What favorite Taliban policy do you agree with most?

[zulchzulu]

Poll question: What favorite Taliban policy do you agree with most?

I've noticed how some think the Taliban, who are nearly in control of Afghanistan, are not worth fighting. So let's review the Taliban's favorite policies and see which ones are the most popular:

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Other: I like to kill brown people.

Wake me up when the hate session is over.

[cali]

15. Even though I don't like the poll

the hackneyed line about brown people is bullshit. Brown people in Serbia? Not so much. And people in Afghanistan are pretty much not "brown people". If it's shorthand, it's pretty poor. And assuming that the OP hates anyone based on ethnicity is also bullshit. Oh, and yeah, the Taleban are pretty revolting.

[Warren Stupidity]

40. Ok fine: I like to kill foreigners, preferrably non-christian,

and best if not exactly white.

So yes of course the Taliban are revolting. Saddam Hussein was pretty revolting too. In neither case is or was that a good reason to march around the planet occupying other people's countries and killing anyone who resists.

whatever.

[cliffordu]

77. You'll do well with them!!!

[zulchzulu]

104. Tell me what you like about the Taliban with concise examples

I gotta see this...

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

113. You might be waiting a long, long while for an answer. (nt)

[Deep13]

108. "Brown people" are the victims. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

2. All of the above, of course.

I think it's time we showed some solidarity with Freeperville.

[BlooInBloo]

3. I voted for the reading one, since that's the one most similar to Amerrica.

[rpannier]

4. This was a toughie

So many choices

[Runcible Spoon]

5. Oh here we go again.

Get the drums of war pounding again with this disingenuous bullshit rationalization for more war and bloodshed. Yes, those of us who don't want to sacrifice more lives and resources fighting an unwinnable war LOOOOVE the Taliban. Do you have any idea who the Mujahideen were? Would you like brutal tribal warlords to seize power in the Taliban's absence? Unless the US plans a significant and eternal presence in the region, that is the most likely outcome. We can't just march in and transform cultural values.

Can you even find Sudan on a map? Sri Lanka?

Are we supposed to swallow this because Obama is pushing for it? Did you support this when it was Bush?

[Hippo_Tron]

7. Aren't the Taliban basically the particular tribal warlords that the Saudis backed?

[Runcible Spoon]

8. yes and no.

Mujahideen is a collective term for the tribal warlords; the term is derived from the Arabic terms for "struggle". Some backed the Taliban, many fought them; some backed them THEN fought them, some fought them THEN backed them. It's one of the most misunderstood factions in the whole mess there. The US ignores/forgets them at their peril. We just really don't understand the culture(s) over there, and if we destroy what little infrastructure there IS in Afghanistan, then that is exactly where the leadership/insurgency/call it what you will, will come from.

On edit since I kinda misread your question: Taliban is unique from mujahideen in general because of its history of having well-funded backing that allowed for it to form and maintain as a cohesive political and social presence and were Sunni Pashtuns. This is vs. the Mujahideen which also were funded and armed (by Reagan :eyes:)when it was convenient but were from various ethnic/religious groups.

[Vattel]

12. Why do you hate women?

(just kidding)

[LittleBlue]

20. Exactly. Feminist neoconservatives of the world, unite!

Heil Bushler!

[zulchzulu]

93. Funny you mention Sri Lanka...

I was there about ten years ago.

Sudan... no thanks.

[Runcible Spoon]

123. well where is your rabid post demanding we invade and bomb the fuck out of those countries?

:shrug:

[zulchzulu]

131. It's funny how some people read into their own ignorant diatribes

So tell me just what you like about the Taliban, Einstein. Obviously, you must be a big fan.

[Runcible Spoon]

137. Wow, that's the biggest straw man of the week.

Congratulations. Derf.

[Forkboy]

140. He's been pulling that shit all thread. Rush would be proud.

:)

[4lbs]

6. It was a tough choice, even though I ended up voting "None" because burkas are just damn sexy!

n/t

[backscatter712]

9. What's needed is another Anbar Awakening.

While the Rethugs would tell you that it was Bush's surge in Iraq that lowered the violence level in Iraq by a few notches, the truth is that it was the Anbar Awakening - locals deciding they wanted a voice in how they were governed, who decided to get onboard with us and the Iraqi government, and they muscled the Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups out.

Any military action Obama does in Afghanistan should have the goal of buying time and political capital for the Afghan equivalent of these groups to gain ground in Afghanistan - to push out the corrupt warlords and the Taliban.

Under no circumstances should the Taliban be allowed to have control over Afghanistan - they're fucking savages.

