I'm not sure I buy the pregnant widow shot/hanged for adultery story.

[Prometheus Bound]

The news reports are so contradictory, it's impossible to say what happened, if indeed anything happened. This may be, as a Taliban spokesman said, just Western propaganda.

Summary from various news reports below
- She was (1) 35, (2) 47 or (3) 48.
- She was (1) pregnant or (2) had given birth to a stillborn baby or (3) had killed her baby after birth.
- Her name was (1) Baidi Sanam, (2) Sanam Gul, (3) Sanam Bibi, or (4) Bibi Sanubar.
- She was (1) flogged or (2) not flogged.
- She was (1) hanged, (2) shot in the head or (3) shot in the head and chest.
- She was shot (1) for adultery or (2) for killing her baby.
- The Taliban (1) did it (according to Afghan officials) or (2) would never do anything like that (according to a Taliban spokesman)

1. RAWA. Her name was Baidi Sanam, she was 47, she gave birth to a stillborn baby, then she was hanged. No mention of flogging. The original source is Mullah Muhammad Yousuf, 'local Taliban commander'. The report says her sons were refugees in Iran.
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/08/08/taliban-hang-a-47-year-old-woman.html

2. CNN. She was 47. Her name was Sanam Gul, also known as Sanam Bibi. She was shot in the head while pregnant.
Source: (1) Ashrafuddin Majidi, the provincial governor's spokesman. (2) The district governor of Qades, Hashim Habibi
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/09/afghanistan.woman.killed/?hpt=T2#fbid=UELhR_BG97T&_rndmval1234=&wom&wom=false
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/10/afghanistan.woman.killed/?hpt=T2#fbid=UELhR_BG97T&wom=false

3a. AP, version 1. Her name was Bibi Sanubar and she was fatally shot by militants, once in the head and once in the chest — for allegedly killing her newborn child to conceal illicit sex.
Their source was Abdul Jabbar Khan, deputy police chief of Baghdis province.

3b. AP, version 2. AP also mentions another version given by "the international coalition" -- "Sanubar was a pregnant widow, who was whipped 200 times and shot in public by a Taliban commander for alleged adultery." No sources given.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD9HG5R3O0

4. Huffington Post. Summarises other reports, focusing on Dawn, which actually uses the AFP report. Her name was Sanum Gul or Bibi Sanubar. She was 35 or 47. She was flogged and shot in the head 3 times.
Source: Hashim Habibi, the district governor of Qades

HP mentions that "Taliban spokesman has since denied any involvement."We have not done anything like that in Badghis or any other province," the spokesman said, calling the report "propaganda" by foreigners and the Western-backed Afghan government.
Cites AFP, CNN and Dawn
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/taliban-execute-pregnant_n_676203.html

5. AFP. Her name was Bibi Sanubar, she was 35, she 200 lashes in public, and then was shot in the head while pregnant.
Source: deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi

AFP also mentions Taliban denial: But a Taliban spokesman denied Monday that the militia was responsible for Sanubar's death. "We have not done anything like that in Badghis or any other province," said Qari Yosuf Ahmadi, calling the report "propaganda" by foreigners and the Western-backed Afghan government.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gEVgd-P4NVFFtv1D-FRE69zU-XVw

6. Daily Mail. She was 48, her name was Bibi Sanubar. She was flogged up to 200 times before being shot in the head and chest. The killing was ordered after the woman allegedly killed her newborn child to conceal illicit sex.
Source: Abdul Jabbar Khan, security chief "in the...area, said

Like AP, the DM also mention alternative story by "the international coalition". They say Sanubar was a still-pregnant widow who was shot for alleged adultery after getting 200 lashes.
Source: "a local official"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1301487/Bibi-Sanubar-Afghan-widow-shot-dead-Taliban-adultery-pregnant.html#ixzz0wHJN6Iz8

7. Dawn. Uses the AFP report.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/03-taliban-execute-afghan-woman-in-public-police-ss-03

[Hannah Bell]

1. you noticed the glitches in the matrix. the mind-police will arrive shortly.

[Prometheus Bound]

16. Ha! Yes, exactly.

You read one article. Then you read another and another and you realise, "Wait a minute. Is my short-term memory that bad or has the story changed." But rarely do you have time to go to each one and verify what has changed.

In fact, the alternative details were there in several of the articles -- that she was not pregnant, that she was killed for killing her baby, that the Taliban said it had nothing to do with it, etc. -- but all we read is what the headline prepared us for, so that's all anyone talked about on these threads.

[saigon68]

101. Its successor to the Saddam Incubators in the hospital story

Remember how his soldiers threw the newborns out of the incubators and then stomped them to death?

More Bullshit fantasy from criminal Gates and his Dept of Fantasy

[Goldstein1984]

2. And I was just about to become a war monger

Thanks for bringing me to my senses.

The Pentagon probably released multiple drafts my mistake.

[jobycom]

4. It may not be the Pentagon.

We are pawns in power games in Afghanistan. Someone is trying to get us to stay, and maybe to direct us against their opponents. They point the media at a story, and the media finds different sources to verify the story, and comes up with different "facts." The Pentagon would probably keep its story straight if they made it up.

[Goldstein1984]

11. No nation ever benefited from a protracted war

We have no definition of what a win would be in Afghanistan.

The Taliban only need to not lose.

They spend a few thousands, and in response we spend ourselves into oblivion.

We have them in the sights of our Predator drone-mounted Hellfire missiles...right where they want us.

[jobycom]

12. Weird night. I keep getting responses that don't seem connected to my posts.

I'm not sure if you were commenting on what I said or not, but since I'm up, I may as well run with it.

Of course nations benefit from protracted wars. That's how empires are built. You defeat the old government and maintain just enough military force to defeat any new uprisings. Britain ruled the world that way.

If you were talking about the warlords in Afghanistan, they have been at war since 1980. They don't understand anything else. To them, we are just a weapon to point at their enemies and fire. Whoever can aim us and pull the trigger wins, so they all try to trick us into supporting them until it's no longer convenient. They don't mind using their military to stay in power--it's all they know. Fighting and weapons are just part of life. They wouldn't understand if the war went away--they'd look around for who their next enemy was. Not saying there aren't people who know differently, and want it to be different. Just that there are enough factions used to living by the sword to make the sword necessary. Right now the government of Afghanistan, such as it is, wants to make sure we don't go away and leave them to fight the insurgency, which is partially the old Taliban, but also new insurgents who are just looking for any leader.

We don't have any idea what winning would be. We think it means wiping out the Taliban and leaving everything in control of the current government with enough strength for them to defend against insurrection. Some are probably aware that it's not that simple, but they don't know what to do, so we just keep enough troops there to maintain a status quo we don't want in the first place.

