little boys. But according to the leaked document, Atmar, the Afghani interior minister, was terrified this story would catch a reporter's ear.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/07/report-wikileaks-cab.html
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
1. What? No way.
This can't be true.

America doesn't allow this type of activity.

People are thrown in jail everyday for this.

But our tax dollars are being spent to facilitate rape?
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laughingliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:11 AM
Response to Original message
2. K & R nt
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FamousBlueRaincoat Donating Member (141 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:13 AM
Response to Original message
3. it's all meaningless gossip!
:sarcasm:
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SugarShack Donating Member (979 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 12:11 PM
Response to Reply #3
13. Right...while the texas youth commimssion does NOTHING re: over 700 complailnts of sex abuse by
children at the facility. They say there were roused in the night....forced to perform with each other. I believe they were filming and selling child porn. But to have over 700 complaints? I personally call Sheila Jackson-Lee's office every six months...to ask what she's doing about it. They were handling the abuse at the adult facility FIRST!! Outrageous! To date? Nothing. So I am not surprised they are involved in this. The US is number one in trafficking children for sex. And ...don't forget DynCorp A-Go !!!

Here are links if you are interested;
This story appeared in the St. Pete Times...
This is the case with OVER 700 COMPLAINTS FROM KIDS AT THE FACILITY! I called Sheila Jackson-Lee's office every six months for an update. For two years they said they were cleaning up the adult facility first. I knew there was a block somewhere...the legal aides kept saying they were still working on the case. Never saw another word in print...after the Dallas Morning News broke the original story. Here is a good update....again....how it works.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54861

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Embattled AG now accused
in teen sex scandal 'cover-up'
Attorney General Gonzales among officials
who allegedly ignored abuse of minor boys

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: March 25, 2007
9:49 pm Eastern


By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily.com

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's teenage boy inmates.

Among the charges in the Texas Ranger report were that administrators would rouse boys from their sleep for the purpose of conducting all-night sex parties.

Ray Brookins, one of the officials named in the report, was a Texas prison guard before being hired at the youth commission school. As a prison guard, Brookins had a history of disciplinary and petty criminal records dating back 21 years. He retained his job despite charges of using pornography on the job, including viewing nude photos of men and women on state computers.

The Texas Youth Comission controversy traces back to a criminal investigation conducted in 2005 by Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski. The investigation revealed key employees at the West Texas State School in Pyote, Texas, were systematically abusing youth inmates in their custody.

Burzynski presented his findings to the attorney general in Texas, to the U.S. Attorney Sutton, and to the Department of Justice civil rights division. From all three, Burzynski received no interest in prosecuting the alleged sexual offenses.

(Story continues below)

"This case demonstrates that a partisan political agenda, with Karl Rove in an orchestrating role, has penetrated the Justice Department and subverted fair-minded administration of the law," Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, told WND.

It's just the latest controversy for Sutton, Gonzales and the Bush administration's direction of the Justice Department. Earlier, Sutton's decisions to prosecute two Border Patrol agents and Deputy Sheriff Gil Hernandez were criticized as having been influenced by the intervention of the Mexican government.

Gonzales is under heavy congressional pressure in the controversy over the recent forced resignations of eight U.S. attorneys. At issue is whether the Bush administration is directing the Justice Department to pursue politically motivated prosecutions at the expense of fair or even-handed law enforcement.


In the Texas Youth Commission scandal, Texas Ranger official Burzynski received a July 28, 2005, letter from Bill Baumann, assistant U.S. attorney in Sutton's office, declining prosecution on the argument that under 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the government would have to demonstrate that the boys subjected to sexual abuse sustained "bodily injury." Baumann wrote that, "As you know, our interviews of the victims revealed that none sustained 'bodily injury.'"

Baumann's letter continued, adding a definition of the phrase "bodily injury," as follows: "Federal courts have interpreted this phrase to include physical pain. None of the victims have claimed to have felt physical pain during the course of the sexual assaults which they described."

Baumann's letter further suggested that insufficient evidence existed to prove the offenders in the Texas Youth Commission case had used force in their alleged acts of pedophilia: "A felony charge under 18 U.S.C. Section 242 can also be predicated on the commission of 'aggravated sexual abuse' or the attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse. The offense of aggravated sexual abuse is proven with evidence that the perpetrator knowingly caused his victim to engage in a sexual act (which can include contact between the mouth and penis) by using force against the victim or by threatening or placing the victim in fear that the victim (or any other person) will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury or kidnapping. I do not believe that sufficient evidence exists to support a charge that either Brookins or Hernandez used force to cause victims to engage in a sexual act."

Baumann's letter went so far as to suggest that the victims may have willingly participated in, or even enjoyed, the acts of pedophilia involved: "As you know, consent is frequently an issue in sexual assault cases. Although none of the victims admit that they consented to the sexual contact, none resisted or voiced any objection to the conduct. Several of the victims suggested that they were simply 'getting off' on the school administrator."

Baumann's letter also rejected Burzynski's charges that the administrators at the Texas Youth Commission facility in West Texas had used their position of authority to force the inmates to participate in the sexual acts or that the administrators had lengthened the sentences of the boys to retain willing participants or punish those reluctant to participate.

Baumann wrote: "In order for the government to be successful in a criminal prosecution, it would be essential for us to show that the victim was in fact victimized. Most of the victims were aware of the power that the school principal and assistant superintendent held over them, but none were able to describe retaliative acts committed by either the principal or assistant superintendent. Although it is apparent that many students were retained at West Texas State School long after their initial release date, it would be difficult to prove that either Mr. Brookins or Mr. Hernandez prevented their release."

