I find it very difficult to accept that the Taliban is still around. Recent reports have the Taliban continuing their guerrilla tactics in Afghanistan. Pakistan is having all kinds of problems with the Taliban. Pakistan’s northern region, the Swat valley, is now in the Taliban’s control. How? A country with nuclear capability, seemingly allows a third world brand of people, to take control of the mountainous region just near the Afghan border. Hard for me to fathom this. Of course, Pakistan is made up of the same type of people who created what is known as the Taliban. This should not surprise me at all, but it does. How could a rag-tag bunch of robe wearing, sandal shuffling, AK-47 toting, Toyota driving bunch of nuts be so lucky? I just don’t get it.

I’ll tell you one thing. If they have been lucky, it certainly wasn’t any of the Taliban’s doing. These guys know more of their religion than any disciplined tactic of fighting. Shouldn’t they go around like Buddhists monks, and teach the peacefulness of Islam? They are already dressed similar, with all the robes, rags, and sandals associated with non-violent monks or priests. Instead, the Taliban drives around in their white, Toyota trucks, placing improvised explosive devices all over Afghanistan, causing strife with the local populace and our brave American soldiers. The poor people of Afghanistan and now the, ‘what do we do now?’ Pakistanis government are infected with the disease the world calls the Taliban. American fighting forces have literally been fighting with the Taliban since 2001. To think that we may have encouraged the appearance of such a miss-guided bunch with helping the Afghans fight the Soviets in the eighties.

That’s right. We, the Americans gave so much funding to the Mujahideen, who in the early eighties, were fighting the mighty Soviet empire. Osama bin Laden was there coordinating all the fighters who came to participate in the jihad against the foreign invaders and in charge of disbursing what weapons went to whom. Finally, in the early 90′s, the juggernaut Russian army had enough and withdrew. Our funding and advisers left too. Abandoning the poor Afghan people, the rest of the world forgot about what they went through and went on with their happy lives. The Taliban took full advantage of this and introduced the most strictest interpretation of Islamic law ever.

Sharia law, implemented in Afghanistan under the one eye of Mulluh Mohammed Omar. With a patch on his bad eye, the founder of Taliban regime looked more like a pirate in Arab garb. Omar’s interpretation of Sharia law shocked the outside world. Religious police ensured that no one possessed televisions, boom boxes, hanging pictures in the home, men could not shave, no photographs, no dancing, hell, they wouldn’t even let you fly a kite! I could go on and on. The men had it rough. The Afghan women were the biggest losers.

The women of Afghanistan were singled out by Sharia law. They were not allowed to attend school, go to hospitals, show their faces in public, have a job or ride in a taxi without a male relative. It was barbaric. The religious police would beat violators within inches of their lives. Men and women. If you were caught stealing, off with your hand. If you committed adultery, you were stoned to death. With rocks, not weed. Only women could be convicted of adultery. Not men.

Women had it very bad in Afghanistan and men too for that matter. What I definitely worry about is if the Taliban gains control of Pakistan. That country was the birth place of the Taliban in the first place. Could you imagine these guys ruling a country with a small nuclear arsenal? Mess with them this time and someone could get a butt load of radiation. It will probably happen to their own people, when its discovered that someone broke Sharia law. Picture that in your head and try to not to have bad dreams. Nightmares of how terrible the Taliban continue to be.

Jeff Payne

Popularity: 3%