We will have to leave, and when we do, whether it is tomorrow or in thirty years, the same civil war will break out. We can't stop it. We are just hanging around because no one wants it to happen on their watch.

[Goldstein1984]

96. Empires are built in the early stages of protracted wars...

and the crumble in the later stages of protracted wars.

The advice against protracted wars is just classic Sun Tzu. How are we benefiting from a protracted war? By accumulating corpses? By accumulating PTSD patients and amputees? By passing debt to our grandchildren's grandchildren? By spending money tearing down infrastructure 12,000 miles away instead of building infrastructure at home?

Guerrilla warfare has as one of its goals protracted, expensive wars where empires hemorrhage their wealth.

[Dr.Phool]

31. The Kuwaiti' Ambassador's daughter is back at work!

Yeah, they held me confined in an incubator for a week. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Goldstein1984]

97. That is good news! Yes, very good news!!

We should have sent flowers.
I don't think that was an incubator. Incubators don't have sleeves that buckle together in the back.

[Prometheus Bound]

17. Yes, the sources seem to be government representatives from another area.

They admit they have no control in that area, so the sources are just hearsay, which would account for the contradictory details. So it seems to be the Afghanistan authorities that are pushing the story, though the coalition jumped in with an alternative story with no sources.

[PufPuf23]

84. Pentagon and Intelligence Agency Contractors released confusion

on purpose.

[jobycom]

3. They are bayonetting babies in the streets.

Every war starts with propaganda about dead children or dead women. The enemy is always so horrible that they rape virgins and slaughter babies, and therefore the other side is justified for invading.

Remember the human shredder machine of the Iraq invasion? The incubators in Kuwait in the previous war? Hitler claimed the Austrians were murdering kids. Before every medieval pogram against the Jews they were accused of sacrificing babies in evil rituals. The Christians themselves were accused by the Romans of sacrificing and eating the illegitimate children procreated during sex rituals (Yeah, the Romans went all out when they came up with shit!).

I hadn't even thought that the story could be false. Thanks for making me wonder. :thumbsup:

A couple of things, though. Muslim names are complex strings of identifiers, including family names, personal names, formal names, origin, various titles. That could cause confusion in reporting her name, as different sources try to make her unfamiliar name conform to reporting conventions. Also, confusion isn't unusual. We're used to an "official" way of thinking, where everyone has an official name and facts can be verified by documents and testimony. It isn't that way everywhere. So it's possible there is just confusion over what happened and who the victim was.

But it does seem fishy. With all the lies told over the last decade to justify these wars, I'm ashamed I didn't doubt it as my first reaction.

[still_one]

6. The Taliban are a piece of intolerant shit who came to power because of our foreign policy /nt

[Prometheus Bound]

18. I agree about the name confusion.

It's not really any kind of evidence of the story being false, but perhaps to be expected when the story is passed on from person to person before it reaches the press.

[slampoet]

26. The incubators in Kuwait in the previous war was a LIE made up by the Kuwait Ambassador

His daughter Niera was the girl who LIED before congress telling them the Iraq forced were killing babies.


IT NEVER HAPPENED. There is even a book about it and all the other lies of the Media Firm Kuwait Hired to sell the war to us

[jobycom]

49. I thought it was obvious that that was my point. nt

[uncommon]

29. In fairness, women and children are disproportionately

killed and injured in wars they don't usually fight in.

But that doesn't excuse propaganda for propaganda's sake.

[LibertyLover]

72. While you are correct about Islamic names containing a number of parts,

Afghan naming practices are somewhat different. Surnames are relatively rare in Afghanistan even today, although nicknames and kinship identifiers are used.

[still_one]

5. For years the Taliban have been extreme in their view of women. From documentaries such as "Beneath

The Veil", to various film footage, and eye witness reports of women being executed and beaten in their soccer stadium

I have personally met and heard from both Afghan men and women accounts of atrocities against women by the Taliban.

Their intolerance is well documented

Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" also gave a small glimpse of who the Taliban were, so when a "Taliban" spokesperson talks about it as "western propaganda", I have very little faith in THEIR credibility

If you are arguing for the fact that this story is being used to justify our presence there, and that is why you doubt its accuracy, I disagree with that premise

The reason we invaded Afghanistan was because of AQ and bin laden, both which are no longer there. The justification they government is now using for our presence is not THIS incident, but to prevent another 9/11, which is not only an invalid argument, but a setup for an unending war with our involvement

The Taliban are an extremist group who have and are doing abhorrent actions, and I also believe no longer have any reason to be in Afghanistan

[Hannah Bell]

7. The US brought the Taliban to power. They brought them to afghanistan, they armed them,

they trained them, they were allies with them, they funded them, & they're still funding them.

[still_one]

9. and? that negates nothing that I have said about them... /nt

[jobycom]

13. Not really. We supported the enemies of the Taliban, mostly.

The Taliban was a home grown movement of Pashtu fighters--students if the rumors are to be believed. They began organizing as a response to the corrupt warlords who were no more than gangs. Those gangs were the ones we created--they were the remnants of the mujahadeen that we supported against the Soviets.

The first Taliban battle was against one of these local warlords who had kidnapped and raped a couple of local girls. Mullah Umar and 30 others attacked and executed him, and became heroes amongst the Pashtu, and more people joined and they overthrew more of these gangs, until they were the dominant force in Afghanistan, within a couple of years. They were the only group who seemed to be fighting for any centralized law, rather than simply grabbing power for personal gain, and so a lot of people trusted them.

On the other hand, they were uneducated and tribal, and brought the tribal customs of the Pashtu to the rest of Afghanistan. That include the misogynistic attitudes--burkas, not allowing women to work or be seen, etc. Also, Umar never established any form of federal government, so it was all run by command, and often by just gangs interpreting the law, and some of the worst atrocities happened when these local gangs bullied a town.

Umar befriended Usama bin Laden, and so Al-Qaiada became part of the equation, and they two groups became mutually supportive. We did play a role in Usama's development. And no doubt some of the people who sided with the Taliban and Al-Qaiada were part of the old mujahadeen. But we didn't really create either group. Our foreign policy pissed them both off, and that may have triggered some of the Taliban's staunch rejection of western attitudes.

What our leaders are calling the Taliban these days is really more of a mass insurgency, where everyone who hates us is grouping against us. There is no telling how much like the old Taliban they will become. Right now they are just trying to terrorize anyone who befriends us. Maybe they are executing women in the street for adultery--that's not uncommon in Saudi Arabia or Yemen, or a lot of other Muslim nations. And maybe some people just know that's a hot button to push with us. Or maybe both.