[Vattel]

11. Is there an "Afghan equivalent to these groups?"

[Runcible Spoon]

13. the problem with that is that the alternative to the Taliban is not much better

Arguably, the tribal warlords that comprised the Northern Alliance were WORSE. Political orgs like RAWA who push for the end of tyrannical fundamentalist rule suffered torture and even the murder of their leader. Any real progress has to come from Afghanistan's people unless the US wants to keep a massive and indefinite military presence there. Even that is no guarantee that the insurgencies will stop. The best we can do is offer asylum to war refugees instead of installing another round of corrupt and brutal warlords.

[Vattel]

10. If women do not have the right to use all-women public bath

houses, then who does?

[Vattel]

14. and how do you flog someone with a stone?

[Vattel]

16. What are penned sheep in their homes like?

[greguganus]

18. They are pretty b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-d. n/t

[Vattel]

49. Please, this is a serious poll

[IndianaGreen]

17. May I point out that women's lot have not improved under Karzai

If you cared about the well being of Afghan women and girls, you should have supported the Marxists when they were in power. It should be noted that Karzai appointed a religious extremist to head the Ministry of Virtue. Yep, the ones that enforce the wearing of burqas.

Five Years Later, Afghanistan Still in Flames

Karzai turned his back on the hopes and expectations of our people and failed to fulfill his commitments. He betrayed the people's trust by relying on warlords. By compromising with infamous fundamentalist warlords, and appointing them to high governmental posts Karzai has failed to bring any radical positive change. Now we have a parliament full of warlords. The most disgusting faces include Jehadi criminal leaders, former Taliban commanders and some former puppets of the USSR. Those who ought to be prosecuted before anyone else for their crimes against our nation are going to legislate to the Afghan people! The rule of private armies of the warlords in different parts of the country and infighting between different groups of them has resulted in the loss of innocent lives.

http://www.rawa.org/zoya_oct7-06.htm

Fury as Karzai plans return of Taliban's religious police

By Tom Coghlan in Kabul
Monday, 17 July 2006


The Afghan government has alarmed human rights groups by approving a plan to reintroduce a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the body which the Taliban used to enforce its extreme religious doctrine.


The proposal, which came from the country's Ulema council of clerics, has been passed by the cabinet of President Hamid Karzai and will now go before the Afghan parliament.

"Our concern is that the Vice and Virtue Department doesn't turn into an instrument for politically oppressing critical voices and vulnerable groups under the guise of protecting poorly defined virtues," Sam Zia Zarifi of Human Rights Watch said. "This is specially in the case of women, because infringements on their rights tend to be justified by claims of morality."

Under the Taliban the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice became notorious for its brutal imposition of the Taliban's codes of behaviour.

Religious police patrolled the streets, beating those without long enough beards and those failing to attend prayers five times a day. Widows suffered particular hardship because of the diktat that women be accompanied by a male relative when out of their homes, an impossibility for thousands of women widowed during decades of war.

The Ministry was also charged with the imposition of the Taliban's interpretation of sharia punishment. Executions at Kabul football stadium, which included female prisoners shot in the centre circle, did much to fuel the Taliban's international isolation.

However, the Minister for Haj and Religious Affairs, Nematullah Shahrani, defended the new body. "The job of the department will be to tell people what is allowable and what is forbidden in Islam," he said. "In practical terms it will be quite different from Taliban times. We will preach ... through radio, television and special gatherings."

He denied that the department would have police powers but said it would oppose the proliferation of alcohol and drugs and speak out against terrorism, crime and corruption. It would, he added, also encourage people to behave in more Islamic ways.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fury-as-karzai-plans-return-of-talibans-religious-police-408231.html

Robert Fisk covered our initial invasion of Afghanistan, and our first atrocities in that war. This is what he has to say today:

When did we stop caring about civilian deaths during wartime?

No, I rather think it was the 1991 Gulf War. Our television lads and lasses played it for all it was worth – it was the first war that had "theme" music to go with the pictures – and when US troops simply smothered alive thousands of Iraqi troops in their trenches, we learned about it later and didn't care much, and even when the Americans ignored Red Cross rules to mark mass graves, they got away with it. There were women in some of these graves – I saw British soldiers burying them. And I remember driving up to Mutla ridge to show a Red Cross delegate where I had seen a mass grave dug by the Americans, and he looked at the plastic poppy an American had presumably left there and said: "Something has happened."

He meant that something had happened to international law, to the rules of war. They had been flouted. Then came Kosovo – where our dear Lord Blair first exercised his talents for warmaking – and another ream of slaughter. Of course, Milosevic was the bad guy (even though most of the Kosovars were still in their homes when the war began – their return home after their brutal expulsion by the Serbs then became the war aim). But here again, we broke some extra rules and got away with it. Remember the passenger train we bombed on the Surdulica bridge – and the famous speeding up of the film by Jamie Shea to show that the bomber had no time to hold his fire? (Actually, the pilot came back for another bombing run on the train when it was already burning, but that was excluded from the film.) Then the attack on the Belgrade radio station. And the civilian roads. Then the attack on a large country hospital. "Military target," said Jamie. And he was right. There were soldiers hiding in the hospital along with the patients. The soldiers all survived. The patients all died.

