Was that program on CNN * real * ?
That was horrible.
Well, actually I think it probably didn’t show half the craziness and the atrocities that have been perpetuated by the Taliban on the peoples of Afghanistan. The whole thing was sickening. But two particular parts stood out:
1.) I nearly lost it when the interviewer asked a Taliban official why the Taliban was using the futbol stadium that international agencies had funded and built to raise Afghan spirits for executions, and he had the utter gall to say that if those agencies would build them a proper place to do their executions, then they wouldn’t have to use the stadium to do their work. He was serious about that shit. I just feel sick just thinking about how he sat there smiling and feeling proud of the fact that his organization kills and mutilates defenseless people in a public arena and in essence asking international agencies to send money so they could build an execution building. He said that knowing that folks would see that documentary, and he couldn’t see how absolutely asinine and utterly demented he sounded!
2.) Then there was the part where she was interviewing the three girls who’d been crying non-stop for days. The Taliban had arrested their father and told the mother to take her daughters somewhere else because they wanted to use the house. When the mother protested asking where she was supposed to go–especially since the Taliban thinks that women need to stay at home–they shot her in front of one of her daughters. When the interviewer asked the girls what the Taliban had done to them after shooting their mother, they would not say. I am haunted and sickened beyond words by this segment of the documentary.
I know journalists use plenty of poetic license in their work to senationalize things, and there were some cheesy elements in this documentary–like the female interviewer constantly making reference to how dangerous what she was doing was–but, I don’t think she captured half of what those people must be suffering. She couldn’t and stay sane. [shudder]
That documentary just left me reeling and wondering how can any country that says it practices Islam, a religion promoting peace and love, support bin Laden and the Taliban? They must know what they are doing to the Afghan peoples.
Which makes me think that we can’t deal with these guys. They think really, really differently than we do. Not because they are assholes, but because there is a cultural, sociological thing that we cannot understand about them.
The bodies got to me, particualarly the “skinned” one; I couldn’t help but think that this was old film of stuff the Russkies did, that no one would do this to their own.
http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/index.html
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)webpage. AS posted by others on this board.
WARNING: not for the faint or heart or those easily shocked.
If anyone missed this it’s being reaired tonight (Sunday) at 7ET I believe. (CNN again.) I could only watch about 7 minutes or so before I knew I couldn’t handle it. I’m sorta cheezed off that this is something we’re just now seeing when it would fall into the category of wartime propaganda. (I’m sure they didn’t just slap it together, did they?) I know a lot of people like Oprah Winfrey have been trying to call attention to the RAWA website and this sort of thing for years.
I’ve just been reading about the Nazis showing propaganda films about Jews.
ChinaGuy, thank you for the link. I couldn’t look at too many of the pictures, but they were just as awful as I suspected they would be. What the Taliban has done in the name of their brand of Islam, if you can call that Islam, is unspeakably inhumane. It hurts my heart.
carnivorousplant said:
"Which makes me think that we can’t deal with these guys. They think really, really differently than we do. Not because they are assholes, but because there is a cultural, sociological thing that we cannot understand about them.
I agree. I’m against war with the Taliban, monsters that they are, because I feel that they and whichever governments/individuals are backing them are just toying with us, hoping to lure us into a religious fight, when religion has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it. This is about power and money and hate. You’re right that they think differently than we do. So many years of war and killing have completely warped them into something inhumane. They have no respect for human life.
You’re right that we can’t understand the Taliban; Afghanistan’s different tribal cultures who’ve been feuding with each other for years; or other Muslim cultures. We can’t because Americans generally and the American educational curriculum in particular has kept itself and its students in ignorance of these and of other cultures. Yes, we can’t relate to cultures who think it is the epitome of glory to die for Allah or who think that women should not be seen because they inspire evil thoughts in men. Until the WTC and Pentagon attacks, I had no clue that a lot of Muslim countries hate America and its citizens. I pride myself on the fact that I actively reach out to other cultures and try to learn about them, try to find some common ground, and celebrate the differences as best I can, but my level of ignorance about Muslim cultures scares me speechless. At any rate, American ignorance of these cultures is what scares me the most because we can’t see the larger picture. There’s a game being played, but I’m not sure what it is.