However it goes, whether it's true or not, we are hearing about it because it serves someone's purpose for us to hear about it.

[Turborama]

15. Executing women in the street for adultery in Saudi Arabia or Yemen,

and a lot of other Muslim nations is not uncommon?

I have to be honest that I've never heard of women being "executed in the street for adultery" in the countries you mention. Have you got anything to back that assertion up with?

[jobycom]

63. Seriously?

It's hardly a secret. There was even a clip showing a public execution for adultery in "Fahrenheit 9-11." There was a case last year of a Saudi woman being granted asylum in Britain because she had had a child from an affair and was afraid of the death penalty if she returned.

[Turborama]

79. Yeah, seriously

I'm an expat living in one of the "many" Muslim countries you pertain to (in fact, the largest Muslim country) and I've never heard of women being executed in the street for adultery anywhere else other than Afghanistan.

[jobycom]

89. Hard to believe.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=414474

A jirga (meeting of tribal elders) publicly executed four people, including a woman, on charges of adultery in Khyber Agency, some 25 kilometers west of Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

http://www.sabahenglish.com/world/8120.html

A Saudi princess, whom brought an illegitimate child into the world, has recently received political asylum from England under the stipulation that she will be ‘stoned to death’ if she returns to her homeland.

In 1977, a 19-year old princess of the Saudi Royal Family, Mishaal bin Fahd, was publicly executed for having an extramarital affair. In fact, the painful story was told in the 1980 film, ‘Death of a Prıncess.’

http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/august/ateqeh_executed_27804.shtml

Iranians and international community expressed outrage at reported execution of the 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi on vague charges of un-Islamic behaviour.
According to Press reports from the Islamic Republic, Ms. Rajabi was publicly hanged on a street in the city centre of Neka in the northern province of Mazandaran, on 15 August, for "acts incompatible with chastity".


http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2956.cfm

The recent wave of public hangings in Iran has coincided with the revival of some other harsh Islamic punitive verdicts. On July 5 Jafar Kiani, a man convicted of adultery, was stoned to death in a village near Takistan — the first case of such an execution in more than five years.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/islamists-stone-somali-woman-to-death-for-adultery-976397.html

Somali Islamists have stoned to death a woman accused of adultery, witnesses said, the first such public killing by the militants for about two years.

The 23-year-old woman was placed in a hole up to her neck for the execution late yesterday in front of hundreds of people in a square in the southern port of Kismayu, which the Islamist insurgents captured in August.

http://www.lankatruth.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1325:two-sri-lankans-will-be-stoned-to-death-in-saudi-arabia-for-adultery&catid=35:local&Itemid=50

Two Sri Lankan employees found guilty by Saudi Arabian judiciary for committing adultery have been sentenced to death by stoning states Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two Sri Lankans according to foreign ministry sources are a Sinhalese woman and a Muslim man from Sri Lanka.
According to law of Sharia adultery is a crime and the Jeddah Judiciary has informed Sri Lanka’s Consul Office in the city that the two would be stoned to death. A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the sentence would be carried out on a date that would not be revealed to this country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/14/saudiarabia-middleeast

The Saudi authorities do not provide statistics on the use of the death penalty but Amnesty recorded at least 1,695 executions between 1985 and May 2008. Of these, 830 were foreign nationals and 809 Saudis (with the nationality of 56 unknown). Foreigners make up about a quarter of the country's population of 28 million.

Executions are currently carried out at an average of more than two per week, most by beheading and many in public. Two beheadings last Sunday brought to 74 the number carried out this year. Last year a record 153 people were executed, compared with 37 in 2006. The previous record, of 113, was in 2000.

The cases researched included executions for adultery, apostasy and for what was officially described as "sorcery" and "witchcraft" by an Egyptian man. Most of those executed have been Pakistanis.


http://www.hrw.org/en/node/79308

Yemen retains the death penalty for a wide variety of offenses, among them murder of a Muslim, arson or explosion, endangering transport and communications, apostasy, robbery, prostitution, adultery, and homosexuality.

[Turborama]

93. OK, point taken

Thanks for taking the time to show me the results of your research.

However, you said "Maybe they are executing women in the street for adultery--that's not uncommon in Saudi Arabia or Yemen, or a lot of other Muslim nations."

Those are examples from Saudi Arabia and Yemen plus Pakistan, Somalia and Iran, which aren't exactly "a lot of other Muslim nations".

The examples you present do seem to add weight behind the story of what the Taliban did in the OP, though.

[jobycom]

64. Seriously?

It's hardly a secret. There was even a clip showing a public execution for adultery in "Fahrenheit 9-11." There was a case last year of a Saudi woman being granted asylum in Britain because she had had a child from an affair and was afraid of the death penalty if she returned.

[Hannah Bell]

86. saudi arabia is known to have executed ~69 people in 2009, the us executed 52.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/death-penalty-report-china-must-end-secrecy-surrounding-sentences-and-execut.


of course, that doesn't count the people the us killed in places like abu ghraib, via targeted assassinations & extraordinary rendition, as well as the collateral damage in its war on muslims.

[Hannah Bell]

51. lol. the entire leadership of the taliban came out of the us-incited afghan war.

our "freedom fighters".

we brought them to afghanistan, we gave them guns & money.

there *was* no taliban before we did that.

the us is the no. 1 reason for the resurgence of fundamentalism in the middle east.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/20/ahmed_afghanistan.shtml

[jobycom]

73. That's an old article. Even the author disagrees with that now.

That was written just before 9-11, and it confused the Taliban with the mujahadeen we supported during the Soviet era. A lot of people made that mistake. We've learned a lot more about the Taliban's origins since then. They rose up in opposition to the mujahadeen warlords as an internal movement, though no doubt some of the people who later joined the Taliban had been part of the mujahadeen.

I agree with a lot of what he says--I even said a lot of what he says. A lot of the strictest rules of the Taliban were more Pashtu custom than anything Islamic. More, though, I agree with his premise that we throw money at too many groups, usually because of some corporate or economic interest, and we wind up destroying lives and stability while creating our own enemies, because we are greedy and are often ignorant of the motives of the people we give money to.

But we didn't create the Taliban, except in the sense that we helped create the chaos they arose against.

