The Taliban are a bunch of well-armed, in-bred, Islamic hillbillies...

[joecool65]

...who hate and abuse women, torture, kill, destroy cultural icons, blow up schools, shelter some of the most vile people on earth, and (feel free to add your own here).

Who else on here wants to say what great freedom fighters they are who will stop all of their violent ways just if the US leaves?
Gee, they were such a peaceful, freedom-loving people who were loved by all Afghans during the late 90s and early 00s before the US-led invasion. :sarcasm:

[tekisui]

1. Yeah, and you can bomb them out of extremism.

:eyes:

War breeds more.

[WonderGrunion]

48. If the bomb is big and radioactive enough you can

Atomic war only breeds cockroaches.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

58. If all we were doing was dropping bombs, you'd have a point, but it isn't.

[Hippo_Tron]

72. Actually you can, you would just have to be willing to do what we did to Germany and Japan in WWII

[Oregone]

2. Your point? Stay there forever to prevent them from coming back to power?

[joecool65]

4. OK, what is your solution?

Withdraw now?

[Oregone]

22. Its as good as any solution actually

Empiracally, we would KNOW for a fact that no more deaths from US bombs or US bullets would continue, the war funding would come to a halt, and no more US services members would die from the action. That action would have immediate predictable objective consequences.

Thereafter, if the UN wanted to send a multi national force of peacekeepers (hopefully from mostly arab countries) in to work with the people, I would have no problem with the US funding the bill to reconstruct the mess we left behind. No good can be done while we are there, supporting that corrupt puppet government.

[WonderGrunion]

50. But deaths from bombs, mines and bullets WOULD continue

As the Taliban retakes control of Afghanistan. The land would remain actively at war which would prevent the deployment of UN peacekeepers. Immediate withdrawal ends no suffering in Afghanistan. And you complain that i don't value the lives of Afghan babies. :eyes:

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

60. Surely you realize that other consequences would result from us leaving.

Ones that don't sound so hot when you're trying to sell people on the idea of an immediate American withdrawal.

[timtom]

40. In a word,

YES!!!

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

59. What makes you think that's the only way to prevent them from coming back to power?

[rfranklin]

3. Logical fallacy...two wrongs do not make a right...

Unless you believe that the United States is the father figure of the world who must make all other nations behave.

[joecool65]

5. So, you are defending the Taliban?

nt

[rfranklin]

26. My dislike for their lifestyle does not justify occupying their country...

That's a fact of international law. Or are you a war criminal like Bush?

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

63. Their country? Thought it belonged to all Afghans

[FiveGoodMen]

28. If that's what you got from post number 3, you are too stupid to live.

Go to FreeRepublic. That's more your speed.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

62. If by "behave" you mean stop shelter militants to kill Americans, than yes, I do.

[Taverner]

6. Yes. And like American In-bred well armed hillbillies, I leave them alone

[joecool65]

Yes, we should leave people like Timothy McVeigh alone

Hey, if they advocate violence, who cares?

[Taverner]

13. Well considering they (a) never attacked us and (b) have no plans to attack us

Your comparison is invalid

[joecool65]

14. No, they never gave aid and comfort to Al Qaeda and other terrorists

Those people never hurt Americans. :sarcasm:

[Taverner]

15. Those folks have left the country

They're in pakistan

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

64. Actually, we don't know what side of the border they're on.

All we know is the general area. Could be either country.

[Fumesucker]

27. We invaded New York after the OK city bombing?

I did not know that.

/Johnny Carson

Edited for punctuation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh#Childhood

McVeigh was born into an Irish Catholic family in Lockport, New York to William McVeigh and Mildred Noreen "Mickey" Hill.<3> His parents divorced when he was 10 years old and was raised by his father in Pendleton, New York.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Get back to me when their mighty navy sails up the Potomac.

[joecool65]

9. Or they shelter people who hijack airplanes and kill thousands

Great point!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. The hijackers weren't Afghan, trained in the U.S. and Europe.

So, maybe we should send the cannon fodder to Florida and Berlin?

[timtom]

41. Joe, Joe.

You're in way over your head. Best to zip it now and save yourself further embarrassment.

<on edit> Oops, too late. This was posted at 6:09 am in response to your 2:59 pm yesterday post.

[dabluz]

8. They hate poppys

I thought they were our friends?Remember this,

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a120497texasvisit

[Bluebear]

10. by your rationale we should bomb Alabama.

I kid, I kid, Alabamans!

[joecool65]

12. Not a bad idea

Fill up the bombers!

[ShamelessHussy]

93. sicko

:shakes-head:

[WonderGrunion]

52. Based on the contributions to the US by Alabama since the Civil War

That's not a bad suggestion.

[ShamelessHussy]

95. another freak

[mmonk]

11. Uh, the government before the Taliban

was the one the US, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia helped the Mujahadeen overthrow.

[gmoney]

25. "Charlie Wilson's War"

Just saw that... I'm sure it's heavily fictionalized, but creating a power vacuum usually leads to really bad folks taking over.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

66. Yes, and...?

[TokenQueer]

16. "...well-armed, in-bred hillbillies..."

To which Taliban are you referring? Christian or Muslim? Six of one, half-dozen of another I suppose.

[leftynyc]

35. Comparing our fundamentalists

to the freeking Taliban is just lazy thinking. This morning I got up in an apartment I pay for myself, wore whatever I wanted, work for a living - just an average work day - the taliban wouldn't let me leave my house without a male relative. I have no love for christian fundies but they are nothing like the taliban. Take that cultural relativism bullshit someplace else.

[TokenQueer]

38. They are two sides of the same coin.

The proposed legislation to execute gays and suspected gays in Uganda and their ties to The Family and other well know christian leaders in the U.S. (Obama's buddy, Rick Warren, for example) is just as frightening as anything the Taliban has conjured. If you think for one second anti-choice christian crusaders wouldn't take complete control of your uterus given half a chance...you are in serious denial. Christians are members of a hate group. That's the unvarnished truth of the matter in spite of any delusions you have to the contrary.

The only lazy thinkers in this equation are the individuals that look to an imaginary friend that lives in the sky for guidance.

[leftynyc]

39. But they can't take control

The very difference is the taliban WAS the government, what Uganada is doing is with the blessing of their government. In this country, they're nothing but a very loud, shrill minority. A woman under the taliban is a slave - comparing our fundies to their is a completely false comparison and your utter disdain for anyone who has faith is noted. Hate group? C'mon - ALL Christians? Now you're just engaging in hyperbole and simply cannot be taken seriously.

[TokenQueer]

45. Can't take control? They already are in control.

Senators, Representatives and the most influential lobbyists in D.C. are Family members that claim their status as "the chosen" trumps their responsibility as democratically elected representatives... "Jesus plus nothing." Blackwater uses a government contract to facilitate their mission as Christians to "kill as many Muslims as possible"....gotta even out the numbers. Then of course there are those lovely Bush/Obama faith based initiatives. Just last week Pat Buchanan was on Harball discussing the Christian goal of overturning Roe so that "abortionists" could be jailed and tried for murder. What do you think they will do to the woman that seeks out that procedure? Wake up.

Disdain for people with faith? Absolutely. Cardinals and Christian politicians turn up in the media every other day to state that "gays won't go to heaven" or that we are "dangers to communities and children." They see us as less than human and treat us accordingly. Mormons and Catholics funding referendums to strip the LGBT community of equality. Mormons and Catholics?! They actually fuck children or fund that activity with every nickel dropped in a collection plate. Disdain is a mild term for what I feel toward these Bronze Age mouth-breathers. Anyone that self identifies as Christian compounds the problem by lending credibility to these monsters by enhancing the 'brand name' of Christianity and giving them strength in numbers.

[leftynyc]

55. Tell the truth

As a gay person, would you rather live in any state in this country or under the Taliban? Since they're the same and all.

[TokenQueer]

57. Are you kidding me with that bullshit response?

I think the rules of discourse provide that when one party (you) throws out some phony false choice when their back is against the wall, an automatic 'win' is triggered in favor of the opposing party.

Thanks for the chat. Next time I will remember to have this discussion with someone older than the internet.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

67. She has a point though, doesn't she?

How many women have been stoned to death for adultery in the United States lately?

I find it interesting that in order to make your case you have to leap to Uganda, inarguably the most extreme example of Christian tyranny on the planet, in an effort to try and paint Christian extremists here in the same light. Quite frankly, it's a weak case, they're not even in the same ballpark.

