Shedding a little light on the Taliban

The following post was excerpted from an article written by one Margaret Wente, a columnist for the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.

quote:
On Fridays, the shops in Kabul close and everyone goes to the stadium. There, they watch as thieves and heretics have their hands cut off. One day, the Taliban brought in three women covered in burqas. A smuggled video shows a man with a microphone reading from the Koran. One of the women, accused of adultery, is led to the centre of the stadium. A man puts a gun to her head and shoots her dead. The video ends. "The Taliban actually sells popcorn before these events," said a young Afghan woman, in a recent interview with a reporter from the West. "Executions have become entertainment for children."
quote[quote]The women of Afghanistan are the most oppressed group of people in the world. Their country has been destroyed by wave on wave of war, and now they live under the tyranny of brutal misogynists. The Taliban believes that females are scarcely more than walking wombs, and they treat them worse than animals. If — when — the Taliban is overthrown, the women of Afghanistan will probably be better off.[/quote]
quote:
After the Taliban clerics came to power, girls were forbidden to attend school. Women aren't allowed to work, even if they have starving children and no husband or male relatives to support them. A girl can be killed if her hymen is not intact at marriage. Family planning is forbidden, and women cannot be seen by male doctors. Few female doctors are left, and agonizing deaths in childbirth are common. Perhaps the cruellest rule is the one that requires women to live behind windows covered over with paint, so that no man can see them. Lack of sunlight and a wretched diet has created an epidemic of osteomalacia, a softening of the bones caused by vitamin D deficiency.
quote[quote]The Taliban war against the West is also a war against its own women. There is more than one reason to pray the West will somehow prevail.[/quote]

How can we punish them for the terror they inflict on us as well as the terror they inflict on their own women without causing the innocent to suffer even more? Any ideas?

As an athiest - I strongly believe in secular government - and anyone who wages war in name of religion should be incarcerated in the closest mental institution.

I don’t know about being “incarcerated in the closest mental institution”, but wars that are waged based on religion are the worst kind, because a peace treaty is difficult (or impossible) to forge, as one side usually will not relent until the other is either dead or converted (by will or by force).

The things the Taliban does to it’s women and children is absolutely horrible! It’s really too bad, as it’s a disgrace to moderate Muslim civilizations that strive for, not only international peace, but domestic peace, as well. Unfortunately, the Taliban severely distort the truth about Islam, and it is the very cause of misconceptions that exist in the west. To rid the world of the Taliban would not only be a service to those that live under it’s rule, but also to those who have been misrepresented by them.

How could we do it? Don’t we have the ability to conduct special operations to take them out with minimal to zero loss of innocent lives? How large is the Taliban? How far-reaching are their politics? If a substantial portion of the population supports the Taliban, it could be trickier than taking out a couple of their leaders. It may just pave the way for some other crazed radical psychopath to take the helm. Would we have to end up “nation building”, as Bush has stated he is dead set against?

I guess the bottom line here is that there is no easy solution. It’s going to be a mean, tough, confusing and frustrating operation. Do we launch missle strikes on strategic targets and risk the loss of civilians? What about retaliation as a result of OUR retaliation? It could escalate and escalate. That’s what I’m afraid of, personally. I’d hate to see this thing really turn in to World War III, but it’s an extreme possiblity, here. All it would take was a tiny “slip up” (such as bombing a Chinese embassy) to pull another country in to the fight. I do hope that considerable care will be taken.

By the way they’re going with their female population, the Taliban will not be able to procreate due to the fact that there are not enough women around.

Moslim fundamentalism is the only thing pushing the Chinese, Russians and Americans together. STAMP IT OUT!!

Maybe the Taliban have the right idea. With all their women treated in that manner I’m sure they have much less of a problem with AIDS in the country. Lock up all the hussies and the problem will solve itself!
As regards calling them terrorists, what is the US doing right now? Bombing innocent civilians (collatoral damage or whatever they call it), driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes (form of Genocide?) and refusing to accept the offer of handing Bin Laden over to an independent country where he might get a fair trial. Refusal to display the evidence supposedly proving his guilt (if there is any), what happened to innocent until proven guilty?
They claim the Taliban are an occupying force in Afganistan and not the proper rulers. Britain is an occupying force in Northern Ireland, we don’t see the US bombing the shit outta Britain. What about the Fauklands? Whose was the aggressor and who is the occupying force there?
I’m not in anyway supporting what happened on Sept 11, but you have to have a look at this logically, and it just doesn’t add up. Comments?

censorship,censorship,censorship,the moderators here are obviously only going to let pro amerikkkan sentiments to be posted here,what is it you find so offensive in anything that is not PRO-AMERIKKKA?Just wanna make sure everything is ALL WHITE?WHITE WASH ,WHITE WASH!!!

There is joke going about:

If they catch Bin Laden - don’t kill him - it will make him a matyr - don’t put him in prison - it will only encourage others to take hostages with a view to his release.

INSTEAD - give him a sex change operation and send him back to Afghanistan as a woman.

