Taliban Hangs Afghan Boy, 7, for Spying

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CBS News

Taliban militants accused a seven-year-old boy of spying and hanged him earlier this week in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, a local government official tells CBS News.

Provincial government spokesman Daud Ahmadi confirmed the incident which took place on Tuesday in the Taliban stronghold of Sangin, in Helmand. Ahmadi told CBS News' Fazul Rahim the boy was hanged in public after a Taliban commander read a verdict out loud, accusing the youth of spying for international forces.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that, if confirmed by his national government, the hanging would be "heart breaking and shocking."

Karzai spoke in Kabul at a joint news conference with Britain's new Prime Minister David Cameron, who was in town for his first visit as head of state. Cameron said the alleged hanging would be a "horrific crime... a crime against humanity," if proven.

A local resident in the remote village of Sang e Hissar, in the Sangin valley, tells CBS News he witnessed the hanging. The man says three militants brought the boy before a crowd of about 150 people, read the short verdict, and then hanged him from a tree.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20007316-503543.html?tag=stack

---

Unbelievable! Someone needs to find and lock up everyone involved in this!

[bluestateguy]

1. It's too bad it was the extreme neo-cons that coined the label "Islamofascist"

because that label is appropriate here.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. "Religious fanatics" or "fundamentalists" will suffice.

With the advantage of not excluding others due to a perfunctory different choice of mythology.

[superconnected]

9. At that point you may as well call it, HUMAN RACE.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

15. Last time I checked, a sizable chunk of the population are NOT fundamentalists. -nt

[snake in the grass]

38. Regardless of their actions...

...they are not fascists. The term is an absolute misnomer.

[niceypoo]

39. Fascism is based on capitalism

Its an ignorant label

[bluestateguy]

42. Such a label would be fair to Saudi Arabia, though

Capitalism in that state is only for the benefit of the state.

[wordpix]

2. "brought the boy before a crowd of about 150 people" & no one tried to stop the hanging?

These are the people we're fighting and dying for---they won't even TRY to stop 3 Taliban criminals from lynching a 7 yo boy?

[no limit]

11. Living your life in fear and oppression does fucked up things to people

do you honestly think if you were in that position you would have given up your life for that boy? I doubt it.

[TheMadMonk]

14. It's not the 3 doing the hanging. It's the 30-40 out there in the wilds...

...that would maim or kill every living person in the villiage if even one had tried to intervene.


That said, I do not believe that this is a shaved whit worse than wiping out entire families for the sole crime of being between US forces and where they've been told a bad guy might be.

[Kali]

3. sounds like bullshit to me

stir the masses with horror stories, send more troops

[secondwind]

5. I wouldn't put it past them, though.

[zazen]

8. in a culture where it's okay to rape & throw acid on 9-year-old girls, this is believable

I only wish this were bullshit.

[Prometheus Bound]

58. What evidence do you have that their culture condones rape and acid-throwing?

That's just bigoted.

[zazen]

59. so how do your describe 9-15 year olds who are forced into marriage? consenting?

Forcing pubescent females into marriages where there is a rate of battering approaching 85%, according to estimates by Afghan feminists, is abuse and rape. Consent is not possible under those circumstances.

I didn't know anyone on DU actually defended the Taliban. Wow.

[Prometheus Bound]

63. Any evidence that Afghanistan culture condones acid-throwing?

[FLPanhandle]

13. The Taliban are nothing but horror stories

No need to make anything up. Their abuse is normally targeted to girls and women though.

[Jennicut]

19. No, please read up on what the overly radically religious has done to people

in many Arab countries. The way women are treated...no surprise they go after children to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_treatment_of_women
I don't want us in Afghanistan but the Taliban does enforce a strict way of life.

[Rebubula]

20. Nope...

..this is real and worse.

Just because the US does some fucked up stuff does NOT mean that we are the worst.

[leftynyc]

21. Then you don't know squat

about the taliban. Ruthless motherfuckers who kill women and children every fucking day.

[Old Vet]

32. These fucking Stories are true...........

Geez, Just talk to some of the fellas coming home. I talk to a couple regularly in Afganistan and its getting UGLY over there.

[grantcart]

41. Right there's no evidence of this kind of thing.

In the meantime CBS quotes a Taliban spokesman as saying the killing of 40 at a wedding party in a neighboring province was justified:


The hanging comes as a Taliban commander in neighboring Kandahar province -- the Taliban's traditional home territory -- tells CBS News that a suicide attack on a wedding party that left 40 people dead was "collective punishment" for villagers standing up to the Islamic militants' control in the region.

[chrisa]

43. This is entirely believable.

These are the same people that crush little girls' skulls with concrete blocks in mob attacks for little things like kissing a boy.

