That shit goes on a whole lot in the Middle East, and yes, the US government acts completely hypocritical about it when it happens. When a soldier points out a human rights concern or issue with something they see over there, they are told to go take a cultural diversity class and are pressed on the concepts of anthropology and cultural relativism. But if they somehow become involved in it, the USAF is ready to put you on the first plane to Germany to go stand trial for violating the uniform code of military justice. Looks like that's what happened to all the guys in that article.
Only time I saw anything similar to this article was when we were sent on one of those "hearts and minds" peacekeeping missions and were handing out a whole bunch of MRE's to poor village in the slum area of Baghdad. One of the elder females in the village wanted us to give her an entire case of the meals instead of just one, and when we told her that we could not, she began trying to "offer" her teenaged daughter to us. It wasn't clear through the interpreter whether the "offer" meant she was offering her as giving her approval that someone could "marry" her or offering her as physical property, but given the situation I assumed the latter. It was pretty disturbing and several of us reported it, even though we felt the woman only did it out of desperation and hunger...still, it goes to show you that sexual exploitation over there is not taken seriously or nearly as offensively as the way we perceive it over here.