I totally agree that the way the Taliban treat women in Afghanistan is apalling. And they were doing it before those terrorists (none of whom were Afghanistanis(Afghans(?)) killed all those people in America.

If America is so concerned about the way the Taliban treat women, why didn’t they do anything before? What about the way (insert most hated country here) treats it’s (insert persecuted ethnic/political or religious group here)?

Bri

Come on. We all know that the sub-human treatment of women in Afghanistan is merely a supporting argument for removing the Taliban from office.

They allow an enemy of and an aggressor against the United States to operate freely. On top of this, there is much debate about logistical help the Taliban offers to Bin. By virtue of this we kill them. Simple as that. In the process of killing, some people who have nothing to do with the Taliban or the fundamentalist will get killed. That is called war.

When we fire bombed Dresden or Tokyo, the goal was to kill as many as possible and drive the fighting will from the people. That’s when we were engaged is a perilous struggle. Why should the tactics change in Afghanistan? If you’re goal is to get the man-eating gators, isn’t leaving their young to mature and breed a bit short sighted?

Sensationalist media reports on the overwhelming support of the men ready to die in the Jihad. All I can say is Allah’s waitin’. These bastards are only beginning to understand what well-organized and well-funded terrorism is.

We don’t need to steal equipment and ram it into civilian targets. We work smart, pay taxes, and take you out from 700 miles with more precision and better aim than they have from their squat toilets.

Bri

So maybe the religious extremists, that you shelter, have to do a little more to gain the world’s attention.

But seriously - they cut off and sew up a few of women’s fun parts - even in their social groups in Australia - disgusting - (and illegal there) - but the world is not moved - they get away with it.

They completely put down the female population in a country where only men may vote - in the unlikely event that they get a chance some day - but the world is not moved - they get away with it.

They kill each other, in their own countries and neighboring countries, for religious reasons - but the world is not moved - they get away with it.

They move on from mulilating their wives and neighbours to the US, probably because they think every right thinking man in the US should be doing the same - or he does not support this “religion”, and therefore should be punished.

Where next?

quote[quote] a disgrace to moderate Muslim civilizations that strive for, not only international peace, but domestic peace, as well. [/quote]

Crbkstiles: Have you ever had a Muslim friend? Have you ever been to a country where Sharia is the law? Have you ever met a stateless person?
My guess is no.
What the hell is a “Muslim civilization”? and how did you become an expert on them such that you may sit in judgement upon a quarter of the world’s population …
If by a “Muslim civilization” you mean a modern state in the middle east where ancient tribal boundaries (call them lines in the desert sand) have now been demarcated by military checkpoints, razor wire and mines – such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait etc – then you are dead wrong.
The ruling families of those countries (members of which are wealthy beyond your limited comprehension) will not tolerate any conflict (international or domestic) that might ultimately destablilize their regimes and cost them power, prestige and their wealth.
But in all the GCC states there exist dissidents – some want Want western-style democracy and some want a fundamentalist Islamic regime simililar to that of the Taliban.
ALL who speak up are either jailed or forced live in exile if they can escape first.
Go and see for yourself. Go visit an Arab state and publicly declare (i guess outside a mosque after Friday prayers is best) whether their country is “civilized of not” … if you’re not jailed by the police, you’ll probably be stoned by the public.

And saying you’re an armchair expert from Taiwan who really didn’t know what he was talking about won’t help much.

I think the state of Israel has caused a lot of tension and trouble and inevitably has been a cause of a lot of instability in the Middle East.

First of all, we always hear of the Holocaust. When I wonder will this be dropped as a reason to set up and maintain some homeland for the Jewish people.
Secondly the Jews left Palestine. After WW2 they wanted a country, then they were given one, driving out the Palestians who live there, everyday trying to seize more. Sorry but if they decided to leave their homeland they can’t just ask for it back and displace all the people who filled in the void left by them. Then when we hear of the tit for tat killings, it works out at 1 Israeli dead against 12 Palestians. It doesn’t take a mathematician here to see who is getting slaughtered.

America is under some obligation to maintain and support Israel mainly due to the Jewish influence in politics. Israel is not a self-sustaining country. Without the US it would be finished, it has no oil, no natural resources, its just a desert.
I think that if it can’t survive on its own well maybe that’s the way it should be.

Also we are not living in the middle east, how would we feel if some muslim state or middle eastern state starting screwing around with the geography of the US, maybe take some of Texas and set up a state for Vietnamese boat people.

I bet you’d be pissed

I am not trying to justify Bin Laden’s ideas or his actions, what he did was terrible, but something must have got him going.

There’s oil in Saudi Arabia. That country should try and use this to balance both sides in the Middle East instead of siding with the US all the time, but since they have money they really don’t care about this.

I guess everything at the end of the day comes down to money and power

And the US should stop having double standards, they never cared about Afghanistan before Sept 11. Well they did, but they stayed quiet on the Taliban’s treatment of the women etc. Only when they need it, they use these things as justification for the removal of the Taliban, turning them into monsters in front of the world.

When Saddam Hussein was killing the Kurds, the US never mentioned that Turkey was also killing the Kurds with US supplied weaponry.

