Beware of Spies

Following the publication of Tinder, Sailor, Hooker, Pimp in the Navy Times, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/06/16/tinder-sailor-hooker-pimp-the-us-navys-sex-trafficking-scandal-in-bahrain/the police cracked down on a few buildings housing foreign women and increased harassment of Asian women walking alone at night in Juffair.

This was an “arrest the usual suspects” initiative. With the Sickness about, it is simply too dangerous to have sex with strangers no matter how attractive their profile on Tinder. BTW, Tinder in Bahrain is a dating app, not a hook-up app. Asian women arriving in Bahrain and hoping to find a Navy boyfriend are increasingly desperate to return to their countries, despite the impossibility or just prohibitively high cost of doing so.

At the time of writing, there are no international flights to China from the Middle East. China is not repatriating its citizens, either. There are irregular repatriation flights for Thai nationals, but a fourteen day paid in advance quarantine on arrival is required. Nighclubs and bars in Bahrain have been closed since March 8. Thai restaurants allow only a carry-out trade. The owner of one restaurant told me that on a weekday she is lucky to fill ten orders and often fills less.

While it is easy to point a finger at a three year old “trafficking” case, the situation on the ground is much more nuanced. What they used to call “Class B dependents” in Vietnam days were not mentioned. These are the full-time local wives and girlfriends of Navy personnel in Bahrain, as opposed to “Class A dependents,” that is, official dependents back in the United States.

A feature of Thai culture, the concept of the mia noi,” literally the “small wife,” or minor wife, is common and in no way dishonorable. The fact that a Navy man has a wife Stateside is no bar. Local laws in this part of the Middle East officially permit polygamy. Though the practice is not available to non-Muslims, it is hardly condemned either. Considering how easy it is to become a Muslim—you only need to say the shahadah in front of witnesses—a married American would find few obstacles in his path were he determined to espouse two wives. Navy regulations may prohibit such conduct, but what God has allowed man may not prohibit, at least as far as Bahraini law is concerned.

Navy personnel live with, and have children with, their Thai girlfriends.

And sometimes they kill them.