Here's a later article by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. In it he makes a clearer distinction between the mujahadeen we supported, and the Taliban who arose later in the 90s. We did give money to the Taliban once they took over--that's no secret, it's been well publicized. We tried to buy their support to make changes favorable to us--controlling opium, for instance, or protecting UNOCAL's oil pipeline. When our people learned that the Taliban wouldn't work with us on the pipeline, they threatened to invade. The threats were made in May of 01, I think. The "India Times" even reported then that we were planning to invade Afghanistan in October of 2001. That is exactly when we invaded, although 9-11 came along to give the invasion more reason. I personally wonder if Al-Qaiada launched 9-11 in response to our threats to invade Afghanistan. They had been preparing for it before then, but there's no guarantee they would have actually done it. I think our threats made them strike us first in the only way they really knew how.

Anyway, you can see from this that he no longer claims we created and backed the Taliban from the 80s. The mujahadeen, yes, but not the Taliban. They were a separate movement.

http://muslimmatters.org/2010/02/20/nafeez-mosaddeq-ahmed-our-terrorists/

[Hannah Bell]

82. what are you talking about? there's no indication he disagrees with a thing he said in the earlier

article.

Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War; they continued to do so even after 9/11.

Throughout the 1990s, the selective US intelligence sponsorship of Islamist extremist networks was linked not simply to destabilizing potential Russian and Chinese influence, but further to securing US-led Western control over strategic energy reserves. When bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan in June 1996, the State Department warned that the move ‘could prove more dangerous to US interests’, granting him ‘the capability to support individuals and groups who have the motive and wherewithal to attack US interests almost worldwide’.7 He had been offered protection by Pakistan in May on condition that he align his mujahidin forces with the Taliban. The new al-Qaeda-Taliban alliance was reportedly blessed by the Saudis.8

Yet as the respected Pakistani correspondent Ahmed Rashid reported, US intelligence supported the Taliban as a vehicle of regional influence at least between 1994 and 1998. This policy continued up to the year 2000, despite growing cautions. Thus, when the Taliban conquered Kabul in 1996, a State Department spokesperson explained that the US found ‘nothing objectionable’ in the event. One year later, a US diplomat commented: ‘The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis… There will be Aramco (consortium of oil companies controlling Saudi oil), pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.’9

http://muslimmatters.org/2010/02/20/nafeez-mosaddeq-ahmed-our-terrorists/

you don't even read what you post.

[jobycom]

87. Oh, fuck it. You're right. There's no distinction between one Muslim and another.

I can show you the proof, but I can't make you understand it, to paraphrase Barney Frank.

[Hannah Bell]

88. show me the proof. from *your own article*: "US intelligence supported the Taliban

as a vehicle of regional influence at least between 1994 and 1998. This policy continued up to the year 2000, despite growing cautions.

Continued US sponsorship of the al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus in Afghanistan was confirmed as late as 2000 in Congressional hearings. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher – former White House Special Assistant to President Reagan and now Senior Member of the House International Relations Committee – declared that ‘this administration has a covert policy that has empowered the Taliban and enabled this brutal movement to hold on to power’.

[hugo_from_TN]

52. Thank you for that great response.

The ignorance about the history of Afghanistan and the Taliban is pretty rampant. I'm so sick of the 'we created the Taliban' meme I could scream.

[Hannah Bell]

53. too bad. we *did* create the taliban.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/20/ahmed_afghanistan.shtml

[jobycom]

74. Again, the author at that link disagrees with that now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8922280&mesg_id=8927263

[jobycom]

75. Thing is, early on even our experts confused the Taliban with the mujahadeen.

I remember reading that and assuming it was correct back in 2001. We've since learned more about the Taliban.

There is a larger issue, though. We did help create the mess of Afghanistan during the 80s, in our war against the Soviets. We did fund a lot of the people who later tore Afghanistan apart. The Taliban did rise up as a response to that lawlessness. Our reckless foreign policies do create a lot of the mess we get stuck in. But in this case we didn't specifically create the Taliban.

[Hannah Bell]

83. The Taliban didn't *exist* when the mujahadeen were in action. The Taliban was an *offshoot*

of the muhajadeen, created by former muhajadeen *leaders* -- our boys.

[apocalypsehow]

14. Special pleading + zero credibility on this issue = not to be taken seriously.

That is all.

[leftynyc]

24. So, therefore......what?

We should allow them to continue abusing the women? Is that your argument? Or are you just trying to derail the thread?

[Hannah Bell]

50. we *are* allowing them -- & giving them money besides.

our war *enables* them.

our wars gave birth to them.

[leftynyc]

55. Our wars gave birth to the taliban?

What history book are you using? Is it really your claim that if we left the area, the taliban would all of a sudden treat their women equally? That it's American soldier's presense that makes them treat women like shit?

[Hannah Bell]

57. lol. it's clear whose history book you're using.

RAWA 1998: http://www.rawa.org/attack-e.htm

It is no secret that Afghan fundamentalists headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karim Khalili, Rasul Sayyaf, Ahmad Shah Masoud, Golbuddin Hekmatyar, Yunis Khalis, Mullah Omar and associates such as Dostum and his like have all been nurtured in the lap of the CIA.

It was the CIA that gave all these nobodies name and fame and supported them in their power-grabbing and fiefdom-building ploys and plots. Now the US is out to hunt down Osama bin Laden, an old Arab operative raised and trained by the CIA who is cohabiting with the Taliban and bankrolling the decimation of our compatriots in the Taliban's dog-fights with their Jihadi brethren-in-creed.

The US made maximum use of Arab mercenaries in her dogged determination to undo her superpower rival, the Soviet Union, but now the old myrmidons have become too much of an ungrateful nuisance. The US is the ally and sponsor of quite a number of anti-democratic fundamentalist states and entities in the world, therefore the United States' quarrel with her protégés, whether Arabs or Taliban or Jihadis, is nothing but a "domestic" dispute between lord and vassal.

http://www.rawa.org/attack-e.htm


But as the Economist magazine noted soon after September 11, " policies in Afghanistan a decade and more ago helped to create both Osama bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban regime that shelters him."3

An examination of this history will reveal the extent to which U.S. foreign policy is based on hypocrisy, realpolitik, and the short-term pursuit of narrow interests.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/20/CIA_binladen_afghan.shtml

[leftynyc]

70. And all that noise has exactly

nothing to do with how the taliban treats women. Nice try at a diversion though. You fool nobody.

[Hannah Bell]

71. "how the taliban treats women" wasn't what you asked, now, was it?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8922280&mesg_id=8925913


you're the only one trying out diversions.

[Turborama]

8. Beneath the Veil is available online to watch

Here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4201322772364661561#

List of Taliban genocidal activities against the Hazaris: http://www.hazara.net/taliban/genocide/genocide.html

RAWA has catalogued a large collection of atrocities such as this one: http://www.rawa.org/beating.htm

[still_one]

10. The point is that the Taliban are not a nice bunch of people /nt

[Prometheus Bound]

20. To me, the point is that this might not have been done by "the Taliban".

If indeed it was done at all. She may have been executed for murdering her baby as some reports say, she may have been judged and executed by people who have nothing to do with the Taliban, as the Taliban spokesman says.

