During the last Afghan civil war, rival strongmen fought military battles over boys they desired, wrecking neighborhoods and lives with their violent lust.

Some of those warlords later became U.S. allies in the fight against the Taliban, making the custom of bacha bazi — “boy play” — their dirty secret of the international counterinsurgency campaign.

Now, an American Green Beret who refused to look the other way is fighting to save his Army career. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland, a decorated special-operations soldier, beat an Afghan militiaman who kidnapped a 12-year-old boy and chained him to his bed as a sex slave.

As with corruption, the opium trade and other social ills that are pervasive in Afghanistan — one of the poorest, most war-torn countries in the world — U.S. military commanders are in a dilemma. They find the rampant sexual abuse of children repugnant, but they also need the help of local commanders and tribal leaders in the ongoing war against the Taliban and terrorist groups.


Army policy dictated that U.S. soldiers should report criminal behavior to local authorities and let them handle it. But the local government was corrupt and ineffective, Martland said in a signed statement.

“Our (Afghan Local Police) were committing atrocities and we were quickly losing the support of the local populace. The severity of the rapes and the lack of action by the Afghan government caused many of the locals to view our ALP as worse than the Taliban. If the locals resumed supporting the Taliban, attacks against U.S. forces would have increased dramatically,” he said.

Martland, an 11-year veteran and a Bronze Star recipient for valor in combat, was formally reprimanded for assaulting the Afghan Local Police commander in 2011 in Kunduz province. Gen. Christopher Haas, then-commander of Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command Afghanistan, called Martland’s behavior unprofessional and inexcusable.

After an inquiry, the Army ruled that Martland would be involuntarily discharged from the Army no later than Nov. 1.


Sgt. 1st. Class Charles Martland in Afghanistan.

Capt. Daniel Quinn, Martland’s team leader who helped pummel the local police commander, was also pushed out of the service.

U.S. politicians and other supporters rallied on their behalf, appalled by what they consider to be cultural sensitivity training gone wrong or venal political expediency. The controversy has cast a spotlight on bacha bazi, which is a centuries-old custom in the rural fiefdoms of the Pashtun south, one that was rooted in a culture of extreme segregation of the sexes mixed with the callousness of poverty and war.

Seeking to clear Martland’s record, the Family Research Council delivered more than 130,000 petition signatures to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.


After lobbying of defense officials, congressional scrutiny and front-page coverage in The New York Times that quickly attracted more than 2,000 reader comments, Martland was this month granted a 60-day extension for a new appeal.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, wrote several letters to Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Martland’s defense and provided character references.

“To say that you’ve got to be nice to the child rapist because otherwise the other child rapists might not like you is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard — totally insane and wrong,” Hunter said in one.

Martland had a “moral necessity to intervene” against a child rapist who was supported by U.S. trainers and tax dollars, and he did so in a way that was misrepresented by Army leadership, Hunter added.


“Charles is an elite warrior, and he’s exactly the type of person we need and want defending this country. He did the right thing when he confronted the Afghan commander for kidnapping and raping a young boy — and it wasn’t the first time he encountered this kind of situation,” Hunter told The San Diego Union-Tribune. “I have every reason to believe that Charles’ status will be restored, because there is no way that our Defense Department or the Army will put a child rapist and corrupt commander above one of the best soldiers serving today.”

Martland, now a senior instructor for Army Special Forces, wants to reclassify as a medic and continue his otherwise exemplary Army career. If his latest appeal is rejected, he will be booted out and owe the Army $3,000, he said.

In an Oct. 6 letter to Hunter, Martland complained of a “gag order” and said the Army was being hypocritical for drumming him out of the service even as it claimed to take sexual misconduct in its own ranks seriously.

“The Army still has a tremendous opportunity to make the right decision and show the country that its values are in line with the values of the American people it serves,” Martland wrote.


The Afghan boy’s mother, who was beaten by the police commander, brought her son to the American base for medical attention.

Martland conceded in a Jan. 19 statement to the Army that he was “absolutely wrong” for striking the police commander, but after hearing about the incident, “I felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our ALP to commit atrocities.”

