Change we can believe in… starting to feel more like “change, believe it or not”.
First, let’s refresh our memories on who the Taliban are, with a little help from wiki:
… The Taliban implements the “strictest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world” including the complete ban of education for girls and is widely criticized internationally for its treatment of women.
… In newly conquered towns hundreds of religious police beat offenders – typically men who shaved and women who were not wearing their burqa properly – with long sticks.
… The worst attack on civilians came in summer of 1998 when the Taliban swept north from Herat to the predominantly Hazara and Uzbek city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in the north. Entering at 10 am on 8 August 1998, for the next two days the Taliban drove their pickup trucks “up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved – shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys.”[67] More than 8000 noncombatants were reported killed in Mazar-i-Sharif and later in Bamiyan.[68] Contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial, the Taliban forbade anyone to bury the corpses for the first six days while they rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs.[69] In addition to this indiscriminate slaughter, the Taliban sought out and massacred members of the Hazara, a mostly Shia ethnic group, while in control of Mazar.
… Theft was punished by the amputation of a hand, rape and murder by public execution. Married adulterers were stoned to death. In Kabul, punishments were carried out in front of crowds in the city’s former soccer stadium.Women in particular were targets of the Taliban’s restrictions. They were prohibited from working; from wearing clothing regarded as “stimulating and attractive,” including the “Iranian chador,” (viewed as insufficiently complete in its covering); from taking a taxi without a “close male relative”; washing clothes in streams; or having their measurements taken by tailors.
… Employment for women was restricted to the medical sector, since male medical personnel were not allowed to examine women. One result of the banning of employment of women by the Taliban was the closing down in places like Kabul of primary schools not only for girls but for boys, because almost all the teachers there were women.
… Women were also not permitted to attend co-educational schools; in practice, this prevented the vast majority of young women and girls in Afghanistan from receiving even a primary education.
… Women were made to wear the burqa, a traditional dress covering the entire body except for a small screen to see out of. Taliban restrictions became more severe after they took control of the capital. In February 1998, religious police forced all women off the streets of Kabul and issued new regulations ordering “householders to blacken their windows, so women would not be visible from the outside.”[59] Home schools for girls, which had been allowed to continue, were forbidden. In June 1998, the Taliban stopped all women from attending general hospitals,[61] leaving the use of one all-women hospital in Kabul. There were many reports of Muslim women being beaten by the Taliban for violating their version of the Sharia.
Lest we think the Taliban has somehow turned over a new leaf:
… In February 18, 2009 the president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari signed a deal with the Taliban to implement Shariah law in some parts of Pakistan banning all the girls from school.
Great bunch of guys those Taliban.
So, back to this change we can hardly believe in. President Obama, who is NOT a Muslim, is ready to reach out to moderate Taliban to negotiate or reconcile… Gee, too bad FDR didn’t think to reach out to moderate Nazis. From AP/Chicago Tribune:
President Barack Obama says he hopes U.S. troops can identify moderate elements of the Taliban and move them toward reconciliation.
By definition, there are no moderate elements of the Taliban, just as there were no “moderate elements” of the Nazi Party.
Asked in an interview with The New York Times if the United States is winning in Afghanistan, Obama said “no,” while adding “our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation.”
Even if we are not winning, why do Democrats insist on telling the enemy that they are winning. Recall that Harry Reid declared that we had already lost in Iraq and needed to withdraw; thankfully leaders in our country ignored the calls for surrender, ignoring the left-wing hand wringers like Reid, Pelosi and Obama.
“But you’ve seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years. The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think … in the southern regions of the country, you’re seeing them attack in ways that we have not seen previously,” Obama said in the interview, which was posted Saturday on the Times’ Web site.
“The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people,” he said. “And so it’s going to be critical for us to not only, get through these national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we’ve got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al-Qaida and extremists that would do us harm don’t have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate.”
Peeling off a few “moderates”, if they exist, could be helpful, but the fact is we have two choices here. We can either defeat the enemy, in this case the Taliban, or negotiate an “acceptable” end to hostilities.
The Taliban will not, can not, just abandon their religion just because the United States wants them to, especially since our own president has already informed them that he knows we are losing.
The alternative to victory in Afghanistan is a return to all of those wonderful laws outlined at the beginning of this post.
Change we can believe in… indeed.