I know the media call all bad guys the Taliban now, as they used to call them all Al-queda a couple of years ago, but I guess people on DU are smart enough to get that.

[Prometheus Bound]

19. I only know that the headlines alone have been effective preparation for "Hate Week".

Sample headlines now on Google
Taliban Execute Pregnant Woman
Taliban Execute Pregnant Widow for Having Sex
Taliban Flogs and Executes Pregnant Widow
Taleban judges order pregnant woman to be flogged, shot dead
Taliban has killed a pregnant widow (by Entertainment and Showbiz blog)
Taliban Condemned Pregnant Woman to Be Flogged and Executed

Most people will not get beyond the gruesome headlines to find that the Taliban says they had nothing to do with it and would never do anything like that, that several reports say she was killed for killing her baby, that all the reports are hearsay, etc.

[still_one]

43. "would never do anything like that"? sorry, the Taliban would do something like that /nt

[Lance_Boyle]

67. So would Blackwater. What's your point? n/t

[Prometheus Bound]

92. But they don't seem shy about admitting such deeds, so why would they deny this one?

Unless they had nothing to do with it.

[raccoon]

21. Does snopes.com have anything to say about it (yet)? nt

[Prometheus Bound]

22. To be fair, how could anyone verify whether it is true or not.

The Afghanistan authorities who are used as sources for several of the articles are from a different area and admit they have no control over the area where the alleged execution took place. RAWA's source is "PAN", whoever that is, who was told by Mullah Muhammad Yousuf, allegedly one of the local commanders of the Taliban in the Qaadis Khordak area of Badghis Province. Yet the Taliban spokesman denies the Taliban would ever do such a thing.

So it's all a bunch of hearsay being reported as hard news. Who knows.

[chrisa]

23. This is tribal brutality.

It's not necessarily a characteristic of the Taliban itself, but these villagers are actually the Taliban, in a sense. This happens all of the time in those backwards villages. They're still living in the 19th century.

Basically, what I'm saying is, even if the Taliban didn't exist, these things would still go on, so fighting against the Taliban isn't going to stop it.

[Prometheus Bound]

27. I agree.

[slampoet]

28. So you know this from having gone there and speaking the language right?

You have a degree in Asian history?

[chrisa]

33. Someone needs an Asian history degree to say anything about Afghanistan? lol

It's a well known fact that areas of Afghanistan are a collection of isolated villages. That's why they act like they live in the 19th century. Do you dispute this fact?

[slampoet]

35. You are skipping over a lot just to frame the very few facts that you have.

Iceland/Greenland/Yukon/some parts of Alaska are even more isolated in their cities than Afghanistan but they have a 21st century tech level.

Your logic is flawed and a historical view of the situation or talking to someone with first hand knowledge would help

[chrisa]

38. That's fine, but I'm making the argument that fighting the Taliban would not stop these practices

in Afghanistan. Areas are controlled by village elders; that sort of thing. If you connected each of these villages by roads, and allowed villagers to get in and out, and also had a mass-media in Afghanistan, the culture would slowly change. That's the difference between Afghanistan and the first world countries you named.

Part of it also has to do with poverty and culture. I don't dispute your point at all.

[slampoet]

46. The Afghan have had Mass Media for 80 years. It's called Radio.

[snooper2]

58. In 2003 an estimated 37% of Afghan citizens, mainly in urban centers, had access to radio stations

1.5% of the population has access to the Internet

Radio is the most widespread source of information.<9> There were 21 AM, 5 FM and 1 shortwave radio stations in 2006, broadcasting in Afghan, Pashto, Persian, Dari, Urdu and English-language.<15> Radio Afghanistan was relaunched on November 13, 2001 in Kabul.<18> In 2003 an estimated 37 percent of Afghan citizens, mainly in urban centers, had access to a local radio station.<9> Arman FM, a private radio station, is most popular with younger citizens in Kabul.<12> In the early 2000s, international nongovernmental organizations supported establishment of more than a dozen new radio stations.<9> Freedom House estimates 60 radio stations are currently running in the country.<17> The BBC World Service, Voice of America, Radio Free Afghanistan and others broadcast into Afghanistan as an additional source of news, in Dari and Pashto languages.<17>

State-owned Afghanistan National Television relaunched in 2002 after being shut down in 1996 by the Taliban.<3> Four cable stations appeared after the overthrow of the Taliban, carrying Indian and U.S. programs, though cable was banned in 2003 by the Supreme Court on moral grounds.<9> In 2006, at least 7 television stations were operating in the country, of which 1 was government run in addition to six regional stations.<15> Radio Television Afghanistan was the most powerful broadcast outlet.<9> Satellite and cable television ownership is growing however; Al Jazeera widely seen as a leading source of uncensored information.<19>

[Hannah Bell]

62. after 40 years of war. big surprise. here's afghanistan circa 1960s:

"Central control panel at Radio Kabul transmitter. Transmitter can be heard as far distant as South Africa and Indonesia."

If you flipped through the radio dial in the 1960s, you would hear broadcasts of world news, local news, music programs, funny skits, political discourse, maybe an art program, a children's show. Radio Kabul, a state-run station whose old offices are pictured here, was launched in the 1930s.





biology class, kabul university:
In the 1950s and '60s, women were able to pursue professional careers in fields such as medicine. Today, schools that educate women are a target for violence, even more so than five or six years ago.









http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full

[chrisa]

Funny (not really) how the US dropped a stupidity bomb on that place by

Supporting the Taliban, arguably the most backwards and destructive force to a country in the Middle East. We're now rolling in our own pile of crap.

I wonder what Afghanistan would be like today if we didn't screw it up so badly?

[snooper2]

56. And education.....education is the key to bringing them out of the 17th century

The fundies know that education is bad though...

Girls can't have education because then they might learn to think for themselves. That would be really bad for the Taliban fundies.

[Hannah Bell]

68. oooh, education! you mean like this? afghanistan circa 1960s

On a recent trip to Afghanistan, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox drew fire for calling it "a broken 13th-century country..." He's hardly the first Westerner to label Afghanistan as medieval... Many assume that's all Afghanistan has ever been -- an ungovernable land where chaos is carved into the hills.....

But that is not the Afghanistan I remember. I grew up in Kabul in the 1950s and '60s....


When I was growing up, education was valued and viewed as the great equalizer. If you went to school and achieved good grades, you'd have the chance to enter college, maybe study abroad, be part of the middle class, and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. Education was a hallowed value. Today, I think people have become far more cynical. They do not see the link between education and a better life; they see instead that those who have accumulated wealth and power have not done so through legitimate means.