[walldude]

74. Yeah she has a point and if you were gay you would be arguing against it.

While we haven't quite made it back to stonings yet you can bet your ass that the extreme right Christians would bring it back if they could. Ever seen the movie Jesus Camp? Ever been to a camp where the Christians "remove the gay and bring you back to the lord's path?" It's pretty easy to argue how great our "fundamentalists" are when it's not you they are attacking.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

79. Yes, I've seen "Jesus Camp" and I'm more than aware of the fact that we have

Christian extremists within this country. However, that doesn't change the fact that our Christian extremists aren't strapping on explosive vests and blowing up churches from other denominations, aren't throwing acid in girls' faces for daring to attend school, aren't launches guerilla assaults on hundreds of schools a year. I don't know how you can honestly overlook that.

[TokenQueer]

88. Your attempt to derail this discussion is a massive fail.

"I find it interesting that in order to make your case you have to leap to Uganda, inarguably the most extreme example of Christian tyranny on the planet, in an effort to try and paint Christian extremists here in the same light."

There is no "leap" required. The President of Uganda and the legislator that introduced the 'Kill the Gays' initiative are members of The Family. Actually, they're 'brothers' in The Family...just like Sanford, Ensign, Pickering, Inhofe...American Senators, Governors and Congressmen. You act as if I have gone to great lengths to link these crazies, when in reality they are self-avowed members of the same hate group. Rick Warren has a well documented relationship with these Ugandan murderers, inviting them to Saddleback for speaking engagements and faith-healing hooey.

As for adulterers getting stoned to death...Bob McDonnell was just elected Governor of Virginia. His infamous thesis cites adultery (along with fornicators and homosexuals) as a scourge. His close alliance with Pat Robertson (good friends with Doug Coe, head of The Family) makes him, at best, a stone's throw (no pun intended) from these Christian terrorists.

All of this information is readily accessible if you bothered to look. If you really are concerned about this Christian horror show, you would be well served to engage in a little research before you try to ridicule the oppressed.

I look forward to your reply where you state that these aren't 'real' Christians. :eyes:

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

90. Who's attempting to derail this discussion?

While I find what support there is for this legislation within "The Family" to be horrifying, just how much support there is for it within the organization and who those supporters are in uncertain. Unless, of course, one wants to paint with a wide brush, as you're doing, and insist the membership is of one mind on this issue, which is something I've yet to see.

As far as your assertion about a strong desire among America's religious extremists to stone adulterers to death, just look at the roster for The Family and you'll see a number of adulterers on it (Mark Sanford, among others). So this is hardly clear cut.

But hey, who am I to knock you off your little pedestal?

[leftynyc]

87. You must be kidding me

You argue like a teenager. A comparison between our country and the taliban is moronic. Me against the wall? Thanks for the laugh cupcake.

[TokenQueer]

89. Cupcake? Just as I suspected...homophobe.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

91. Inferiority complex or what?

[Starry Messenger]

49. Gay marriage was just voted down in New York by religious legislators.

Maybe we just have more "genteel" haters but they definitely do exercise social control in this country.

[leftynyc]

54. Politicians are cowards

Let me ask you, do you think my gay friends would rather live in New York (or any other state in this country) or under the Taliban? When you get the obvious answer, ask yourself how they're the same.

[Starry Messenger]

78. They're both groups who wish to eliminate the rights of GBLT.

I'm not sure why there needs to be the caveat of "Oh, at least they're not killing you.". Besides, people get killed for being GBLT all the time in this country. It's not like we're up there with Sweden or something. This is a pretty backward country.

[leftynyc]

86. There is a major difference

between some redneck piece of crap murdering someone because they're gay and a GOVERNMENT killing someone because they are gay. Do you honestly think such a law could get passed here? Seriously? Do I hate DOMA and DADT - yes, of course but to compare our goverment with theirs is absurd. You have heard what is happening in Uganda?

[Starry Messenger]

94. Rick Warren has his fat hands in Uganda.

We just outsource our murdering hate. I'm sorry you see the need to rank oppression with body counts. Hate is still hate.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

68. While I think that's a shame and fully support gay marriage

it's a far cry from stoning homosexuals to death.

[Starry Messenger]

84. I fully believe they would if they thought they could get away with it.

Dominionists like Rick Warren have strong ties to working in countries like Africa so they can influence anti-GBLT (and anti-feminist since you brought that up in another post) social control there. This isn't necessarily isolated from country to country.