The Afghan provincial chief of police called a linguist who worked with the Americans and asked why Afghan Local Police commander Abdul Rahman had been punched and pushed.

According to a statement by Quinn’s linguist, “Abdul Rahman did not think that abusing a child sexually warranted any discussion. … (He) was laughing and joking about the incident,” and he exaggerated his injuries and the reaction of the Americans.


The linguist also said when the provincial police chief found out why Rahman had been beaten, he was appalled and told him “he should be dismissed, arrested and put away for life.”

A special operator on the U.S. team said it had been struggling for months with complaints from villagers about the Afghan Local Police it mentored, including accusations of sexual assault and rape.

“We were the sole U.S. entity that was responsible for the training, arming and empowering this local police force. Thus, right or wrong, the criminal actions and abuses of power by these Afghan men were a reflection of the (team),” the special operator said in a statement collected by Hunter.

“We realized the disgusting behavior often displayed by the local Afghans contradicted our own morals. Although these cultural differences were understood, it did not make them any easier to accept or less vile. ... There was never an acceptance by any of the (team) members that we would ignore the pleas of the innocent to basic human decency. We took it personally,” said the operator, who remains on active duty.


Retired Staff Sgt. Kevin Flike is a former Green Beret who served two tours with Martland in Afghanistan. He described Martland as a ferocious soldier, a humble patriot and “an incredible man and friend.”

When Flike was shot in the abdomen, he lost part of his colon, fractured his hip and was permanently disabled by nerve damage. Martland checked on him often and helped him perform physical therapy. “If it were not for people like SFC Martland, I would not be where I am today,” Flike said.

Afghanistan has been continuously at war since 1978 — during a communist coup, the Soviet invasion, civil war, a Taliban takeover and the ongoing U.S.-led occupation. During more than three decades of violence, pederasty and gang rapes of boys sometimes resulted in gruesome injuries, such as punctured bowels, and even death.

Although girls are kidnapped from their homes and raped as well, increasingly so during the social upheaval of wartime, families are often more fearful that their boys — who are free to roam in public — will catch the eye of a powerful man.


The purchase of a “beloved” boy with effeminate, beardless looks between ages 9 to 16 is a status symbol in some circles. Although the practice is not mainstream, the sexual abuse of boys made to dress as girls and entertain commanders is a well-known subculture.

The chai tea boys, as they are sometimes called, were the subject of the best-selling novel “The Kite Runner,” as well as the documentary by journalist Najibullah Quraishi titled “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.”

Sexual abuse of children is illegal in Afghanistan, but bacha bazi has been difficult to eradicate. The practice seems to be growing more prevalent in the north, spreading beyond the southern stronghold of the Pashtun tradition in Kandahar, where women live in extreme seclusion from men.

In the most conservative areas, some men consider women as being useful for childbearing and fellow men as being for pleasure. Among mujahideen fighters hiding in the mountains without women and families, homosexuality became more socially acceptable.


Some commanders grew so powerful during the wars that they were untouchable by the law, and some families grew so poor that they felt forced to sell one boy into sexual slavery so the others could eat, said Breshna Aziz, an instructor of Afghan culture and languages at San Diego State University.

“It is not regular people doing this. It is warlords who are practicing that. It’s not our culture. It’s not our religion. It’s just those people taking advantage of their power,” said Aziz, who trains Marines deploying to Afghanistan on Afghan customs.

Ironically, the Taliban militants infamous for their repression of women also cracked down on bacha bazi, which is taboo according to Islam and mainstream Afghan culture.

The Afghan government signed an agreement with the United Nations three years ago pledging to eradicate bacha bazi and other forms of sexual violence against children, but many feel powerless against the child predators.


“Everybody is afraid of them. That is one reason nobody does anything. Even if someone gets arrested, the next day they come out of jail because of the corruption. And then what do they do? They go back to that family who reported them and kill all of them,” said Aziz, who was born in Afghanistan and travels there regularly, working as a journalist.