The physical campus of Kabul University, pictured here, does not look very different today. But the people do. In the 1950s and '60s, students wore Western-style clothing; young men and women interacted relatively freely. Today, women cover their heads and much of their bodies, even in Kabul. A half-century later, men and women inhabit much more separate worlds.




In the 1950s and '60s, women were able to pursue professional careers in fields such as medicine. Today, schools that educate women are a target for violence, even more so than five or six years ago.


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full

[Turborama]

94. Roughly 6,000,000 kids go to school in Afghanistan now, compared to <1,000,000 under the Taliban

This article is over a year old so the number is most likely higher by now...


More children in school in Afghanistan
Published: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 | Changed: Thursday, September 17, 2009

During the Taliban’s reign, fewer than one million children went to school in Afghanistan. Now about six million children are registered in schools and about one third of them are girls. Sida’s efforts in educating boys and girls in Afghanistan have delivered results.

Women’s literacy in Afghanistan is among the lowest in the world – about 14 per cent. However, a change has taken place. Previously, only 3 per cent of girls went to school; now about 36 per cent receive education.

The State Ministry of Education in Afghanistan has produced a national education strategy and is now implementing teacher training, producing textbooks and building schools at a greater rate than previously. But capacity remains low and the ministry is being supported by UNICEF, with aid from Sida.

Sofia Orrebrink, programme officer for Education in Sida’s Afghanistan team at the department for Conflict and post-conflict co-operation, says it is common for there to be 40 pupils or more in one classroom.

“It isn’t unusual for them to sit on the floor or out in the open air,” she says. “Despite this, there is enormous pressure on the school system. One of the requirements is to educate more teachers. School buildings are needed because many of them have been destroyed during the armed conflicts, but other basic infrastructure is also missing like desks, toilets and textbooks.”

Full article: http://www.sida.se/English/Countries-and-regions/Asia/Afghanistan/Programmes-and-Projects/More-children-in-school-in-Afghanistan/

[Hannah Bell]

99. The page you are trying to reach is unavailable or may no longer exist

[Turborama]

100. Thanks for letting me know - here's a couple that do work...

More children in school in Afghanistan: http://www.ungei.org/news/afghanistan_2343.html

BTW I forgot to thank you for the historical post about Afghanistan above, it's a rare find. I get sick and tired of the constant "Afghanistan has always been medieval/in the stone age/barbaric etc etc" meme that keeps being thrown around. There are a few videos on YouTube from the 70s, watching The Kite Flyer and some of Beneath the Veil that show how life was like pre-the Russian invasion as well.

Edited to add...

There are a lot more related stories here, too...

Afghanistan: Newsline http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_445.html

[pnorman]

25. That's the sort of criiticl/skeptical research I SHOULD have done

when first hearing that story, but I did no such thing. Outraged, I accepted it more or less as`"fact". THANKS!

[Tsiyu]

32. Please also see

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8910491&mesg_id=8922856

for a bit of US perspective on the deaths of pregnant women.


They are an outrage....

[Prometheus Bound]

45. Thanks pnorman. Glad others are interested in looking into it.

[Turborama]

30. Before sympathizing with what the Taliban spokesman said too much

It might be wise to consider their previous form...

Otherwise, it could amount to Taliban apologetics, when considering their history of murder and brutal sadistic punishment to terrorize Afghanistan's citizens into submission during their reign of terror, as detailed below.

http://www.rawa.org/handcut.htm">Taliban flog woman, cut off two men's hands

KABUL, Feb 27,1998

=snip=

The two men, convicted of stealing goods worth 19 million afghanis ($500) from a Kabul shop, were brought in a Japanese pick-up truck and were anaesthetised before their right hands were cut off from the wrist with a sharp lance.

Three doctors from the Public Health Ministry, who had covered their faces, carried out the amputation after the convicts became unconscious and lay on the damp ground.

A Taleban fighter carried one amputated hand around and said: ``Anyone committing theft or adultery will face such punishment. Look at this, it is the hand of one of the thieves.''

Friday's was the second public amputation of thieves' hands in Kabul in a week. Last Friday, the Taleban chose a school as the venue for the punishment.

On Wednesday, the Taleban ordered the execution of three men for sodomy in the southern town of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. They were ordered to be buried alive under a pile of stones and a wall was pushed on top of them by a tank.

Their lives were to be spared if they survived for 30 minutes and were still alive when the stones were removed.

Taliban Beat a mother and her daughter publicly

AP, April 16, 1999

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Thousands of Afghanis watched Friday as the Taliban's religious police lashed a young woman and her mother, both convicted of "immoral behavior" over the daughter's unmarried affair.

The two women, who were hunched over inside their all-enveloping burqa robes, wailed and cried out "Oh God!" with every stroke, witnesses said.

Farzana, 25, was accused of having illicit relations with a man. She was convicted more than a month ago but at the time was nine months pregnant from the affair. So the Taliban postponed her punishment of 100 lashes.

She gave birth to a son a few days ago, said Mullah Mohammed Sadik, the Taliban official who beat her. The child's father was punished earlier.

Farzana's mother, identified only as Gul, was also beaten with 39 lashes. She was charged with "immoral behavior" because she knew of her daughter's relationship and did not report it to the police, said Sadik.

After Sadik struck seven lashes, officials discovered that Gul, who was thought to be around 50, was wearing a heavy jacket to try to soften the blows, witnesses said. They ordered her to remove the jacket and continued with the remaining 32 lashes.

The Taliban religious army, which rules 90 percent of Afghanistan, has imposed a harsh brand of Islamic law. Murderers are executed in public squares, while thieves have their limbs removed and lesser crimes are punished with a public beating.

Women who commit adultery are stoned to death under Taliban law, but because Farzana was not married the sentence for having an illicit affair was 100 lashes, the Taliban explained.

Also Friday, nine men convicted of gambling, which also is illegal, were given 39 lashes. Four of the men wailed and cried, and Taliban police had to hold their arms and legs while another administered the beating, witnesses said.

After beating both Farzana and her mother, Sadik slammed Western criticism of the Taliban's treatment of women, saying that its laws protect their honor.

In Taliban territory, women cannot work outside the home and girls are banned from schools. Health care is segregated and often it is difficult for a woman to see a male specialist.

From: http://www.rawa.org/lashes.htm

---- --- ----

What do you think the words 'fierce', 'cleansing force', 'wipe out' and 'brutal' mean in this context...?

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.

=snip=

"In southern Afghanistan, there was a law and order crisis. There was rampant warlordism, and the Taliban came in as a cleansing force to establish law and order and wipe out the warlords and impose Islam, which they did. And they were quite popular doing it, initially. Their spread is really related to the support they got from Pakistan, which increased their military capability. And then they took Kabul in 1996."

=snip=

In its efforts to control the country the Taliban became as brutal as its predecessors -- killing civilians, burning houses, and destroying crops in the villages and towns it had conquered. As a result, the Afghan people became far less supportive of the ruling government. Analysts say the Taliban found it difficult to recruit native Afghan men into its ranks.

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

---- --- ----

What about the ethnic cleansing carried out against the Hazaris and the other articles below?

Genocide of ethnic Hazaras

(footage of the results of their ethnic cleansing is also in the documentary I linked to http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8922280&mesg_id=8922372">in post #8)


http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghanistan/">Massacre in Yakaolang - Jan 2001

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghanistan/">Massacre at Robatak Pass - May 2000

Massacre in Mazar-e Sharif - Starting Aug 8, 1998
http://www.hazara.net/taliban/genocide/mazar/mazar.html">Compilation of reports - by Human Rights Watch, United Nations, and Sunday Times
http://www.rawa.org/times.htm">How the Taliban slaughtered thousands of people The Sunday Times , Nov.1,1998
http://www.rawa.org/killings.htm">UN report details Taliban 'killing frenzy' The News International (Pakistan), Nov.6,1998
http://www.rawa.org/herald.htm">One Massacre That Didn't Grab the World's Attention International Herald Tribune, Saturday, August 7, 1999
http://www.hazara.net/taliban/genocide/mazar2/mazar2.html">Eyewitness Testimonies - Interviews conducted by our Hazara.net Sources

http://www.hazara.net/taliban/genocide/bamyan/bamyan.html">Massacre in Bamyan - Sep 1998 to May 1999

Just Some of the punishments exacted by the Taliban during their horrific reign...

http://www.rawa.org/shooting.htm">Taliban order shooting of food suppliers to opposition areas

http://www.rawa.org/hang-w.htm">Taliban Hang Convicted Prostitutes

http://www.rawa.org/stoning.htm">Taliban Stone Woman for Adultery

http://www.rawa.org/punish.htm">Taliban punish 40 for clothing, beard law violations

http://www.rawa.org/lashes.htm">Taliban Beat a mother and her daughter publicly

http://www.rawa.org/execute4.htm">Taliban publicly execute murderer, amputate two robbers

http://www.rawa.org/saeed.htm">Law & Order: Taliban Style

Edited to add, multiple contemporary reports of girls having acid thrown in their faces

[Prometheus Bound]

34. I'm a bit unclear where you got the sympathy bit.

I repeated what AFP and Huffington Post had reported in their articles.

Could you explain further how this might be considered "Sympathy" or "Apologetics"?

[Turborama]

37. "This may be, as a Taliban spokesman said, just Western propaganda."

Read a bit like sympathizing with his position.

There are a few replies in this thread that read like Taliban apologetics, that wasn't aimed at your OP.

ETA I do genuinely respect your attempt to keep this objective and all the work you have put into researching this.

[NNN0LHI]

39. 'Taliban Spokesman' appears to be a figment of "someones" profound imagination

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

Zabiullah Mujahid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Zabiullah Mujahid is one of the self proclaimed spokesmen for the Taliban in Afghanistan. He has acted as a media conduit between the isolationist rebel forces and Western media teams. He was interviewed with his back towards the TV camera in early 2009 by CNN reporter Nic Robertson, appearing to be somewhere in Pakistan. To a question relating to ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing peace, Mujahid indicated it was possible but with conditions:

"Our conditions are clear, we want to negotiate and they will not interfere in our affairs, secondly they {the U.S.} will leave the country, third let the Afghan people to do what they want to do, like form the Islamic government they want to establish."
—Zabihullah Mujahid

Shortly after the CNN interview was broadcast, with highlights shared on the CNN web page on May 5, 2009, some jihadi web sites carried denials, some attributed to Mujahid himself, saying the person Robertson interviewed was not Mujahid.

Zabihullah Mujahid is described to be about 30 years old, with a beard, and is little over 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. Although his association with Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not confirmed, it is suggested that Mujahid may be representing the Haqqani network or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Hezb-e-Islami political party of Afghanistan. The dialect of Pashto language spoken by the man CNN claims was Mujahid during the interview with Robertson is similar to that of Hezb-e Islami, which belongs to the area covering Kunar, Laghman, Nangarhar, and Paktia.

Zabihullah Mujahid may possibly be a number of individuals who assume the persona of the "Taliban Spokesman" when contacting western and middle eastern reporters. His claims of Taliban victories and US and coalition failings are often cited uncritically by several reporters who have developed a close working relationship with "Zabihullah". For example, after an attack on Bagram Air Base in May 2010, CNN reporter Atia Abawi revealed on the air that she received phone calls directly from Zabihullah claiming credit for this and earlier attacks, and repeated his casualty claims, later shown to be gross exaggerations, as being "spot on."

[Turborama]

40. Different Spokesman in this context "Qari Yosuf Ahmadi"

Google results: http://www.google.com/search?q=Qari+Yosuf+Ahmadi&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8

[Sea Witch]

36. The story is one played out time and time again by the Taliban.

Go to RAWA, do some research, watch the videos of the women being executed. It's not pretty, it is slavery at it's very worst. Women who ran to Iran with their families and have now returned to Afghanistan are literally setting themselves on fire rather then live in that environment. If a woman is raped and does not have 4 men who witnessed it and who will testify then she is often executed for being an adulterer.

[Hannah Bell]

54. maybe you're the one who should do some research. here's what rawa says:

Neither the US nor Jehadies and Taliban,
Long Live the Struggle of Independent and Democratic Forces of Afghanistan!



Seven years back the US government and its allies were successfully able to legitimize their military invasion on Afghanistan and deceive the people of the US and the world under the banners of “liberating Afghan women”, “democracy” and “war on terror”. Our people, who had been tormented and oppressed by the Taliban’s dominance, were filled with hope but soon their dream of the establishment of security, democracy and freedom was shattered in the most painful manner.

By the installation of the puppet government of Karzai, the US reused its creations and continued its deal with the Jehadi criminal warlords. From the very start, Mr. Karzai shunned the demands and trusts of the people and chose to compromise with the criminals of the “Northern Alliance” and placed the filthiest faces in the key posts of the government. In contradiction to the shameless claims of the ministers and other treacherous and corrupt officials, our people feel more ill-fated; the country has been turned to a mafia state and self-immolation, rape and abduction of women and children has no parallel in the history of Afghanistan.

http://www.rawa.org/events/sevenyear_e.htm


As long as the fundamentalists are in power,
there will be no end to the oppressions and crimes against Afghan women

The world came into motion in the name of "liberating Afghan woman" and our country was invaded, but the sorrows and deprivations of Afghan women has not just failed to reduce, but actually increased the level of oppression and brutality day by day on this most ruined population of our society.