Then there was Afghanistan and all that "collateral damage" and whole villages wiped out and then there was Iraq in 2003 and the tens of thousands – or half a million or a million – Iraqi civilians killed. Once more, at the very start, we were back to our old tricks, bombing bridges and radio stations and at least one civilian estate in Baghdad where "we" believed Saddam was hiding. We knew it was packed with civilians (Christians, by chance) but the Americans called it a "high risk" operation – meaning that they risked not hitting Saddam – and 22 civilians were killed. I saw the last body, that of a baby, dug from the rubble.

And we don't seem to care. We fight in Iraq and now we're going back to fight in Afghanistan again and all the human rights and protections appear to have vanished once more. We will destroy villages and we will find that the Afghans hate us and we will form more criminal militias – as we did in Iraq – to fight for us. The Israelis organised a similar militia in their occupation zone in southern Lebanon, run by a crackpot Lebanese army major. But now their own troops "go wild". And the BBC is worried about its "impartiality"?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-when-did-we-stop-caring-about-civilian-deaths-during-wartime-1521708.html

We should leave Iraq and Afghanistan, and we should pull out of Middle East and West Asia and stop all arms sales to the region.

[bahrbearian]

81. Or under the Northern Alliance or any of the other Puppets we use.

[quaker bill]

19. The question is how

The milennia have consistently shown that the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is a most efficient means of destroying the occupying empire. When all is said and done, Afghanistan goes on as before.

Invasion and occupation by a foriegn military force has never proven to be the answer to this particular problem, and it has not been for a lack of trying or any shortcomings in the brutality department.

I and history would assert that force is not the answer here. Leaving the problem alone has not proven successful either. A third way must be found.

[H2O Man]

21. Well said.

I am confident that no progressive/liberal democrats are in favor of the Taliban's brutal mistreatment of women. Yet that is not the dividing line on if one: (a) supported a military strike after 9/11; or (b) supports the continued military activities in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration attacked and invaded that country for one of two reasons -- or possibly both. It was officially a response to 9/11, and there is some evidence that it had to do with controlling access to a gas pipeline. President Obama campaigned on a promise to re-focus the "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan, rather than Iraq.

There is no question that the Taliban terrorizes the female population there. However, as you note, there are valid questions regarding what method provides the best approach for the US to take, if that is why we are going to take an active role in that nation's future.

It would appear that the Reagan-Bush1 policy in regard to Afghanistan, which failed to provide any real support (with the possible exception of allowing an increase in the export of opium), helped allow the Taliban to gain control of that nation. Add the relationship to at very least powerful parts of Pakistani intelligence/military, and our options may appear limited. But we can not afford to believe that the only options are to either withdraw in every sense, or to attempt a military victory.

[Hippo_Tron]

25. The difference is that historically other powers tried to conquer Afghanistan

And I don't think Obama is trying to do that. I think that he wants to maintain enough of a stable region (Kabul and a few other areas) so that US troops can have a base to use to go after Al Qaeda. Obama knows full well that Americans won't stand for another few thousand dead US troops.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

56. That prompts two questions:

1) Do you have a viable third way?

2) If not, which of "invade, and risk a second Iraq" and "do nothing, and let the Taliban go on oppressing their populace" - neither of which, I agree, looks like a good solution - do you consider the least worst?

[Sebastian Doyle]

84. Third way?? Wait a minute, I think you have something there.....

Let's deport the DLC to Afghanistan!! If they can fix it, they can keep it. Change the name of the place to Alfromistan for all I care. Just don't come back. :evilgrin:

[Danger Mouse]

22. This poll is kind of unfair.

While there are idiots here who will somehow try to defend the Taliban, I think most posters agree that the Taliban are repulsive and should not be allowed to have control of Afghanistan, we just disagree on the means to keep them out of power.

[rug]

23. Why don't you poll the 10 favorite Saddam Hussein policies and pick a date to invade?

[Hippo_Tron]

26. Saddam treated women far better than our "friends" in Saudi Arabia do

Something that people here were pointing out here as soon as Bush started making the "humanitarian" case for invading Iraq. Saddam was a goddamn humanitarian compared to his neighbors because he had no adherence to Islamic fundamentalism. That's why we installed him in the first place.

