While a tolerance of pedophilia and the treatment of women as chattel are indeed part of Islam under the version of sharia held by most fiqh, Spencer’s conclusion that the Army’s new instructions acknowledge this does not follow.
Unless an occupying power is willing to take stern measures of the sort the British used to suppress suttee in India, not objecting to local customs shared by local allies and local enemies alike is probably a good idea. All that follows from the Army’s decision is that the army acknowledges that tolerating pedophilia and treating women as chattel are part of the local culture in Afghanistan, not an acknowledgement that they are endemic to Islam, much less “part of Islam”.
This post is Dhimmitude
Most cultures do not tolerate having sex with children and being violent towards women. Forcing our US military to accept this deviant behavior (by being told not to comment on it around locals doing it) is nothing more than acquiescence to evil.
In your opinion, then, it would be OK for the US troops over in Afghan. to just ignore all the poppy fields growing opium? We should not be destroying them and paying Afghans to not grow poppies....well, because, its “part of their culture”? Hey, its OK for Afghans to grow the stuff and make money from it...their government (and culture) is not stopping them right now.
No, it's sober analysis. Unless we are willing as a nation to embark on a bloody campaign to remake Afghanistan's culture by forcibly suppressing the odious aspects of Islam as it is practiced in that region, rather than pursuing the more limited goal of keeping Afghanistan from again becoming a launching point for terrorist attacks and other attacks on American national interests, not stirring up the locals by attacking, even verbally, the odious aspects of their culture is prudent.
The main point of the post, however, was that Spencer's analysis was flawed: advising against stirring up the locals in Afghanistan does not acknowledge anything about the relationship between their local practices and Islam.