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Military Vet Exposes U.S. Gov Backed Sex Trafficking in Afghanistan // Katie Halper
Katie Halper | Trusted Newsmaker
U.S.-Backed Sex Trafficking in Afghanistan: A Veteran’s Testimony
For two decades, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan was justified to the public under the banners of democracy, women’s rights, and fighting terrorism. Yet beneath this official narrative, American-backed warlords engaged in some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, including widespread child sex trafficking. A veteran whistleblower has shed light on how deeply entrenched this abuse was — and how U.S. leadership not only ignored it but actively ordered troops to look away .
A Narco State Built With U.S. Support
At the highest levels, Washington propped up Afghanistan’s narco warlords. For years, the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, and USAID knowingly backed an Afghan client state that became the world’s largest drug cartel. Poppy fields flourished, heroin flooded global markets, and U.S. officials pointed fingers at the Taliban while protecting their own partners who were orchestrating the trade .
The Hidden Horror: Bacha Bazi
Alongside the drug trade, another crime metastasized — the practice of Bacha Bazi, or “boy play.” This was not, as some falsely claimed, an ancient Afghan tradition. Instead, it was a system revived by CIA-backed warlords in the 1980s. Commanders collected prepubescent boys as sex slaves, dressing them up, forcing them to dance, and subjecting them to systematic rape. The Taliban, in fact, had gained much of their early popularity in the 1990s by suppressing this practice .
Orders to Ignore Abuse
What shocks most is not only that these atrocities happened, but that U.S. forces were explicitly ordered not to interfere. Soldiers who tried to intervene were punished. In one infamous case, a U.S. Special Forces captain beat an Afghan police commander after discovering a boy chained to the man’s bed. Instead of being praised, the captain was relieved of duty and disciplined. The Afghan commander, by contrast, remained a U.S.-backed ally .
A Culture of Complicity
This was not an isolated incident. NATO officers and veterans have since attested that troops were told to turn a blind eye to the rape of children on U.S. bases. Journalists documented warlords openly bragging about their child sex slaves, even laughing and smoking opium on camera. Yet none of this derailed Washington’s support. For U.S. policymakers, maintaining their Afghan puppet regime took priority over protecting children from slavery and rape .
The Hypocrisy Exposed
The U.S. government has accused leaders abroad, such as Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, of being cartel bosses based on flimsy evidence. Yet in Afghanistan, American-backed elites were both narcos and sex traffickers in plain sight. Billions in taxpayer dollars sustained them, while mainstream media often looked the other way. Only occasional reports surfaced, and they were quickly buried beneath the dominant war-on-terror narrative .
The veteran’s testimony exposes an uncomfortable truth: America’s longest war was not just a failure — it was complicit in crimes against humanity. The U.S. did not simply tolerate sex trafficking by its Afghan allies; it enforced silence around it. This legacy demands more than reflection; it requires accountability. For the countless victims whose suffering was ignored, the question remains: will justice ever be served, or will the crimes of America’s allies in Afghanistan be buried alongside the war itself?
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