Women's Rights is Human Rights The corrupt and mafia government of Mr. Karzai and its international guardians, are playing shamelessly with the intolerable suffering of Afghan women and misuse it as their propaganda tool for deceiving the people of the world. They have placed some women into official posts in the government who are favored by the warlords and then proclaim it as symbol of "women's liberation" in the country. But the presence of a number of women in high posts is not important unless they touch the depth of our people's adversities and sufferings, like the parliamentarian Malalai Joya, and uncompromisingly struggle against the bloody enemies of woman's rights and democracy and consider women's emancipation as an integral part of the liberation of our whole country from the filthy shackles of the fundamentalists and their foreign masters.

The government and Western media trumpet the presence of 68 women in the parliament as a huge achievement for Afghanistan and a sign of democracy and women's rights. But almost all of these women themselves are the most horrible enemies of woman's rights and democracy and are acting as little crank dolls in the hand of the warlords. In this odious reactionary parliament, with the exception of the glorious and suffocated voice of Joya, no voice from the remaining 68 has been raised against the Khalqi, Parchami, Jehadi or Talibi vultures. A number of these women members of parliament like Safora Niazi, Noorzia Atmar, Parveen Durani, Shakeela Hashmi, Malalai Isaqzai etc. are so shameless that they clearly overtook blood suckers like Sayyaf, Rabbani, Alam Seya, Farooqi and others in physically attacking Malalai Joya inside the parliament.

http://www.rawa.org/events/march8-07_e.htm

[Sea Witch]

60. So you missed page after page of the abuses of the Taliban?

I am not debating whether or not we should be there. I have marched against the wars. However, that does not change the fact that the Taliban are brutal beyond words in their treatment of women. Bombing the shit out them isn't the answer. Neither is pretending these things are not happening.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/08/08/taliban-hang-a-47-year-old-woman.html

This is what they said in regards to the article this thread is about.

[Hannah Bell]

61. maybe you missed the part about the us aiding & abetting the taliban & wanting the US out.

[Sea Witch]

65. I am not understanding your rationale

It's as if we are having two separate conversations. I will break my thoughts down for you. A) we should not be there and are making things worse. B) the Taliban are monsters in their treatment of women. c) A and B do not cancel one another out.

[Hannah Bell]

66. glad you support a. not sure what "b" has to do with anything.

we created the taliban, we funded it & continue to do so.

i.e. so why not say if we quit funding them & creating conditions that provide a base for them they'd likely crawl back into the woodback.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

41. Iraq "Incubator Babies" Lie All Over Again?

Remember this gem?
http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."83

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."84

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.

[still_one]

44. Gee, bring up an entirely different event and country to say that logic applies to everything is

inane. The Taliban have shown their true colors in numerous independent news accounts and films, throughout the years, which make it even more disappointing that we were involved in their support

[slampoet]

47. Just like we supported the Kuwaiti Ambassador who came up with the Incubator Lie

The comparison holds because that lie was held up as the reason we got into a war when it was really about oil

This lie (something about this must be untrue due to the contradictions)

..is being promoted to Keep us in a war that SUDDENLY has been framed about the Taliban when that wasn't the reason we got there either.

Valid Comparison

[HEyHEY]

42. Matrix? Glitches? Wise up, people

This shit is all sooo fucking over the map that it only could be a story based on fact, but reporters are having trouble verifying what happened. If it was purely made-up the stories would all be the same.

[Hannah Bell]

80. "something happened" - but *what*? that's the point.

[Nye Bevan]

48. Yeah, because I've never heard of the Taliban doing anything like this before.

Normally they are so tolerant of things like adultery, attentive to women's rights, compassionate in meting out justice, and generally all-around good guys.

And the conflicts in this story are just too much to ignore. One story said she was 47 and another that she was 48? Obviously it's a crock. And the whole "Sanam Bibi" versus "Bibi Sanubar" is a dead giveaway too.

[Whisp]

59. if it's on CNN, it's probably not the truth

or a portion of a bit of truth, skewed to the brainwashing of America agenda.

there is some pretty ugly shit going on in the States as well that would make the Taliban look normal.

[Rebubula]

77. Really?

Where?

Please back up that insane statement

[Catherina]

69. Rec'd. Critical thinking required with all the war crazies around. n/t

[BOG PERSON]

76. Was it 100 or 200 lashes?

:popcorn:

[Poll_Blind]

78. K&R! Never has their been so much disinformation as in the Information Age.

PB

[Liquorice]

81. I believe it happened. The Taliban commits all kinds of atrocities against women. They think

they own females. They throw acid in their faces, cut off their noses, and make them wear large sheeting over their heads under penalty of beating and death. They have no problem executing women.

[Prometheus Bound]

90. That's a good point. It comes down to 'belief', since we can't depend on the facts.

[Liquorice]

95. Let me put it this way, there is no reason to disbelieve that the Taliban

would behave that way, and plenty of reason to believe they did in fact execute the woman. They have executed plenty of women for adultery. It makes no sense to doubt this particular story given that fact. Is the story being used to benefit those who want to continue war in Afghanistan? Maybe it is. But the story of the horrific abuses of the women in Afghanistan must be told, and the world should know what is going on. If you were a woman in Afghanistan, wouldn't you want the world to know what is happening to you? I know I would. The world had to be told about the Nazi concentration camps too, and there were probably people who disbelieved those stories, and thought they were "just" propaganda. In other words, even though the people sharing the news of the executed woman may have an agenda, that doesn't mean the news isn't true.

[Prometheus Bound]

98. OK, but which of the reports do you believe?

That she was executed for killing her baby? -- AP, version 1 (3a)
That she was executed for adultery? -- AP version 2 (3b)

[Texasgal]

85. I guess the picture

of the young girl with her nose and ear cut off on the cover of Time last week is also just "western propaganda".

Geez, just because THIS story doesn't pan out in your mind can you really dismiss the taliban and their atrocities?

And um... NO, I am not Pro-War because of this story, as much as you would like to believe. :eyes:

[Prometheus Bound]

91. Can you show me where I dismissed the Taliban's atrocities?

And what does the girl on the Time cover have to do with this? The Time story was confirmed by the girl herself, so the facts are not really in question, while they obviously are in this case.