While I still maintain that the Taleban should all be rounded up and imprisoned for life in order to prevent them from infecting the minds of Muslim youth, what can be done to show them the error of their ways? Over lunch with a colleague the other day she mentioned a novel solution that merits consideration.
A) Imprison all members of the Taleban in internment camps.
B) Force any inmates wishing to go outdoors to wear the Burkha and meet all clothing restrictions they have attempted to impose upon women.
C) Do not allow any Taleban inmate to go outside without being escorted by an Afghan female prison guard.
D) Subject the Taleban inmates to living with blacked out windows and restricted educational opportunities.
E) Subject all violators to the exact same punishments like lashes and stoning that they previously imposed upon women for similar “offenses”.
In short, give them a dose of their own medicine. However much this reeks of eye-for-an-eye Mosaic law, I cannot help but think that they might quickly arrive at a realization of how corrupt their mentality is. If not, there would still be a measure of satisfaction for the Afghan women who participated in this process.
Anyone else have a better idea as how to go about doing this?
Look, Zenster, why the relentless “revenge on the Taliban” motif? Chill, dude. They’re just religious extremists, not Evil Incarnate. They’re Fundies, not Satanic minions.
Not to mention how completely grotesque it would be for AmeriKKKa to round them up, intern them, and attempt to indoctrinate them out of their chosen religion. Geez, Zenster. Religious brainwashing? What planet are you from?
Should we hire one of those cult deprogramming teams to lock them up in cheap motel rooms for a week? Forced Deprogramming? Tough Love for the Taliban? [extreme sarcasm]
Your cheap revenge fantasies, fact-free and ill-informed are one of the things which brought me back to post here.
I don’t see genuine debates in your revenge fantasies – and they are that, * cheap fantasies *: the US is clearly not going to be able to ‘round-up’ the Taleban-- are probably more fit for the pit.
I will cheerfully accept more logical suggestions as to how the Taleban should be dealt with. My OP reflects the unmitigated rage that women around me routinely express towards the Taleban. I have a similar if not lower opinion of them myself. Personally, I do not see how the Taleban can possibly integrate into modern society. The throwback mentality that their misogyny and violence represent only serves to bring reversal to a majority of what the rest of the world has sought to leave behind in its progress towards human rights and enlightened rule. Their complicity in the World Trade Center atrocity remains the single most damning feature of their conduct.
Colounsbury, first and foremost, welcome back to the boards. It is a dubious honor to have the hostility of my OP require your return but that’s as needs be. I welcome your assuredly more knowledgeable and experienced outlook on these matters. I would especially appreciate your input on my “Credible Deterrent To Terrorism” thread in this same forum. To the point, what way is there to make sure that the poisonous mentality of the Taleban is somehow restrained or brought in line with the necessary rules of conduct that modern society has? That they should continue to infect the minds of Muslim youth is wholly unacceptable to me and I would rather see their rights curtailed as a group than to allow them to continue their ruthless repression of women and promotion of terrorism. Your input on this is most welcome.
Dubious indeed! But, I agree with Zenster in wishing Collounsbury a hearty welcome back! Your wisdom, Collounsbury, has been sorely missed around here!
As for the OP, the most succinct version of this revenge fantasy that I heard was to give them sex change operations and thus have them come back to their own societies truly as women. Certainly fun to contemplate in … But, I think that these are just amusing fantasies and definitely not things that you want to elevate to the level of actual policy for heaven’s sake! Let’s distinguish between what we might like to do at a gut level and what we really ought to do at a societal level!
The ridiculous proposition of sex changes for bin Laden or the Taleban is exactly what I sought to avoid by making my assertions in the OP. I am looking for some viable way to make the Taleban realize just how repulsive their own mentality is as it concerns the treatment of women.
I do not have the patience to wait for their birthrate to decline due to how unattractive a Taleban male is for a life partner (although I certainly hope this will occur). I also fail to see where the Taleban do not represent something within a whisker of war criminals for their viscious suppression of women. I cannot envision any moral validity to their belief structure and could give a rat’s @ss for any historical context that would seemingly lend creedence to their corrupt vision of societal structure.
As usual, no one is checking in with any sort of alternative solutions to the problem being mentioned. I see few if any other methods besides the concept in the OP to make crystal clear to the Taleban the error of their ways. As a woman, DDG, I find it incredible that you criticize my hatred of the Taleban’s misogynistic practices while providing no sort of constructive input. As a man who dearly loves women and their role in society I am absolutely apalled at what the Taleban represent and feel compelled to (rightfully) demonize them at every opportunity. It is impossible for me to see them as anything but cruel throwbacks to a time when viscious and malign maintenance of political power was the norm. The OP is not a “revenge fantasy”, it is a calculated approach to physically demonstrating the horridly repressive mentality the Taleban have to themselves in order to eliminate such diseased treatment of women.
The fact is that the United States will not be able to occupy Afghanistan. To do so would require a base. Pakistan is the only real choice for that. Pakistan is not going to allow that, if the government did so… Well then we would end up with civil war in Pakistan and a situation far worse than before.
Ergo, this is a fantasy. Even were the United States able to do so, mass concentration camps of Taleban fighters would still be out of the question for multiple reasons hardly worth mentioning they seem so clear.