[rug]

28. That's right. Maybe zulch will next post the ten reasons we should attack Saudi Arabia.

[MrSlayer]

24. Forced marriages are awesome.

Nothing spells romance more than a pre-pubescent girl forced to engage in sexual congress with an old, smelly tribal leader.

[dcindian]

27. I voted all the above since the I love to murder brown people wasn't listed as a choice.

Why do you love to murder brown people so much?

[eridani]

29. Sounds a lot like Saudi Arabia to me

Except that Saudis did 9-11, and no citizen of Afghanistan did. We want to rule Afghanistan with US military power but not Saudi Arabia because why?

[geek tragedy]

30. The Taliban sheltered al-Qaeda and illegally allowed bin Laden

to use Afghanistan as a staging ground for his war against the United States.

So, anyone who suggests that the Taliban aren't our enemies is on crack.

[mmonk]

32. They were our best buddies at one time before they requested

more money and aid than we wanted to allow for the Unocal pipeline. Friend one day, enemy another day.

[geek tragedy]

33. they were our enemy after they refused to extradite bin laden

after the embassy attacks.

[mmonk]

35. That's your view. While it added to a growing division, it wasn't a stand alone.

We didn't insist on the extradiction and deliver to them a threat of invasion until 2001 even though we had developed a plan for invasion in 1998 after Unocal withdrew its operational plans.

[geek tragedy]

37. We insisted on extradition back in 1998.

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19991015.sc6739.doc.html

What's more--we decided to invade when the Taliban's partners in crime murdered 3000 people in lower Manhattan, not because of some stupid pipeline that Bush never made much of an effort to get built.

[Warren Stupidity]

42. not a formal request for extradition

but then again that was a long time ago. I supported that war on the grounds of self defense. It was pretty obvious within the first few days that we weren't particularly interested in destroying al qaeda and that the war in Afghanistan was about conquering Afghanistan and setting up a permanent occupation. Just cause does not imply just war.

[geek tragedy]

45. Pretty obvious? Not at all.

Curious that Bush would try to conquer and set up occupation to build a pipeline, and then divert all of the necessary resources to Iraq.

No, the simpler explanation is that Bush fucked up in Afghanistan, because he's incompetent and because he had a hard-on for Saddam.

[MyNameGoesHere]

58. A lot of countries will not extradite to the usa, they enemies too? n/t

[geek tragedy]

59. If they provide a base for al-Qaeda, yes.

If they violate UN Security Resolutions in order to help terrorists plot attacks against American citizens, yes.

The lengths to which some leftists will excuse any anti-American foe, no matter how evil, is sickening.

[mmonk]

101. The UK has decided not to gp by extradiction threaties by the US.

Therefore, whether a country does or does not extradict people to the US is a point hard to make in an argument regarding the issue whether the issue appears right or not.

[IndianaGreen]

82. And Germany, and the city of Hamburg, sheltered the 9-11 hijackers

It was in Hamburg where the WTC attack was hatched and planned.

Once again, the Taleban exists thanks to the US and those Americans that supported our arming the Islamic radicals against the Marxist Afghan government and their Soviet allies.

You chose them over Marxism, now live with the consequences!

[mmonk]

31. Where were you when we supported the Taliban government?

In fact, the United States taxpayer paid every penny of the salaries of all Taliban government officials before the Unocal pipeline deal fell through. By we, I mean both political parties. I plan a post on US foreign policy later today on the issue of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

[geek tragedy]

34. What's your source on that claim?

And have you forgotten the UN Sanctions on the Taliban ex post the embassy attacks.

[mmonk]

36. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher

[geek tragedy]

39. LMAO. He's a world-class wingnut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Rohrabacher

In the November/December 1996 issue of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Rohrabacher was reported as saying that the Taliban were not terrorists or revolutionaries, that they would develop a disciplined society that would leave no room for terrorists, and that the Taliban posed no threat to the United States.<28> . . .

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rohrabacher claimed that the attacks were due to incompetence on the part of the Clinton administration.<29>

You'll have to do much, much, much better than that.

[mmonk]

41. I'm sorry. It wasn't him though he didn't like it. This is from a piece I've been working on

(I can't remember all small details without looking at my notes). It was Ahmed Rashid.

But yet I still could be merely speculating on the determination that Bin Laden was in rebellion though still the US had clearly changed course. Consider the following facts I give here. In Congressional hearings in April 1999, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in concluding statements said the following:

“I am making the claim that there is and has been a covert policy by this administration to the Taliban’s movements control of Afghanistan…This amoral or immoral policy is based on the assumption the Taliban would bring stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan….I believe the Administration has maintained this covert goal and kept the Congress in the dark about its policy of supporting the Taliban….

And examine the words of Ahmed Rashid in his Yale University study named “Taliban”, “the State Department and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, US taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official.”

