We're Fighting For This?!?

Okay, here's one that should get religious right wing thoroughly up in arms over our involvement in Afghanistan. Child Prostitution. That's right, our Army is in Afghanistan fighting - and dying - so that the rich and powerful men can buy male child prostitutes.

... the horrific tradition called bacha bazi, which means “boy play.” Boys, some as young as 11, often orphans, are bought by former warlords and powerful businessmen, then trained to sing and dance for the entertainment of male audiences. They then become sex toys for anyone who can afford to pay their masters

How lovely. Essentially this is institutionalized pedophilia and child prostitution.

Would somebody care to explain to me just how we are 'making a difference' here? If there is one thing that this, along with the steady growth of the Taliban's influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, demonstrates it is that foreign intervention in that region is like sticking your hand in a bucket of water - remove your hand from the bucket, and the water doesn't look any different. (BTW - has anybody else noticed that nobody's ever found Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, the man whose supposed presence there was the ostensible reason for invading in the first place?)

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to believe that there is either a moral or ethical imperative that justifies the war in Afghanistan, much less Canada's involvement in it.