On Sept. 27, 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division declined prosecution in a letter written to Lemuel Harrison, the Texas Youth Commission superintendent at the West Texas State School.

In that letter, Justice Department section chief Albert Moskowitz wrote that "evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes."

Angle maintains the decision not to prosecute was purely political.

"The U.S. attorney's office in Texas actually prepared indictments in this case," Angle told WND. "But when the word came from Washington, that's when Baumann wrote his letter declining prosecution. Sutton's office dropped the matter on the desk of the local district attorney, but nobody from Sutton's office said 'if you can’t go on this case, we'll help you out.'"

WND asked Angle to explain how politics drove the decisions not to prosecute.

"If you read the letters from Sutton's office or from DOJ, it's really amazing what abuse they describe and then downplay as not being serious," Angle explained. "They describe systematic and widespread abuse of juveniles who were held in these facilities by the people who were administering these facilities, and they acknowledge this fully, yet they determine that the evidence is not sufficient to warrant federal prosecution."

Angle explained to WND that he found both letters shocking.

"The letters justify not pursuing these cases because, number one, there is no evidence that any of these juveniles felt physical pain while they were being assaulted, and the letters use the word 'assaulted,'" he said. "And then also, they rejected prosecution because none of these juveniles stated in the investigations that they resisted and objected, which of course the facts of the report show to be the case. This case developed right in the middle of Governor Perry's 2006 re-election campaign. While Texas is a Republican state, and the Republicans expected to win, still at that time, Governor Perry was facing an election challenge from Carole Strayhorn, a third party candidate who was also a former Republican comptroller in Texas."

He continued: "I would speculate that the political powers in Texas and Washington in the Republican Party were not interested in this sex scandal coming to light. Sutton and Gonzales let their political responsibilities outstrip their legal responsibilities, and as a result you had children who were in danger of sexual abuse and were left in that danger."

Angle says that while the U.S. Justice Department and Texas attorney general's office were not prosecuting in this case, they were actively pursuing minor voter fraud issues with only a handful of allegations to go on.

On March 2, 2007, Governor Rick Perry appointed Jay Kimbrough, his former staff chief and homeland security director, to serve as "special master" to lead an investigation into the Texas Youth Commission sex abuse scandal. Shortly thereafter, the commission stopped a hiring practice that had allowed convicted felons to work as administrators in the system. The practice had involved a requirement that prior criminal records be destroyed for employees hired by the commission.

On March 17, 2007, the entire Texas Youth Commission governing board resigned.

The Texas Youth Commission is the state's juvenile corrections agency, charged "with the care, custody, rehabilitation, and reestablishment in society of Texas' most chronically delinquent or serious juvenile offenders." Inmates are felony-level offenders between the age of 10 and 17 when they are committed. The commission can maintain jurisdiction over offenders until their 21st birthdays.

The Lone Star Project is organized as a political research and policy analysis project of the Lone Star Fund, a federal political action committee organized in Texas. The Lone Star Project has aggressively investigated alleged political abuses within the Texas Republican Party, including playing a leading role in investigating the activities of former Rep. Tom DeLay in the redistricting controversy in Texas.

Bill Baumann was the lead prosecutor in another controversial case. In a case eerily reminiscent of the controversial jailing of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos while the illegal-alien drug-smuggler they wounded went free, Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez is imprisoned for a year for an altercation with illegal aliens. Baumann urged he get the maximum seven-year sentence.

and DynCorp
DynCorp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Involvement in child sex slave traffic ... millions of dollars of work that were not authorized and beginning other jobs without a go-ahead. .... Bosnia and Herzegovina Hopes Betrayed: Trafficking of Woman and Girls to Bosnia and ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp - Cached


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BridgeTheGap Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 02:30 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. Must be a Mob company or something. No one willing to stick their neck out to go after these thugs.
Just plain pitiful.
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Catherina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:13 AM
Response to Original message
4. This is what got the Taliban popular support to begin with
protecting women and children from rape by these sick fucks. US out of Afghanistan!
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get the red out Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:22 AM
Response to Original message
5. Still not shocked
I am waiting for some of this leaked information to shock me and it just hasn't happened yet.
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glinda Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:35 AM
Response to Reply #5
10. Isn't that the truth.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:26 AM
Response to Original message
6. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
thereismore Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:27 AM
Response to Original message
7. Why wait for 72 virgins. nt
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mainer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:28 AM
Response to Original message
8. Dyncorps long known to be human traffickers
I first read about their sex trafficking in a book called THE NATASHAS. Dyncorps employees known to keep and traffic female sex slaves in eastern Europe.
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groovedaddy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 10:29 AM
Response to Original message
9. We shouldn't be allowed to know about this. It's very un-american. n.t
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hootinholler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 11:51 AM
Response to Original message
11. So now they can donate to NMBLA
:grr:

-Hoot
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dgibby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 11:56 AM
Response to Original message
12. THIS is the reason we should be thanking Assange.
The next time anyone complains about Wikileaks, this is the example to use to refute those who believe what he's doing is wrong.
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cbdo2007 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 12:26 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. This information has already been out there. Nothing new from Assange.
Now if he can actually prosecute some of these people or get us to stop using companies like DynCorp then that would be great - but just rehashing stuff that everyone already knows about doesn't make him a hero.

I think that's the problem is he's got a lot of bad stuff, but it's not any new stuff. Any new stuff or really good stuff he has he's holding back as a bargaining chip. No "smoking guns" have come out of this yet and none of the wikileaks leaks have led to any firings, resignations, etc.
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SugarShack Donating Member (979 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-10 12:14 PM
Response to Original message
14. Here are all the videos on Afghan Dancing Boys....this info has been out there
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