Let’s now look at what hearings in 2000 in the House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee confirmed: “At a time when the Taliban were vulnerable, the top person of this administration, Mr. Inderfurth, and Bill Richardson, personally went to Afghanistan and convinced the anti-Taliban forces not to go on the offensive and furthermore, convinced all of the anti-Taliban forces, their supporters, to disarm them and to cease their flow of support for the anti-Taliban forces…At the same moment, Pakistan initiated a major resupply effort, which eventually saw the defeat, of almost all of the anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.”

[geek tragedy]

43. You're still relying on Rohrabacher's bullshit.

Sorry, but Rohrabacher is one of the least credibly human beings alive, especially with regard to the Taliban.

[mmonk]

47. Ahmed Rashid. I relied on his work in that case.

[geek tragedy]

50. He's QUOTING Rohrabacher. n/t

[mmonk]

53. Here is the part:

And examine the words of Ahmed Rashid in his Yale University study named “Taliban”, “the State Department and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, US taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official.”

[Vattel]

64. You need to be more careful

You falsely claim to be quoting a respected scholar (Ahmed Rashid) when in fact you are quoting a loony political cartoonist (Ted Rall). You falsely say that: "And examine the words of Ahmed Rashid in his Yale University study named “Taliban”, “the State Department and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, US taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official.”

I suspect that your main source is Rall. Better to rely on Rashid.

[mmonk]

68. True and thanks for the notation.

Rashid is quoting from Rall's "It's All About Oil", San Francisco Chronicle.

[mmonk]

78. Note: The inference was Ahmed's that it came from Rashid's "Taliban"

without reference to Rall except in the notes in the back of a book of his (Ahmed's) work. Before I post the full piece, I will footnote all references. Currently, I'm in the middle of it.

[Vattel]

83. You mean "Rall's," not "Ahmed's," right?

[mmonk]

97. I pulled it from Nafeez Ahmed's book whereby there was no mention

it came from Rall's piece in the chronicle thereby leaving the impression to the reader it was Ahmed Rashid's words.

[Vattel]

112. Oh I see, we're dealing with multiple Ahmeds

btw, given your interests, you should read Rashid's book, if you haven't already done so.

[mmonk]

118. Yep, the two Ahmeds was where the confusion was.

I am thinking about getting Rashid's book. I take it you have read it? If so, what did you think of it overall?

[martymar64]

121. The Bush Admin gave the Taleban $43 Million in August of '01

Read this.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3556

[cali]

38. er, now the U.S. did not pay the salaries of the Taliban officials

What the U.S. did do was fund the Taliban to eradicate poppy fields. And when you do your post, please use real documented sources.

[mmonk]

44. Maybe you should wait for my piece.

[geek tragedy]

46. If you're relying on testimony from Dana Rohrabacher

where he lies about Bill Clinton, you may want to reconsider that piece.

[mmonk]

48. Maybe before judging, you should wait and see how much what

I have been working on is documented. I did not rely on Rohrabacher. He was merely a passing part in Congressional testimony.

[geek tragedy]

51. Since there is no credible source for your claim,

I'll just assume it's bullshit you read somewhere on the Internet until you deliver the goods.

[cali]

52. There are, however, lots of credible sources for

the claim that the U.S. funded the Taliban to the tune of hundreds of millions to eradicate poppy fields. We did fund the Taliban

[geek tragedy]

54. Not after the embassy bombings we didn't. n/t

[mmonk]

63. I believe you are incorrect that all sourcing, negotiation and funding stopped.

The Pakistan Observer reported in July 2001, "Christina Rocca, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia met with Taliban officials in Islamabad and announced $43 million in aid in food and shelter and shelter aid...".

[geek tragedy]

79. The money was distributed through the United Nations

and used for humanitarian purposes.

[mmonk]

80. These agreements were done in private preceeding determination

of delivery.

[mmonk]

55. You're something else.

[geek tragedy]

57. You're making an extraordinary claim- Bill Clinton paid

the salaries of the Taliban after the embassy bombings.

That requires extraordinary evidence.

[mmonk]

60. Al Queda and the Taliban are not the same entities.

The bombings occurred in 1998. Funding stopped in 1999. I'm not writing a hit piece on Bill Clinton. My sourcing is Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Benazir Bhutto, congressional hearings, Oil & Gas International, French Intelligence reports, India Reacts, Dr. Nour Ali, Jane's Intelligence Review, Toronto Sun, and others.

[geek tragedy]

61. The Taliban became AQ's partners in crime

when they refused to extradite him.

I've seen the looney-tunes pipeline theories of how the embassy bombings and 9/11 weren't the reason we invaded Afghanistan.