I think what we’re dealing with is not so much SOCIOLOGICAL as it is PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL and yet CALCULATED. To my mind there is nothing sociological about the senseless decimation of defenseless people. The Taliban operates through miseducation and unspeakable cruelty. They warp young minds who do not have access to information other than what the Taliban supplies and keep in ignorance or kill outright anyone who could possibly think critically about and question what they are doing. It just hurts my heart to contemplate that level of evil, though I imagine it exists, not just in Afghanistan with the Taliban, but in other countries and cultures as well.
Voguevixen, yeah, I was thinking the same thing about timing. I didn’t catch when this documentary was made, but you’re damn skippy it wouldn’t be airing on primetime on CNN or any other channel otherwise. I really don’t know if this documentary has been aired before. Maybe it was shown on PBS at some time.
Sorry to disagree, Celestina, but I saw this documentary on CNN weeks before the bombing. They’re obviously just re-running it because it is topical. It also agrees with what I’ve read elsewhere. This is not propaganda in the style of the reports about hospital atrocities just before Desert Shield/Storm.
As for them constantly saying things they were doing were “dangerous” – well, watch the documentary. They were. I’d be scared enough to keep repeating it.
Hey CalMeacham,
I don’t care if you disagree with me. Thank you for setting the record straight on when this documentary was aired and clarifying other things as well.
As far as the repetition of how dangerous things were, I know they were dangerous, and if the audience was watching the horrible things the documentary was showing, it wouldn’t have taken too much effort to figure out how dangerous things were either. As I watched that documentary, I didn’t have any trouble figuring out the danger. It was the MOST obvious thing about it. It’s just a preference with me that folks SHOW rather than TELL. Of course, I can’t judge the interviewer in this documentary because as you rightly note, she and her crew were in the thick of it, and it had to be nervewracking, and if I were in that woman’s shoes, who knows what I would’ve been saying, but I can guess I’d be far less eloquent than that her! 
7 pm. I just got home from work at one. Any chance they’re showing it again again? (I saw the promo and meant to watch it, but I think I was working both times.)
but this show gave 'em to me…
I only watched about 45 min - the corpse that had his face removed (at least I HOPE it was in that order) did me in. Had to turn it off.
I agree about the official & his comments about having a “proper” place to do the executions. I cannot fathom that mindset.
I wanted to watch it. But 20 minutes into it my 8yr old son came wandering into the living room and I had to turn it off. No way I wanted to subject him to that.
Here’s a transcript of an internet chat with the journalist featured in the show. I tried to find when it might air again but they only have listings for the current days.
Thank you for sharing that interview, voguevixen.
The maker of this documentary is on Larry King right now. They also said it’ll be shown on CNN again this Sunday at 11PM EDT.
oh. my. god.
I just watched the show (a re-run). I feel sick to my stomach. I feel dirty. I want to cry. I want to adopt a bunch of refugee children and hug them forever. I feel SO SORRY for the people living under the Taliban regime. How are they managing to survive? That they are, in fact, surviving is a true testament to the strength of the human spirit.
The Taliban official made me so angry, sitting there and talking about how they have imposed law and rule, and now there are jobs and peace. And the thing with the football stadium was just horrific. The whole show was disturbing, and the music was chilling. That one riff that kept playing, it sounded like it was being played on a cello…I’m going to have to listen to music tonight while trying to fall asleep, to keep it out of my head.
I agree with the other posters, and I’ve been saying this for the past couple of weeks- I don’t think we can understand the Taliban and their mindset, no matter how much we try, because their culture and society is so totally different from ours, plus there is the fundamentalist/insane spin of the Taliban.
The woman who made the documentary and her crew are VERY brave souls. The women who are in the resistance are VERY brave souls. The people who have found the courage to keep on living in what must be hell on earth are VERY brave. I don’t necessarily want to go to war, and I’m not trying to start a debate, but damn I hope the US is instrumental in getting the Taliban overthrown.
And this is why I advocate removing the Taleban from power completely before we’re through in Afghanistan. If it requires killing them, I really don’t have a problem with that. These slime are something out of the dark ages and have to be stopped. I know people despise me for this but I wish we could have sent a cruise missile into their 300 member convocation when they decided not to hand over ObL. The more of them we get at once the happier I am. I cannot abide the thought of having women’s rights being set back so many centuries.