The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.
The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.
Read the rest here. Many of you have probably already read it, but for a tangential yet educational look at the decline of Afghanistan over the last 30 years, check out The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
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4 comments:
Maybe we should pull out of afghanistan as well.....its like vietnam....and/or ask iran to help us out with guys like these...i am quite sure they would be willing to help us out now that nancy pelosi and harry reid are running shop....the beef was all about rummy, perle, wolfowitz and w...they were upset about ned lamont, but i think they'll get over it if we bargain and let them have carte blanche over lebanon, israel, all the energy resources of the world, the bomb, darfur, somalia, algeria, southern spain and editorial veto power over danish cartoons.....dont you think?
Hi anonymous, thanks for your comments.
Pull out of Afghanistan? I have a better idea. Why don't we instead devote the necessary resources to combatting the Taliban in Afghanistan - radical I know. But of course I can see your point that we need to let the people WHO'VE BEEN COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT EVERY ASPECT OF OUR CURRENT MIDDLE EAST STRATEGIES AND POLICIES TO CONTINUE GUIDE US. Makes absolute sense.
As for who controls Israel, I really don't think Israel is waiting for us to decide that. They are the only nuclear power in the area, they receive generous US subsidies for defense, we share intelligence with them, and with their mandatory military obligation for citizens, I think they're in a good position to determine their own futures.
As for the problems in Africa, I agree, we should devote considerable more attention to them - I wonder what John Bolton has to say about those places? I'm sure his leadership has helped the UN in it's peacekeeping goals in those regions. Of course without the UN we could take on responsibility for those peace keeping missions all by ourselves. Sounds tempting.
As for the new Democratic leaders in Congress, they'll help fashion a policy, however, how much damage can be undone in the next few months remains to be seen. Bush had six years to exponentially increase muslim, islamic, and world hatred towards us, to squander opportunities for effective change, to squander billions of dollars of our national resources and thousands of our soldier's lives. He's been a real go getter (despite being in bed by 9:00 every night), so I'm not sure anybody can fix the fucking disaster that Bush has created.
Control of oil is a big problem, especially since during periods of unparralled profit in the oil industry, not only does our government still subsidize oil, but it discourages the development and use of alternative fuels! Rational policy at its best. Look, I'm clearly no oil expert, so let's just ask the Bush family, I hear they're mad tight with those people.
Danish cartoons? The Danes can deal with that, we have our own problems. Besides, would you really care if Europe goes down in flames? Isn't that what those American bashing appeasers deserve? Anyway, things can't be too bad in Denmark, I still see tins of Danish cookies everywhere I look these days.
No counter-response? I did not expect one. Usually jibberish crumbles when pressed with logic and facts.
Interesting enough the original post deals with Afghanistan--the calls for pulling out have been made only for Iraq. But nonetheless...
The Taliban was and continues to be a real threat to us, unlike Iraq, which Bush had to drum up false reasons for invading WMD, Yellow Cake, ties to AQ, etc). We had a chance to stabilize the region after we took out the Taliban but instead we veered in the wrong direction. Maybe it was personal vendetta by Bush, oil, or faulty military info, regardless the bottom line is we need to get out of Iraq and back in full force into Afghanistan. Why stay the course if we took a wrong turn? Are we that stubborn that we don't learn? I think our elections in Nov. clearly answered that question.
The billions of dollars that we blew on Iraq could have gone to keeping the Taliban out of Afghanistan. 2,900 + american soldiers dead and Iraq is worse of than under Saddam. At some point common sense must return into US foreign policy.
After 9/11, Bush did a great job toppling the Taliban. He wasted no time and went right after a gov't that officially sponsored terroist organizations aimed at attacking us. Afghanistan was first on our list. Thereafter though, for whatever reason Bush got distracted with Iraq, a regime that did not present a real threat to us, while the Taliban regrouped. Is it too hard to refocus him back to dealing with the real terroist threat in Afghanistan? If that was the first order of business after 9/11, why are we not making it a priority now instead of the useless and unnecessary effort in Iraq?
you have lumped together many trouble areas dealing with extreme violent islamic groups. all worthy of attenion (except maybe the Danish as Big-D stated). What do you propose? keep wasting time and money in Iraq or refocusing ourselves towards real threats?
Sorry gang, its really ol' shotblock101....i just cant get my jibberish to post unless i click on anonymous.....maybe big d should repost...i'll ignore the stuff about crumbling in the face of facts or whatever...that sounds like some self-triumphant mental jerking-off to me...like when dr dre. said "when i'm on the mike its like a cookie they all crumble" roberto131, the only fact that i see is that while the post deals with afghanistan, the tittle suggests to me that this has happened "while we've been busy in iraq"..maybe i'm crazy or got it wrong....but nonetheless.....i will also cop to the fact that those danish cookies are selling well...but euros seem really afraid of how political islam might be affecting the opinions of significant portions of their populations....after all, it only takes a few believers to really ruin a rush hour on the train.
i just think that when you are dealing with thug-killers like in the post, sometimes the only real answer for some of them is going to be a bullet in their ass.(my opinion) the gutting of a school teacher could have easily come from a story in iraq..or algeria, or somalia, or darfur, or paki...or an increasing number of places (even when the US hasn't invaded) sorry for the sarcasm, i should have taken the time to flesh out my scrawlings....
i think the dems (my party) sold us all a false bill of goods to get power back...its how all politicians work in my opinion...while my school loan rates might drop with the dems, i hope they dont actually pull out of either place and leave mr. salim's family to the taliban, or decent peoples families in iraq to al-quaeda, al-sadr, or the like....going to iraq was wrong since they didnt have the wmd they thought we did, but we are there now and running might not solve that much....if you think that we can compartmentalize things like say, "lets leave iraq because it is bad, but step up in afghanistan" i think that approach is wrong. iraq will rot, and we will face increased challenges in afghanistan.....the part about denmark for me was that the US is facing a global ideological threat..while it is loosely coordinated it is not a series of local problems that we can pick and choose our responses to.....that might be a major cleavage in our mindsets, some think that afghanistan and iraq are totally seperate, but i do not .....we do have to step up saving afghanistan, but i am not sure leaving iraq will make that more possible, it would just redouble the idea that a sustained terror effort against civilians and the western media will cause the west to withdraw and leave vital regions... devoting the proper resources huh? of course i think they should really kick up the reconstruction part of the deal, and do so not for the sole benefit of their dracula friends in the corporate world.... but i dont think that more troops would help us...nobody likes foreigners with guns locking down their country...for whatever reason they are there...on a side note....isreal is the only nuclear power in the region (if you place pakistan out of it)......but check back with iran in a few days.....they're working on that from what i hear.
if technically possible....we really need to get the crap off this foreigh oil business....drill for it anywhere, raise fuel standards, mass transit, get nuclear power going, windmills, whatever....maybe we can harness the gas coming out of silly liberals, that might get it done....i'm not sure why bush hasnt made that a top priority....it has been really criminally negligent to fund iran's billions, russia's thuggery, chavez's attempt to convice latins that failed economic policies like socialism is the way to go and to be cozy with the saudi royal family and think that those double dealers are helping. merry holidays
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