[mmonk]

62. It is one of the reasons.

We weren't going to invade every country that Bin Laden happened to stay. Keep in mind this was before 9/11. In fact, CIA visited Bin Laden as late as 2001.

[mmonk]

65. A qualifier to my statement. Not all funding, just direct funding

of government officials.

[Vattel]

67. self-delete

[mmonk]

75. Nice try but nope, not even close.

[zulchzulu]

69. Oh no! You found out I secretly support the Taliban!

What?

I never did nor never would support such fucking asshats.

[mmonk]

70. I asked where were you when the US did. I did not say you supported them, support them,

or any other machination.

[zulchzulu]

72. So what the hell are you implying?

Where was I when Chimpy had the Taliban in Texas or when he gave them money the summer before 9/11?

I was working on a web site condemning just about everything Bush stood for even before 9/11 happened. I had actually heard about the Taliban when the UN cut off funds in the last 90's.

[mmonk]

73. That is good. I'm glad you were active. One can not just infer that.

Of course, we supported their rise to power before bush as well. All in all, the US spent $124 million on them spanning many years.

[H2O Man]

85. There is some

infamous film of some of them visiting friends (I believe in Texas) in Michael Moore's film on 9/11.

[mmonk]

100. You are correct.

I love that infamous film and have it.

[iamthebandfanman]

124. so then you agree we created the problem?

yet somehow its not our problem now ?


two wrongs dont make a right, its true... but one wrong doesnt either.

what would you suggest is the logical solution?

[SKKY]

66. I chose the bath house deal. Imagine just how many women you could pick up...

...if you operated an "underground" bath house. I'd have cameras hidden all over the place. "Girls gone wild - Destination Kabul!"





(I sincerely hope my response is as silly as this post)

[Honeycombe8]

71. Excellent post. You point out the evil nature of that religious wacko tribe who LOVES Al Qaeda.

You forgot this one, though:

Throwing acid in the faces of young girls who are trying to attend school. (This is my personal favorite....it really shows what monsters they are. Acid...in the faces....of female children. Scarred and/or blinded for life. Emotionally damages, as well as physically. Makes you think: What kind of person could do such a thing to a young person or child? Answer: The kind that thinks harboring Al Qaeda, and terrorism, is a great idea to get what you want.)

[mmonk]

74. Yes, they are a sick bunch. The Taliban used al Queda to help

fight the Northern Alliance.

[depakid]

76. Why, yours of course!

As any reasonable person would and should.

For a very simple reason -you're disingenuous.

We ought all get on board with that!

[Touchdown]

86. The Taliban? EWWW!

Ok, I'm a 43 y/o man, but The Taliban? I need to channel my inner College-Girl for that.

EWWWW!!!!!

[Prometheus Bound]

87. 1984. Part 1.Chapter 1.Two-minute Hate Session

The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started.

As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even -- so it was occasionally rumoured -- in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.

Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard -- a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party -- an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed -- and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army -- row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers' boots formed the background to Goldstein's bleating voice.

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the book. But one knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there was a way of avoiding it.

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization.
http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/0.html

[LynnTheDem]

88. I love strawidiot polls!

Really I do!

[Hanse]

89. Which policy do you support the most?

1. Enlisting so you can fight the taliban yourself.

2. Shutting the fuck up.

It's an either or question.

[zulchzulu]

90. Ooohhh... anger! Alcoholic much?

:puke:

[Hanse]

91. Chickenhawk much?

Are you only willing to fight the Taliban as long as it's poor people and minorities who have to put their lives at risk?

[zulchzulu]

92. So support the Taliban... you probably love them

Why not go over there and hand them your pot brownies and count the seconds it takes for them to pull out a sword and behead you...

[Hanse]

94. Hey now...

I'm not the one here who supports the Taliban killing U.S. troops.

[iamthebandfanman]

126. yah, just their own people..not US troops

i dont like war either

but either way, people in afghanistan will die.

[Forkboy]

95. Nice poll, Lou Dobbs.

[zulchzulu]

105. Oh wow! Another fan of people who throw acid on women's faces and make them sex slaves

Way to go!

[Forkboy]

119. Try not to be so stupid that you make 4 year olds feel good about themselves.

:hi:

[zulchzulu]

129. I think people who support or appease asshats like the Taliban are stupid

Amnesty International would agree with me.

[Forkboy]

141. I think people who make shit up sound like Ann Coulter.

Guess we're even.

Just like a Repub, you can't defend your tactics so you try to misrepresent other people's position to make your own behavior look better. Nice try, Chumley. Democrats don't play that game. Back to your crayon based drawing board.

[EFerrari]

96. Why aren't you in Afghanistan?

[zulchzulu]

110. Why aren't you?

This poll has nothing to do whether I want to travel to Afghanistan. I wouldn't at this time.

Pointing out how the Taliban are seriously fucked up doesn't mean I need to go there and fight them myself.

I would suggest you educate yourself on these people.

[superduperfarleft]

115. Chickenhawk. n/t

[zulchzulu]

122. Utopian Fantastical Droid n/t

[harun]

98. You don't have proof they do any of those things, just sayin.

[zulchzulu]

106. I guess Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN are makin' shit up, right?

No, I've have personally never seen an Afghan woman made a sex slave, had acid thrown on her face for laughing, forced into a marriage with an 80-year old warlord or saw one beheaded for trying to teach children how to read.

But others have.

[Life Long Dem]

99. Send 200,000 troops into the mountainous region

Any available security contractors?????

????***Excellent Choice***???? Mr. President Obama!

:bounce:

[zulchzulu]

102. I would assume that those who disagree with this poll are against Amnesty International too

Yeah, let's all be utopian and put our heads in the sand... so what does Amnesty International say about the Taliban?

Years after the fall of the Taliban, violence continues to plague Afghanistan. The government and its international partners remain unable to maintain safety and stability. Open violent conflict continues in large parts of the country, killing at least 1,000 civilians in 2007 alone. While important progress has been made in some key areas and sectors, rule of law and protection of human rights remains fragile at best. Governmental authorities, Taliban, and other armed militias have been responsible for atrocities, as have personnel and contractors associated with international security forces. Human rights defenders and civil society leaders continue to face harassment, intimidation, and violence.

Women in the public sphere remain at high risk of attack by the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups. Nevertheless, they carry on bravely and determinately. Track star Mahboba Ahdyar, only the third Afghan woman to ever qualify for the Olympics, dropped out of training in July 2008 to seek political asylum in Norway after a series of threats against her and her family in Kabul. In an especially troubling development, schools, teachers, and students--especially those dedicated to educating girls--have also been targeted. For example, in June 2007 two gunmen opened fire on schoolgirls outside of Kabul, shooting six and killing two, in what was apparently a politically-motivated attack against female education and in 2008 Taliban militants threw acid on 15 girls and teachers walking to school in southern Afghanistan. And in September 2008, Commander Malalai Kakar, Afghanistan’s most senior female police officer and a mother of six, was shot dead in Kandahar. She had been head of the city’s department of crimes against women. Many prominent female professionals and policymakers nevertheless continue their work on behalf of women and for a new Afghanistan.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/afghanistan/page.do?id=1011101

What say you, naysayers?

[Forkboy]

120. No, just self-righteous asses.

[zulchzulu]

133. Tell us why Amnesty International are "self-righteous asses"...

Surely, human rights watching is none of their goddamn business, right?

Making statements about innocent people getting raped, mutilated, beheaded, having acid thrown on their face for laughing and being forced into human slavery and the sex trade is none of their goddamn business. Right?

The gull of these people... informing us of human tragedy. We have Guitar Hero to play and shitty pizza to eat. Leave us alone!!! :sarcasm:

[Forkboy]

139. I was talking about you.

:rofl:

[zulchzulu]

103. Hey naysayers! I guess you are against Human Rights Watch too, right?

I'd like the naysayers to provide something intelligent and not utopian torpor in regards to the Taliban. Here's a nice article about the Taliban with involvement in, you guessed it, human trafficking and sex slavery and other fun little things to do to those who dare not see their 5th Century view of the World:

With the women stripped of their burkas, it was a simple task for the Taliban invaders to cull the young beauties. Nafiza was one of them. Green-eyed, with raven-black hair that grazed her waist, Nafiza had rushed to help Shah Jan get her three kids out of the burning house. A Taliban fighter spotted the woman with the emerald eyes. She was his prize. With the butt of his AK-47 rifle, he slammed Nafiza into the dust and dragged her, crying and pleading, to the highway. There, Arabs and Pakistanis of al-Qaeda joined the Taliban to sort out the young women from the other villagers. One girl preferred suicide to slavery; she threw herself down a well. Nafiza and women from surrounding villages, numbering in the hundreds, were herded into trucks and buses. They were never seen again.

http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/the-taliban-human-trafficking-and-sex-slavery/

Let me see anyone stick up for these monsters... c'mon utopian torporheads, let's see your love for these asshats.

[tekisui]

107. What other of the world's oppressive regimes should the US police?

The argument to go into Iraq followed the same logic. Oppressive regimes need to be overthrown and replaced with democracies.

When are we going into Sudan? Somalia? The Congo? North Korea? Burma? How about Syria and Gaza? Russia is sliding back towards authoritarianism, when do we take them on?

Their is no military solution to the Taliban. We are bleeding ourselves dry each day we occupy Afghanistan. We are NOT the world's police force. We can't afford it, and haven't the moral authority to act like it either.

[zulchzulu]

111. We are in Afghanistan now with other countries...

Surely, we could try to topple half of Africa's rogue regimes... but for now, assisting in Darfur seems like something we can do with other nations.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not exactly just a couple rugrats pissing on Aunt Susie's carpet.

Human rights groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others have been calling for an end to how the Taliban not only treat women, but many others in Afghanistan.

It's easy to stick your head in the sand, cover your eyes, act like the World is Utopia and everybody "should just get along", but even Pete Seeger sings that sometimes there is time for war. War for making the World a better place...

The US can't be in Afghanistan alone and isn't. Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Italy, Canada, Austria, Ireland and other countries serving with NATO are there are well.

The trouble that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are creating in Waziristan and the areas around the Punjab region have global complications. They want to kill you and I. They want to make you and I live in their sick 5th century view of bastardized Islamic mind control.

You can say we should ignore the problem. I say otherwise.

[Deep13]

109. If the oppression was based on race rather than gender, would this still be hate-mongering?"

I fucking hate the Taliban.

[superduperfarleft]

114. So when are you enlisting?

Chickenhawk....

[zulchzulu]

130. So when are you going to wake up?

Utopian stooge...

[Orsino]

116. "Worth fighting"?

How many lives, pray tell, is fighting the Taliban worth? How many military, and how many civilian? How much more money should we spend in this fight? :eyes:

[zulchzulu]

132. I guess we should stick our heads in the sand, become Utopian Isolationist Pacifists and act like...

....nothing is going on.

Ah... feel better now?

[eridani]

135. Those UIP types would never have promoted the Saudi project of funding the Taliban

--in the first place. They would have blocked the overthrow of Iran's secular government in 1953, and the financial and logistical support of the fundy whackjobs in Afghanistan in the 80s. With that, no fundies. The Afghanis keep their Sufi traditions, and Iran is a model for a secular society coexisting with Islam. Stop fucking with people, and you don't generate those problems in the first place.

[Orsino]

136. Not yet. You still haven't told me what "worth fighting" means.

How many lives, and how much money? For what expected result?

These are things we should know before deciding to "fight."

[Blue_Tires]

117. there has to be some other option than a military one

or else the cycle will just repeat...

and this fishing line OP is almost the same as those RW "let's invade Iran" screeds...

[zulchzulu]

128. It seems most people have been ignoring what Amnesty International has been saying for years

You can half-wittingly try to evade the issue that the Taliban are evil swine buy injecting the sophmorically tired "this is like Bush..." horseshit, but does that make very valid human rights groups like Amnesty International like Bush too?

I seriously don't get how some people are absolutely so ignorant and want to play the Utopian Pacifist Torpor Clown when it comes to obvious evil in the World, such as the Taliban.

I thought people on the Left want to fight for human rights and are against theocratic regimes who kill, rape and behead innocent people. Is it because they have beards?

[Blue_Tires]

134. then why half-ass it? let's go to the big leagues and invade china

[mwooldri]

125. Serious answer: they tried to eradicate heroin production.

This was when they ran the country.

Heck, good things came out of Nazi Germany ( the concept of the Interstate, the Volkswagen, Porsche, BMW... for starters ) but yep there was a lot of bad - bad far far outweighed any good...

Similar thing with the Taleban. They do *some* good but their bad is too much to be overlooked.

However, they found that there's money in them poppies so when they were pruned back (but not eradicated) they figured out that poppy farming brings in the money... so back came the poppy farms :(

Mark.

[iamthebandfanman]

127. yup shared self righteous morality

brought us together..

while i definitely agree this was a factor, i think there were many underlying reasons for the alliance besides drugs. drugs just looked good to prance around infront of the american people if questions were asked, that and stopping the those darn communists.

in all honestly, all you have to do is look at business men in the united states. specifically oil based industries, and their connections with certain presidents(and his buddies) whove all exploited war to fatten their pockets...

theyve always wanted that pipeline in afghanistan, and that wasnt gonna happen with the russians there ;)

in all honesty tho, i dont really know afghan history pre-taliban... itll hafta be a subject that i now begin to educate myself about ;)

[PVnRT]

138. So, do you support invading North Korea and Saudi Arabia? How about Turkmenistan?

[Forkboy]

142. The OP clearly put all of 3 seconds thought into his OP.

And now is acting like a Rush clone in a bad attempt to NOT look like a fool for his push poll tactics that the Republicans get off on. Wonder if the OP is all tingly pulling the same crap as they do?

[PVnRT]

143. Reading through this train wreck, it appears so

[Every Man A King]

144. I think we are looking at some

Astroturfing going on here lately regarding Afghanistan/Taliban.