Abandoning your laws in the name of expediency is a sign of a failing rule.

[Robb]

...Surprise, I'm talking about the Afghan Taliban.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/hanging-of-eightyearold-turns-many-against-taliban-20100624-z3ds.html?from=age_sb">Hanging of eight-year-old turns many against Taliban

The Taliban's execution of an eight-year-old accused of ''collaborating'' with foreign forces has proved too much even for Afghans hardened by three decades of fighting.

''Islam does not permit anyone to sentence a minor to execution,'' said Mawlawi Mehr Del, deputy head of the Muslim clerical council in Helmand. ''It is against Islam, against sharia. God may be extremely upset with them. Those who do something like this are neither jihadis nor Taliban, they are enemies of human life.''

Islamic law prohibits the execution of anyone under 18. The Taliban's own code of conduct, drawn up by the movement two years ago, stipulates that no commander may order the execution of minors.

But a senior Taliban member, Mullah Abdul Bari, suggested that code of conduct did not apply in Helmand: ''The code has been changed for Helmand because the number of infidels there has increased, and the Taliban don't have the time to hold trials.'' That meant that local commanders in Helmand province are allowed to use their own discretion to pass judgment on people accused of spying and punish them accordingly......

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/hanging-of-eightyearold-turns-many-against-taliban-20100624-z3ds.html?from=age_sb

[SunnySong]

1. Gee the Taliban are nut upstanding moral people... color me surprised. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. But I thought they were like the NaVi.

:shrug:

[WeDidIt]

3. And we're just after their unobtainium. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Notice over night....

how the conspiracy theory shifted from being about an oil pipeline to being about lithium?

[WeDidIt]

5. We need something for the batteries in those new cars you know. n/t

[Hissyspit]

9. Ha, ha. I know what you mean. Anti-war leftists are SO stupid.

They should be mocked. They are wrong about everything, well, at least since the Democrats took over.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. I am an anti-war leftist.

It's not anti-war leftists we're talking about.

[whatchamacallit]

12. Ha!

Now I've heard everything :rofl:

[Hissyspit]

13. I wasn't addressing you so much...

The announcement of the minerals find in Afghanistan was blatant propaganda, pretty clearly, no matter your stand on the various theories about our motivations for being there.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. No, the announcement about minerals was the result of a geological survey.

It's got nothing to do with the war.

We're not building lithium mines, or any sort of mines.

[Hissyspit]

16. We don't have to be.

[Hissyspit]

7. Um, I imagine it can be about both?

Just a thought.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

10. It's neither.

[Wilber_Stool]

6. Oops, wrong thread.

Never mind.

[Hissyspit]

8. That doesn't just apply to the Taliban.

But, yay, a whole thread trying to convince me that the Viet Cong, er, I mean the Taliban, are not resurgent.

http://www.juancole.com/2010/06/lessons-of-petraeus-iraq-for-petraeus-afghanistan.html

"No such major social-historical change (as in Iraq) has occurred in Afghanistan or is likely to. The Taliban and other insurgents primarily spring from the Pashtun ethnic group that predominates in the east and southwest of the country. Pashtuns probably make up about 42 percent of Afghanistan’s some 34 million people. Pashtun clans provided the top political leadership to Afghanistan from the 18th century, through the Durrani monarchy, and they look down on the northern Tajik and Hazarah ethnic groups (who speak dialects of Persian). Although probably only 20-30 percent of Afghan Pashtuns view the Taliban favorably, more may admire the Taliban as a group that stands up for Afghanistan’s independence from the Western nations now occupying it.

The Pashtuns do not believe that they have been conquered by anyone, and the vast majority of them wants US and NATO troops out of their country. They would fall down laughing at the idea of being afraid of the Tajiks and Hazarahs."

http://www.juancole.com/2010/06/lessons-of-petraeus-iraq-for-petraeus-afghanistan.html

"In short, we have no idea why US troops are being sent to Afghanistan at such an accelerating rate. It isn’t to fight al-Qaeda. And if it is mainly a matter of fighting the Taliban, why should we do that? They are not going to go away, and their brand of Muslim fundamentalism is by now woven deeply into the fabric of rural Pashtun life, such that for foreign Christian troops to argue the Pashtuns out of it at the point of a gun is a fool’s errand.

In fact, the Afghan parliament insisted that some 26 accused Taliban being held in Afghan prisons without sufficient evidence of wrong-doing be released instead."

[KonaKane]

14. The Taliban are reprehensible. And so is the continued US presence in Afghanistan.

Neither will "remedy" the other. The only thing we can do is pull the hell out, and hope that more disgust with their contemptible practices will spread and relugate them to a powerless fringe.

[Robb]

17. There aren't discussion threads any more, are there?

It's just one ink blot test after another around here. :eyes: