printThe Taliban did it is the spin in the media about the stoning to death of a young couple in northern Afghanistan. The many spectators who gathered to watch the stoning, as one news report alleged, were Taliban men. Executioners.
“The woman, Sadiqa, was 20 years old and engaged to another man, said the Kunduz provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raza Yaqoubi. Her lover, 28-year-old Qayum, left his wife to run away with her, and the two had holed up in a friend’s house five days ago, said district government head, Mohammad Ayub Aqyar.”
“They were discovered by Taliban operatives on Sunday and stoned to death in front a crowd of about 150 men,” wrote another report. “First the woman was brought out and stoned, then the man a half an hour later.”
Still other reports emphasized that the Afghan government has condemned the barbaric act and that it was the only stoning since the US occupied this backward country. (The only one that we know of.)
The New York Times gives an honest account of this blood sport:
“The punishment was carried out by hundreds of the victims’ neighbors in a village in northern Kunduz Province, according to Nadir Khan, 40, a local farmer and Taliban sympathizer, who was interviewed by telephone. Even family members were involved, both in the stoning and in tricking the couple into returning after they had fled.”
It takes a nation of lunatics to imagine they can transform a country like this one.
UPDATE (Aug. 18): “It worked with Germany, didn’t it?” I’m convinced Nora is being cynical. She can’t be comparing the nation that gave us Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Thomas Mann, Immanuel Kant, Mercedes-Benz, on-and-on, to the people who gave us the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (say no more). She’s being funny. Besides, American welfare didn’t rehabilitate Germany post WWII; German genius and graft did. Even with an enormously debilitating welfare state, Germans are still the most productive, ingenious people in Europe.
The religion of peace strikes again. Will the world ever wake up to what this barbaric religion is about? What s sick story.
“It takes a nation of lunatics to imagine they can transform a country like this one.”
It worked with Germany, didn’t it?
Nation of lunatics is about right. Not them, but us. The giant sand pit which is Muslim Asia and the Middle East becomes deeper and more dangerous with each passing day. The goofs we have running the USA not only have no idea what they are getting into but seem to have less and less awareness with each passing day.
In spite of the neocon directed Afghan War – Public Relations campaign, the Taliban are MONSTERS. But here is what John Quincy Adams said about MONSTERS:
http://www.fff.org/freedom/1001e.asp
“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her (America’s) heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she (America) goes not abroad, in search of MONSTERS to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence; she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force….
She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit….”
Hence – Adams’ nickname “Old Man Eloquent”
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/jqadams
Ah the wisdom of the Founders. *sigh* Is this level of degeneration inevitable in any free society? Thanks for that Myron. The repulsive neocons and warbots who claim to defend the Constitution will declare that man an anti-American if it wasnt John Adams.
Nora: Germany had a deep liberal tradition (Goethe, Beethoven) as well as the usual bunch of sheep who follow orders (American, Soviet, or Nazi). They were educated Western Christians. Denazification of people who were bombed and nearly starved is trivial compared to conversion of Moslem tribal cavemen.
Remember – if the Germans threw the Americans OUT, the alternative was Stalin!
Yes, I was being cynical, or rather: provocative. Exactly the facts you are quoting make what happened so unfathomable for every thinking German born post-WWII. What Germans did was in no way less barbaric than what the Taliban are doing, just on a bigger scale, and yes, that were the same people who gave Beethoven and Bach to the world. Germany needed to be thoroughly defeated and closely watched before it could be taken back into the fold of the civilized nations. (And, believe me, they have never forgiven America for that.) I know that anything like that is not a feasible solution for Afghanistan, and I have often thought that we ought to erect a high wall between us and the Muslim world and stop worrying what they do to each other, but that is a thought which worries me deeply as well. Can it really be a solution?
So provocative yes, cynical maybe, funny? No way!