[timtom]

42. Lazy thinking on your part.

Those "christians," to whom you refer, are merely rightwingers wrapping themselves up in christianity, much as rightwingers wrap themselves up in the American flag.

So, you might want to more correctly state that "SOME Christians belong to a hate group."

In similar fashion, SOME DU members are homophobes. SOME DU members approve of the illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Swamp Rat]

17. Sounds almost like the GOP and the KKK

:D

[BeFree]

18. heh

Same could be said for some of our neo-cons.

"......who hate and abuse women, torture, kill, destroy cultural icons, blow up schools, shelter some of the most vile people on earth...."

Granted they don't blow up our schools. But by gawd, they do work to mess 'em up.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

69. Our neo-cons are known for throwing acid in girls' faces because they attended school?

[backscatter712]

77. No, just shooting doctors in the face for providing medical procedures to women... n/t

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

81. While tragic, even crimes of this sort aren't taking place on anywhere near the scale of the crimes

committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

[MineralMan]

19. Islamo-Freepers, eh?

[sui generis]

20. I'll just say it now and get it over with

If you (collectively) support the Taliban by inaction save yourself some hurt and please put me on ignore. I am not your friend.

If you're a progressive, you gotta have standards, and looking the other way on a group of people who believe the world should be remade in their blighted image, by punishing women, by ultra draconian enforcement of their religious views, by bullying, violence against civilians and overt support of al qaeda makes you (collectively) not real progressives.

PINO's maybe.

[Flaneur]

30. You don't have to love the Taliban to oppose the war.

The Taliban are a local phenomenon who do not want to conquer the world. They are horrible reactionary people, but the world is full of horrible reactionary people. Not our job to save every culture from itself, despite Wilsonian delusions.

Where's your next "humanitarian intervention" going to be?

It's pretty funny to see someone call people not progressives for being against imperial wars.

And what are you going to when we start negotiating with them, trying to build a coalition government?

[sui generis]

31. As I stated, I am not your friend.

This isn't about empire - your words, not even remotely implied in mine.

Wilsonian delusions? What about your delusions of "not my problem"? Our twin towers came down because of that attitude.

There is no blanket rule for dealing with anti-humanitarian groups, no yardstick, other than to have a standard ourselves. You're saying you are willing to not have a standard for building a coalition government, just that it is stable?

Sorry - I know we have the same outcomes in mind, just different paths. The Taliban is not a simple problem to be overcome with simple means either - to head you off at that pass. Going "to war" with the Taliban is not a solution in and of itself, but ignoring their accountability in all of this is naive, and giving them a free pass is criminal.

[backscatter712]

83. Hey, I have zero love for the Taliban.

I absolutely despise their misogyny, brutality and violence, and have absolutely no sympathy for them when they get napalmed by our military.

The question to ask when it comes to the Afghan War is "Is it worth it?" What skin do we have in the game over there that's worth sending troops to fight for? Assuming we do, then do we have the resources and strategy required to accomplish what we need to accomplish?

Obviously, Obama thought about this for months, with his advisors, and concluded that yes, there's something over there that's valuable enough to fight for, my guess is that it's not Karzai, but it's security and stability in general - allowing the Taliban to control Afghanistan, then take over Pakistan, with its nukes, would be a Bad Thing. Obama also apparently concluded after looking over the military situation and political situation that he can win this one.

I'm not sure I agree with Obama's conclusions - I'd have leaned more to the conclusion that it's not worth it, but I do trust Obama's decision-making abilities far, far more than Bush's - I don't think he's pulling his Afghanistan strategy out of his ass.

[TexasObserver]

21. And in eight years, we haven't changed that.

WWII lasted three and a half years for the US. Dec 1941 to August 1945. Global war.

Isn't it obvious we are not going to make Afghanistan into Vermont any time soon?

Isn't it obvious that the right of self determination, which progressives have embraced for centuries, mandates that we stop trying to rebuild nations in our image?

There are countries all over the world which have mores that are troubling, but that's their country, not ours. What arrogance to think we can impose upon other nations our approach to all things.

All Afghanis have done is fight invaders to their country.

Frankly, it is cowardly to attack Afghanistan, when the real problems are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. That's where the extremists toward the USA are born and bred.

[gmoney]

23. Reminds me of Spalding Gray's description of the Khmer Rouge

From the NY Times review of "Swimming to Cambodia":

Such moments of quiet outrage are sobering. But Mr. Gray's comic, colloquial descriptions can be even more so. There is his talk, for instance, of ''this weird bunch of rednecks called the Khmer Rouge,'' (whose leader Pol Pot) ''had been educated in Paris in the strict Maoist doctrine, except someone threw a perverse little bit of Rousseau into the soup. This made for a strange bunch of bandits, hanging out in the jungle living on bark, bugs, leaves and lizards, being trained by the Vietcong. They had a back-to-the-land, racist consciousness beyond anything Hitler had ever dreamed of. But they had no scapegoat other than the city-dwellers of Phnom Penh. They were like a hundred thousand rednecks rallying in New Paltz, N.Y., 90 miles above the city, about to march in.''

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE7D9103EF930A25750C0A961948260&pagewanted=print

[mmonk]

29. I wrote the following in 2008:

The road to 9/11 and its continued bloody aftermath began in earnest at the tail end of the Carter administration when the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI decided it would be a good idea to train and fund a coalition of groups of mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan to give the Soviet backed government of President Mohammed Najibullah more problems than it could handle. For the Pakistani military, the strategy was to provide itself with more reach and influence. For the United States, it was to create a Vietnam type of quagmire for the Soviet Union and its success began when the USSR invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Day, 1979. Ironically, this Soviet quagmire that ultimately led to the implosion of the USSR now threatens us with the same fate.

Post cold war imperial ambitions of the U.S. have pushed the Middle East and Central Asia into intolerable peril for these regions the U.S. desires to control for unmatched hegemony. Benazir Bhutto knowing the true nature of the mujahideen coalition even down to each leader of each group and what they were capable of, warned George H.W. Bush in June of 1989, “Mr. President, I fear we have created a Frankenstein that will come back to haunt us” according to her book. The United States, blinded by the Wolfowitz doctrine, has not seen the warning signs until too late. It did not see bin Laden’s rebellion among its jihad network. It did not see the intransigence of the Taliban government concerning the price it wanted to extract for the Unocal oil pipeline through Afghanistan or the refusal to hand over bin Laden. Washington then had to become allied to Iran and Russia’s friends, the Northern Alliance, to topple what it created. Afterward, with former Unocal representative Hamid Karzai in charge in Kabul, the U.S. has underestimated the staying power and resurgence of its old creation, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Unfortunately also, Washington did not properly read the stability status of its friend Musharraf and the military dictatorship, the imbalance of funding the military, and the social imbalance that resulted. It did not see or want to see the still close relationships or ties the resurgent Taliban has with some in Pakistan’s military dictatorship as well with many in the population of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Now with the province in increasing Taliban control and the provincial capital of Peshawar in the crosshairs, the Bush administration’s pretense of protecting us from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Islamic militants seems even more absurd. The United States was going to counter this situation by having Benazir Bhutto step back into the political process, but given the confluence of Pakistan’s U.S. backed military dictatorship with its old rebellious tools of a resurgent Taliban and mujahideen groups, her life and the plan were struck short. The plan of having her back in power whereby U.S. military assets would be allowed in the provincial area to remove the threat are gone. That leaves the U.S. with the destabilizing option of military strikes without Pakistani approval and yet another U.S. attack on a nation’s sovereignty. In the midst of this clear and present danger, the Bush administration along with its allies in both parties of Congress and Israel, are pushing for the destabilization of Iran with the possibility of air strikes in order to continue the Milton Friedman utopia dream for the Persian Gulf States, and in spite of the fact Iran has not attacked another country directly in the modern era of history.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/mmonk/39

It's really now not as simple as it seems. And at first, we thought the Taliban would bring stability and tried to deal with them including giving them aid in 2000 or 2001.

[StarfarerBill]

32. The Taliban are an extremely tiny percentage of the Afghan population;

it's the majority who will suffer most from this escalation...and probably be worse off if and when it ends.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

70. They wouldn't suffer from an American withdrawal?

[Javaman]

33. I think your drink is running low, care for more kool-ade? nt

[Kalyke]

34. I'm a hillbilly.

The Taliban are NOT hillbillies. They are more the equivalent of rednecks.

Don't you remember The Beverly Hillbillies? They were constantly more on track than the "city slickers" because they relied on good sense (with the exception of Jethro)?

[HopeHoops]

36. Amazing, but all of them have the last name "Palin".

Go figure.

[Thickasabrick]

37. The US created and trained the Taliban back in the day. Don't you love

how our little monster experiments turn out? And who knew they would turn on their "daddy".

[meow2u3]

43. My pharmacist's take on the Taliban

His parents are Afghani, so he calls the Taliban nothing but a bunch of two-bit gangbangers who use Islam as a weapon. They're the Islamic equivalent to the Neo-Nazis.

[etherealtruth]

65. That seems to be a common feeling among Afghani ex-pats

[Hannah Bell]

44. Who are "the Taliban"? Former US allies.

High percent of known senior leadership = graduates of the Soviet-Afghan war, fighting for the US-funded mujahideen, & at least one an acknowledged CIA asset.


Mohammed Omar:

"leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan" & former mujahideen in the anti-soviet war in afghanistan:

"The mujahideen were significantly financed and armed (and are alleged to have been trained) by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Carter<5> and Reagan administrations, the government of Saudi Arabia, Zia-ul-Haq's military regime in Pakistan, Iran, the People's Republic of China and several Western European countries. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the interagent used in the majority of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance."

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

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


Although there is no evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency) provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets.<18> Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and "by 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war."<19> FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who has been fired from the agency for disclosing sensitive information, has claimed United States was on intimate terms with Taliban and Al-Qaeda, using them to further certain goals in Central Asia.

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


Foreign powers, including the United States, were at first supportive of the Taliban in hopes it would serve as a force to restore order in Afghanistan after years of division into corrupt, lawless warlord fiefdoms. The U.S. government, for example, made no comment when the Taliban captured Herat in 1995 and expelled thousands of girls from schools....In late 1997, American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright began to distance the U.S. from the Taliban and the next year the American-based Unocal, previously having implicitly supported the Taliban in order to build a pipeline south from Central Asia, the oil company withdrew from a major deal with the Taliban regime concerning an oil pipeline.

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


Jalaluddin Haqqani/Malawi Jalaludin Haqqani

head of THE HAQQANI NETWORK...arguably the most notorious of the Taliban-linked affiliates in Afghanistan’s eastern region....Haqqani first achieved renown during the mujahideen campaign against the Soviets...

http://www.kabulcenter.org/index_files/Pag... .

In the 1980s, Jalaluddin Haqqani was cultivated as a "unilateral" asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work in fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, according to an account in "The Bin Ladens," a recent book by Steve Coll. At that time, Haqqani helped and protected Osama bin Laden, who was building his own militia to fight the Soviet forces, Coll wrote.

The influential U.S. Congressman, Charlie Wilson, who helped to direct tens of millions dollars to the Afghan resistance, was so enamored of Haqqani that he referred to him as "goodness personified".

In 1995, just prior to the Taliban's occupation of Kabul, he switched his allegiance to them.
During the Taliban years in power, he served as the Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs and governor of Paktia Province....In October, 2001, Haqqani was named the Taliban's military commander...Haqqani has been accused of involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul and the February 2009 Kabul raids.

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


Mullah Dadullah or Dadullah Akhund

Taliban's senior military commander until his death in 2007. Dadullah lost a leg when fighting with the Mujahideen against Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

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


Mullah Mohammad Rabbani:

one of the main founders of the Taliban movement. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979 put a stop to his education as he volunteered for the jihad ((was mujahideen).

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



Sayed Rahmatullah Hashmi

former envoy of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. As of April 2006, Yale has published the following comment on its website:

Yale has allowed Mr. Hashmi to take courses for college credit in a part-time program that does not award Yale degrees... According to the State Department, Ramatullah Hashmi was issued U.S. visas in 2004 and 2005, first on a tourist visa and then in 2005 on a student visa."

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


Bashir Noorzai

Top Taliban Associate & former Mujahideen warlord...sentenced today to life in prison on heroin importation and distribution conspiracy charges. During the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, Noorzai raised his own army of Mujahideen fighters, financed and armed with drug proceeds.

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/articl...



Rahmatullah Safi

said to have been a member of the Taliban movement.<1> ...he joined the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a mujahideen party led by Pir Sayyed Ahmed Gailani, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As a mujahideen commander, he was based in Peshawar...As of 1998, Safi was living in London, England, but departed to Afghanistan along with Nabi Misdak to convince Mullah Omar to hand over Osama bin Laden to foreign authorities.<3> and he was considered the Taliban's European Ambassador according to a United Nations Security Council press release.<1>.

As of 2004, Safi had resigned his military commission and announced his intentions to run in the 2004 Afghan presidential election<4> (but died in 2001!!??)

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


Baitullah Mehsud

a veteran of the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’ of the 1980s (though he'd have to have been young)...Days before the Manawan attack near Lahore, on March 26, the United States government offered a $5 million reward for information on Baitullah Mehsud, describing him as a key al-Qaeda facilitator intending to attack the United States. leader of the Taliban umbrella group, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan...

....rumours of his death from kidney failure circulated....killed by US...

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-c... .



Hamid Karzai

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Western-educated Hamid Karzai served the resistance as an advisor and diplomat, winning the loyalty of the Mujahideen, or "holy warriors," who finally expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan. Karzai was deputy foreign minister in the postwar government from 1992 to 1994, but the country was soon rent by civil war as local warlords competed for power. The Taliban movement sought Karzai's support in restoring order, and offered him the post of United Nations ambassador, but he broke with the new regime when it fell under the influence of foreign terrorists.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ka... .

Karzai was involved in helping to provide financial and military support for the Mujahideen during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan.<11> The Mujahideen were secretly supplied and funded by the United States, and Karzai was a contact for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the time.<12>

When the Taliban emerged in mid 1990s, Karzai, like many other Afghans, was at first one of their supporters but he later broke-up with them and refused to serve as their ambassdor to the United Nations. Even after that, Karzai maintained that "there were many wonderful people in the Taliban."<14>

In an interview with the Oxford International Review on 11th February 2005, Karzai criticised the role the U.S. played in empowering the Taliban to take control in Afghanistan.

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


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9/11/73

[RetroLounge]

47. Unrec for sheer stupidity

RL

[Luminous Animal]

51. So that's our mission? To save the Afghanis from Islamic hillbillies?

I didn't see that anywhere in Obama's speech.

[mudplanet]

53. Gee, the author of this post is so brave. Reminds me of George Bush.

[Jamastiene]

56. Good point, actually.

The Taliban are certifiable assholes.

[whatchamacallit]

61. This thead hasn't been flushed yet???

:wow:

[walldude]

71. So you are saying we are spending trillions to defeat some back woods hillbillies?

That the entire might of the most powerful nation in the world is living in fear of some backwoods hillbillies. Thanks, I feel so much better now.

[whatchamacallit]

73. It's worse than that

In another thread he used to same term for the mujahideen, and then produced some studies about incest and marriage in the general Afghan population.

[walldude]

76. You gotta love the trolls man...

they do come up with some funny shit.

[whatchamacallit]

80. Word. (nt)

[harkadog]

75. To call them in-bred hillbillies shows a lack of knowledge on your part

The word "Taliban" means "student" in Pashto which is the primary language of eastern Afghanistan. They are very educated compared to most of the people in that country (I was there for a year - 2002) and it one reason they have been able to fend off the Soviets and now us.

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

82. Right, but most of their education has been in Islamic studies

which hardly translates well into ruling a territory, as we saw in the inter-war period in Afghanistan.

[backscatter712]

85. Think of their education as comparable to graduating from Jesus Camp and Regent University...

In other words, more like indoctrination than education...

[ShamelessHussy]

92. born of chaos and violence, the taliban were embraced by the people

i wonder what new frankenstein monster will emerge from this new violence, chaos and destruction?

Afghanistan: The Taliban's Rise To Power

September 18, 2001
By Alexandra Poolos
Afghanistan's Islamic Taliban militia, which today controls nearly all of Afghanistan, is also harboring fugitive terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden. The Taliban has become the primary focus of a call by the United States for a full-scale war against terrorism.

Prague, 18 September 2001 (RFE/RL) -- From students to conquerors, the members of the Taliban Islamic militia have come a long way fast.

The Taliban -- literally "the Seekers" -- was founded in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar by graduates of Pakistani religious colleges. Their aims were to end the political chaos that had been ongoing in Afghanistan since the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and to impose a strict interpretation of Islam.

Their ascent to power began seven years ago, when a 30-truck convoy from Pakistan was nabbed by an Afghan warlord in southern Afghanistan. A small band of Taliban militants came to the rescue, freeing the convoy and executing the hijackers in the desert.

With that initial public appearance, the Taliban emerged as a reformist force to be reckoned with -- honest, fierce, and devoutly Islamic.

more...
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1097442.html