[sharp_stick]

4. Fundie shitbags of any stripe

are the scourge of humanity. I despise them all.

[pipoman]

54. Despising someone because of their beliefs makes you a shitbag,

despising someone because of their actions which effect you or innocent people negatively is justified.

[Soylent Brice]

7. .

K&R

[Tempest]

10. We have our own religious fanatics who kill children

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/21faith.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

[Regret My New Name]

24. The Taliban have religious fanatics who kill children

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20007316-503543.html?tag=stack

[Regret My New Name]

25. We have our own fanatics who kill children

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/21faith.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

[Regret My New Name]

26. The Taliban has religious fanatics who kill children

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20007316-503543.html?tag=stack

[YOY]

12. Sounds like they better get their shit together for when we leave...else they might come back.

Oh wait...we're never leaving! Problem solved.

[KansDem]

16. Just how does a 7-year-old "spy?"

This is horrific!

The the boy really know what he was doing? I can't believe a 7-year-old has the maturity and where-with-all to glean sensitive information and pass it on in a coherent message.

[chrisa]

44. They paranoid fundamentalists.

Just like any oppressors - paranoid to the boot and will kill anybody who looks at them funny .

[wellst0nev0ter]

64. Seems There's More To The Story

The boy was a grandson to a tribal elder, and it seems that the Taliban wanted to settle a personal vendetta against the the family and used the espionage charge as an excuse. Still horrific, but makes more sense.

[burnsei sensei]

17. It's not a hanging.

It is a lynching.
We've seen them here before.
I would suggest our armies play the song "Strange Fruit" wherever members of the Taliban are in earshot.

[Jennicut]

18. Obviously used to send a message to other people in that area.

Don't cross the Taliban.
Afghanistan has such a sorry state of govt. plus the Taliban. The people are the ones who suffer over and over again, and our presence probably does more harm then good half the time.

[leftynyc]

23. So what's the answer?

Do we leave and condemn the women and children to the life they had when the taliban were in charge? Do we stay and.....what?

[Jennicut]

27. No easy answer. If we stay much longer, we bring our own country down.

If we leave, the Taliban may just come back in the same #'s they were at before we invaded. The trick is finding the periphery of the Taliban and probably bribing them to turn on the Taliban. Hell, we bribed the Awakening in Iraq (a Sunni group).

[leftynyc]

31. I see your point

but can't help but thinking (really knowing) that once the money dries up, the freakshow will be back in full force.

[wellst0nev0ter]

65. Hopefully This Will Backfire On Them

Like how those Iraq beheading videos stopped because it disgusted the Arab world.

[hamsterjill]

22. The poor little boy!

I don't care who he was, what he'd done or not done, what they do or don't do routinely over there or anywhere else in the world for that matter. This is sick. This is wrong. This is a child!

Can any of us even begin to imagine the fear?

[superconnected]

28. A boycott of products until they fix their violations of human rights. I know we have one for them

to stop their nuclear program which won't work in that case because they're nuclear plan is more for defense company profits than anything else(protection is the idea sold to the world), they don't care if the people suffer while big business makes a buck. I suspect if our country refused to do business with Iran all together, they would start changing their laws because it costs the businesses in power there, money. At the top, it's money that rules, even in Iran, and not religion. Religion is used as a suppression to take money from the people and make them obey. The people at the top will be ignoring the religious dictates. All wars trace back to money/aquisition no mater what the announced motive. Financial interest is usually behind suppression.

Even in America - freeing the slaves meant paying for labor, giving women equality meant equal pay which costs quite a bit more than when we were making 40 cent's on the dollar of what a man made. It was a financial suppression. It's important to keep Mexican immigrants illegal so the large farms that employ immigrant labor can keep paying them very low. They threaten to way-up the cost of produce if they can't keep these people suppressed and pay low wages.

[Tempest]

30. You're in the wrong place

This thread is about Afghanistan and you're talking about Iran.

[superconnected]

35. Right.

[maxsolomon]

40. yes, let us boycott Opium and Hashish!

that's about all they make.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

46. I would but I gotta get my fix.... otherwise these goddamn spiders won't go away. nt

[Lucky Luciano]

29. Fucking Savages. nt

[entanglement]

33. What a pity he didn't survive till the next wedding party to be blown up by a $10 million missile

and written off as collateral damage in a 'necessary' war.

/I'm not excusing the Taliban criminals in ANY way, just noting that some of the sympathy seems phony and situational. Are people REALLY bothered by the fate of this unfortunate young Afghan and others like him? Or is he merely a propaganda pawn in a sick, lengthy and destructive conflict that seems destined to go on for ever?

[Desertrose]

34. Good point.

Guess its all relative....children/people dying that is.

[JI7]

50. i think people really are horrified that people would intentionally kill a 7 year old kid

like this.

[leftynyc]

53. I understand what you're saying, however,

the reality is that if we leave, which is what I'm guessing you're wanting, crap like this lynching will become an everyday occurance and women will once again become virtual slaves. Are you okay with that?

[entanglement]

66. Imperialism is never justified. I doubt that warmongers care one whit for Afghan women

or children, though that is the excuse on their lips. So please spare me the propaganda. The people of Afghanistan have the right to determine their future without the meddling of others. We, on the other hand, are morally responsible for this war and ALL its consequences, including devastating bombing raids on innocents. Any continuation of this conflict will only lead to the death of more innocents. Are YOU okay with that?

[superconnected]

36. With 150 present they do know who commited this - looks like he fled so the police couldn't catch

him.

[kirby]

37. The boy threw rocks at the police, I hear. n/t

[Cass]

45. OMFG. The Taliban are barbarians.

A lot of what they do are crimes against humanity. These dangerous nutjobs need to be put down for good.

[NutmegYankee]

47. Why lock them up?

Lets hang them and see how they like it for their ~2 minutes before the world goes dark.

[SoapBox]

48. Sick...just, plain, sick.

...this is what you get when you have uneducated and indoctrinated religious wackos. They hang children.

America? Wake up.

[demigoddess]

49. all the patriarchal religions share the blame. It starts with Genesis and ends with

the crucifixion they all have death on the brain and have no belief that keeps them from killing children. Priests molest children, they have honor killings in some places, brides were expected to jump on the pyres of their husbands, women are expected to bear children even if it kills them or the children rather than get an abortion, child brides in some cults. They all have their roots in the same idea, that men are superior and women and children are chattel who have no rights.

[cali]

51. No they don't..

[proteus_lives]

52. so "demigoddess"

Non-patriarchal religions are all sweetness and light?

[AngryAmish]

55. Way to go, Bush!

[happyslug]

56. Doesn't anyone here understand how nasty Guerrilla warfare is?

Given that the key to Guerrilla warfare is that you hold onto no one piece of land how do you handle a spy (of any age)? You can not put him in prison, for that requires you to have a secure area (Which Guerrillas do have, but reserved for supplies and training NOT for holding prisoners, the main reason is if the secure area is attack, the defense is limited to delaying the attack till everyone else is out, prisoners are NOT that easy to move).

Thus guerrillas, sooner or later, face an unpleasant situation. How do you handle a spy given that you can NOT jail him? You have three choices, Kill them, release them or punitive punishment (i.e. whip them). Whipping them or releasing the spy permits whatever information the spy has to get back to the enemy. Thus execution is the norm with guerrillas. Surprising, whenever a Guerrilla army converts to conventional action, such executions drop, basically for the reason they now hold territory and can set up prisons (This happened in 1974 during the fall of Vietnam). Now we have to be careful the conventional attack MUST be based on a good chance of success, if the chances of success is slim and the guerrilla expect to revert back to guerrilla warfare at the end of the conventional action, such executions continue (This is what happened during the TET offensive of 1968 in Vietnam).

The problem with the Taliban is they are fighting a Guerrilla war. Apparently they hold onto most of Afghanistan but can NOT stop American (or its allies) moving at will throughout Afghanistan (This was the same situation in the 1960s in Vietnam). In the area not under Taliban Control, the Taliban can also move at will but have to be careful to avoid US or allied troops (i.e. the people tend to support the Taliban and thus will not turn them in and in face will guide them around dangers and even give them food and a safe place to sleep, again what the Vietnamese did for the Viet Cong in areas of South Vietnam under the control of the South Vietnamese Government). I will not go into what happened in Vietnam after 1968 (The US and South Vietnamese Government slowly, but surely took most areas of South Vietnam out of Viet Cong hands and into the hands of the South Vietnamese Government but never destroyed the ability of the Viet Cong to move at will if the Viet Cong just avoided contact with US or South Vietnamese forces, thus when North Vietnam send in conventional forces in 1972 and again in 1974 the Viet Cong could re-appear and asst the offensive, in 1974 permitting North Vietnam to take over all of South Vietnam, notice by then most of the Guerrilla activities had died down do to the lost of control of much of Rural South Vietnam by the Viet Cong after 1968).

I bring up Vietnam for the US is in a similar situation in Afghanistan today as it was in 1965, a rural revolt against the Central Government (The Taliban in Afghanistan, the Viet Cong in Vietnam), funded by outside sources (North Vietnam with the Viet Cong, Saudi Arabia/Pakistan intelligence services and other radical Islamic groups as to the Taliban). The US knew it had to defeat the backbone of the Viet Cong, its support from the peasants and that require infantry to occupy as much as the country as possible. Thus in a country less then 1/3 of the area of Afghanistan, the US committed over 10 times the number of troops. This high level of Infantry permitted the US to slowly suppress the Viet Cong. Now Vietnam had a much higher population then Afghanistan do to the fact it was and is a rice growing area as opposed to the wheat/herding semi- desert area of Afghanistan. Furthermore the Taliban are not the Viet Cong. Not withstanding these differences, the fact that the US has 1/10th of the Troops in an area three times as large does NOT get me to believe that the US has a winning policy in Afghanistan.

South Vietnam area:
173,809 km2 (67,108 sq mi)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam

Afghanistan Area:
647,500 km2, 251,772 sq mi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan

US and Allied troops in Vietnam:
United States: 536,100 (1968)
South Korea: 312,853,
Australia: 49,968 (1962–1973)<[br />Thailand, Philippines: 10,450
New Zealand: 3,890 (1964-1973)

Another source gives these lower numbers for South Korea and other allies in Vietnam:
South Kora has 50,000 troops in South Vietnam
7,672 combat troops, New Zealand's 552.
10,450 Filipino troops

Compare those totals to what the US has in Afghanistan:
The US has only 48,000 troops in Afghanistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

In the Soviet war in Afghanistan the Former Soviet Union committed 118,000 troops, twice the number of US Troops in Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan

Now today's US army is more technically advance then the Soviet Army of the 1980s and even the US Army of the 1960s, but when it comes to OCCUPYING a Country, it is infantry that does the job NOT technology. People tend to forget when it came to moving a huge number of men into a country the US showed it could do that in 1965 when the US first sent in troops to Vietnam. Similar attacks where done by the Soviets whenever they moved into Afghanistan (And the US show it could do it easily in Panama, Grenada and even in the liberation of Kuwait in 1990). The problem is none of these types of attacks are of any real value against guerrillas. Most Guerrillas when such attacks occur, come out of their hide-holds without their weapons and watch the show. That is all they can do. The problem is how to relate that massive movement to every village in the country? The Answer you can't unless the village people want it do so. Thus sooner or later the attacking forces have to break up and try to occupy the villages to force them to comply with the change caused by the rapid attack. The Villages raise objections via guerrilla activities which must be suppressed if the army that took the country whats to hold the country. Thus you have the traditional military rule of thumb, it takes three times the number of troops to hold onto a country then to take it.

Now, back to this execution. It is a sad face of Guerrilla warfare that such atrocities occur. We can dislike them but we have to understand it is part of the process of fighting a guerrilla war. It is not religious in nature, it is inherent in any guerrilla war, done by the Chinese fighting the Japanese during WWII, Poncho Villa against the Mexican Government during the Mexican Civil War, FARC in present day Columbia, and even the US in the fight against the British during the US War for Independence. These atrocities are ignored for most historians are uncomfortable with them. When they come up it is an attack on some group the Historian opposes (For example similar stories told of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, during the Paris Commune of 1871, various nasty strikes during the late 1800s early 1900s in the US. These are all periods of stress with people worried about security and spies and facing no sure way to prevent such spying except by execution. I am not trying to justify the execution but lets keep it in context. Yes, this is being done by the Taliban, but they oppose the US occupation of Afghanistan. As long as they can oppose the occupation but not drive out the US the Taliban has to use such tactics as unpleasant as there are. It is the fault of being at war not anything else.

[Prometheus Bound]

57. I really doubt the Taliban did this.

If they were doing it to send a message to the locals, why would they deny it?

This is from the OP's CBS report. Contrast this with the headline:

A Taliban source in Helmand told CBS News' Sami Yousafzai on Thursday he was aware of the boy being killed, but that it was a case of a militant settling a personal vendetta against the boy's family, then using the spying charges as an excuse. The source said he believed the boy's executor had fled across the border to Pakistan.

Here's another one from the Propaganda Times. Compare the headline with the ending:

Taleban hang 7-year-old boy to punish family
.....Mr Faryie said that there were conflicting reports within the village over who was responsible. “Some people said that it was Taleban,” he said. “Some people said they were private enemies. Some Taleban I spoke to said that he was a spy. Some said that it wasn’t them.”

.....Qari Yousef Ahmaid, the Taleban spokesman, denied that any of his militants were involved. “The Taleban’s enemies are the Afghan Government and the foreign forces,” he said. “We never kill children. Everyone knows a seven-year-old can’t be a spy.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7147378.ece

[Psephos]

60. "If they were doing it to send a message to the locals, why would they deny it?"

One message is for internal consumption.

The other message is for international consumption.

You don't seem to understand how guerrilla warfare works.

[Prometheus Bound]

61. Yes, but I understand how war propaganda works.

Demonize the enemy!

[Ignis]

62. The Taliban? I thought we won that war!

:sarcasm: