Andrew Sullivan and armed pederasts

Andrew Sullivan's fuel-injected rise to the top of the heap of personal web punditry has been an inspiration to all of us with similar ambitions to grab the world by the lapels. He's churned out an enormous amount of lively prose ever since he began mainlining testosterone. Injecting the manly molecule, however, doesn't always leave him in the mood for careful thought. Well, that's the most charitable interpretation I can come up with for this:

THE TALIBAN'S DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL: All the rest of NATO may have given up on policing their militaries for homosexuals, but the United States can rest easy knowing that one military that still supports U.S. policy is the Taliban. Any consorting with beardless young men in the army is strictly forbidden. This story from the Daily Telegraph tells of a weird and fastidious obsession. - 12/5/2001 11:17:09 PM

AndrewSullivan.com

Uh, Andy? Please tell us you didn't realize that "consorting with beardless young men in the army" is a euphemism for military men sexually violating 13-17 year-old boys under their command. It's an old Afghan custom. James Michener's informative 1963 novel Caravans refers to it frequently (Here's an amusing excerpt describing Kabul's butch-femme warrior couples, who are the product of Afghan men seldom seeing what a real woman looks like). Call me "weird and fastidious," but on this one issue, I've got to come down on the same side as the Taliban against the alliance of Andy Sullivan and the armed pederasts. 12-7-01