P.S I think Tony Blair is doing a hell of a job, Bush sounds like something out of Wyatt Earp. How did he ever get elected ? At least he has competent people as his aides

Egg plant,

Why didn’t you just start your post with “racial expletive deleted” to leave no doubt about what your true feelings are?

I must say that your dismissive opinion about the murder of 6 million Jews in Europe during World War II is an insult to their memory and casts the rest of your post in a sickening pall. It is so crass as to make me presume that you wrote it just to see what kind of reaction you would get.

Your gullibility and profound ignorance of history are also disturbing. Do you really think that Osama bin Laden cares one whit about the Palestinians? His contention is with the US. He is doing what you have done, acted contemptuously to see what reaction he will get. According to the New York Times there is practically no connection between the Palestinians and Osama bin Laden. You seem to rant on and on.

Amongst your listing of the Israelis’ supposed transgressions, you seem to forget that about one year ago, before the start of the current Intifada, Yasser Arafat rejected, then, Israeli Prime Minister Barak’s offer of nearly all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the “return” of at least 150,000 Palestinian refugees into Israel as well as monetary inducements.

I am kind of curious to find out where you got your facts. Your comment “the Jews left Palestine . . . Sorry but if they decided to leave their homeland they can’t just ask for it back and displace all the people who filled in the void left by them.” kind of flys in the face of history. Israel was conquered by the Romans in 70 A.D. and from that point onward, the Diaspora, the Jews always wished to return to Israel to reclaim their homeland.

As for your following point regarding the creation of the State of Israel you write that the Jews ended up “driving out the Palestians (sic) who live there, everyday trying to seize more.” Again, I must ask you for the source of this information. A source for your statistics on your ratio regarding “tit for tat” killings as you call them would also be enlightening. AP reported on October 21, 2001 that 699 Palestinians have been killed and 186 Israelis have been killed in the past year. A 12-to-1 ratio? I think not.

What is the “Jewish influence in (US) politics” to which you refer?

Here are some facts on the Arab Israeli conflict as compiled by a Christian university professor.

  1. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C. two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
  2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
  3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
  4. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
  5. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
  6. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
  7. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
  8. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
  9. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
  10. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
  11. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
  12. The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
  13. The PLO’s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.
  14. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
  15. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
  16. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were
    directed against Israel.
  17. The U.N. was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
  18. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
  19. The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

Egg plant, maybe you should read do some research before putting up a posting.

Please start a new thread if you wish to start talking about the Palestine/Israel question. This thread is about the Taliban.

Be forewarned that I have no patience with either Holocaust deniers or religious extremists, so please post responsibly.

Is Bin Laden a psycho, a cold blooded murderer, or just really stupid, how is to best describe him?

What did he want to achieve by carrying out the 911 terrorist attack?
a world war or a holy war ?? or just hurt the US and kill innocent people?

How can he influence people into following him?

He obviuosly manipulates the Koran. Why can a holy book be manipulated like this?

Why is there such extremism in Islam?

What are the Tabalin so hell bent on not handing him over?

Why isn’t more done to try and bring the three religions Christian, Islam and Judism together. I think they have similarities.
Hasn’t anyone learned that leaving them apart has been responsible for many wars and massacres?

Has the west being interfering too much in the middle east… supporting Saddam in the Iran war, supporting Afgan in during the
Russian occupation, then having these “allies” turn into enemies.
I know these regions need to be stabilized, but doesn’t courting one country make another country difficult or even worse an enemy

http://www.madblast.com/oska/humor_bin.swf

If you ask me - WTC - Bin Laden had a brilliant technical plan (and some very very good engineering advice) - but he seriously screwed up on the politics - he overplayed - He has put, with one exception, the islam governments of the world against him, in the short term. He no doubt hopes that the people will eventually “respect” islam first, and their governments second. But their governments currently understand a need for international credibility, even if their hearts may not be in it. I hope this lasts.

I guess that less than 20% of Afghans know that their government (if they understand that there is a Afghan government) is hosting someone who arranged to kill 5000+ US citizens to demonstrate extreme religious hatred.

I don’t doubt that the Afghan government has attempted to ensure the majority of their population is “aware” that the US government is attacking Afghanistan because of “US religious hatred”, and that only their infedal allies support these attacks.

So I guess they could be a littled miffed that they are being bombed.

Tee-hee!

http://members.sigecom.net/theclan/Taliban.html

how many more people (innocents) have to be killed before the lefties admit that the US/Israel is justified in taking out bin laden and hamas and any other terrorist group?

(anyone read the paper today? at fucking mall for chrissakes! i personalkly feel that the pentagonb is a legit target…but civilians–)

the un charter says all nations have a right to self defense. at ehat point would you peaceniks say that an attack by the us is justified? have we not reached that level yet?

yes, lots of innocent die unintentionally in war, but how does that justify non action? if someone was shooting to kill your wife would you not take them out, even if it risked killing someone else(e.g., a stray bullet?)

i think taht “white guilt” really endangers our civ.

pissed enuff to type with one hand,
kevin