Rather than fantasizing about something that will not ever occur, better to think about those parts of the Muslim world which are reachable, which perhaps might be influenced and how to do so.
Afghanistan is a land of bad and horrible choices and that is that.
As long as the Taleban can maintain their master/slave relationship with women, I am certain that no woman will ever have the option to reject a potential sperm donor on the grounds that he is repulsive.
Sadly, I suspect that rape is just another in a long list of daily inhumanities that women must endure in the Taleban-controled parts of the world.
I am having trouble coming up with anything to answer the OP that does not grow out of my anger towards the Taleban. It’s hard to be constructive in such a state of mind. It will be difficult to pick people out of a crowd based on their religion (or religious fanaticism, in this case).
I would like to think that, once the ordinary people of afghanistan regain control of their country, they will be the ones to determine what happens to fanatical groups within their borders. Whatever assistance we lend will at that time be “officially” sanctioned by The People.
First of all, you can’t re-educate irrational people.
Secondly, the U.S. will find a base if it gets to the point where we have to go in there with ground troops. I’m pretty much certain that that’s what it’s going to take, so look for that to happen. Uzbekistan has already allowed us to stage military operations from their country, and there’s also Turkmenistan.
Whether there will be an actual occupation is doubtful, since this really wouldn’t be necessary. Driving them into the mountains and then letting those who haven’t been killed starve to death up there is all the re-education they need, or want for that matter. They’ve already said they’re willing to die for their “jihad” on more occasions than any of us can count; all we have to do is give them a chance.
Cheap revenge fantasy? Hardly. The simple reality is that the Taliban aren’t going away without getting killed. They’ve said as much openly and publicly over and over. Their actions back up their statements. We have already made the mistake, over and over, of not taking these lunatics at their word. It’s about time we started to realize they’re not playing.
I invite posters on subjects related to Afghanistan and the current conflict to first get out maps.
Contemplate distances. Contemplate where oceans are, contemplate transport issues. Then contemplate history, such as the decade of Soviet intervention.
Then rethink empty jingoistic statements.
(a) Launching an invasion from the Central Asian ‘stans’ is no trivial matter. It involves mass airlifts through Russian airspace. There will be a price for such permission, which I would grant would likely be granted.
(b) It presumes that your base of operations itself remains stable rather than descends into civil war. None of the Central Asian republics are fundamentally stable. The return of large foreign, non-Muslim armies is not likely to improve the situation. Even allowing for short-term security controls being successful – and we should be careful in making strong assumptions given what skills our al-Qaeda friends have – one has to face the longer term consequences.
Cost-Benefit analysis. Are the gains outweighing the losses.
Examinging this further, let’s consider the following. Driving Taleban fighters into the mountains – assuming they continue to mingle with the population-- would require mass population displacement. The Afghan population would have to be targeted. Oh the easy response comes, just seperate the fighters. How are a bunch of farm boys from Kansas going to seperate a Tadjik from a Pashtun, Pashtun Taleban fighter from a Pashtun who just wants to get around? Etc. The result is not hard to imagine. Propaganda coup for… the other side.
So the dirty brown people just have to pay en masse? Then you become Bin Laden.
I am not pacifist nor one to shy away from difficult even terrible and bloody choices. But genocide is not a strategy for long term success, even if it could be imagined to serve short term choices.
Realistic choices, bloody one maybe, have to be made. Not goddamned fantasies based on fucking action movies.
If the Taleban fall, it is going to come from using Afghan fighters agaisnt them, and helping them dissolve from the inside. Policies sure to provoke ethnic solidarity, anti-foreigner solidarity and other unpleasant but well-known traits are going to backfire in the long run.
Zenster, how in the world can you say something sexist like, “Since you are a woman, I would expect you to have certain thoughts and feelings?” It is as a human being that I find their behavior towards their women appalling. However, it is also as a human being that I find their behavior towards their women, if not understandable, then at least explicable.
The members of the Taliban are the members of a religious sect, same as the Latter-Day Saints, same as Baptists, same as Hasidic Jews. Part of their religion involves treating women as non-human. As a human being, I deplore this. As an American, raised to believe in standards of individual freedom and equality between the sexes that are far different from those of the Taliban, I also deplore this. However, it is also as an American that I, while deploring this, simultaneously grant them the individual freedom to pursue their religion. And if somebody else’s religion involves treating women like non-humans, or marrying multiple wives, or refusing to allow public discussion of any other religions, or refusing to eat pork, or going to church on days of the week other than Sunday, or any of the other differences between their religion and mine, then as an American I am anxious to allow them that freedom.
Should Americans grant the right to religious freedom only to other Americans? It’s a different culture, Zenster, with different sets of mores. It’s too bad that their women are treated like dirt, but it’s not America’s job to go over there and “re-educate” the Taliban out of their religion, their mores, their entire culture.
As for a “constructive suggestion” as to what to do with them:
Underlying your OP seems to be a basic assumption that there will come One Fine Day when we will “round up the Taliban”, that they will eventually “lose”, and that they will “surrender”, like at Appomattox, with Lee handing over his sword to Grant, and that we will then have some “Taliban POWs” who will have to be dealt with, that an entire losing side will need to be “dealt with”.
Setting aside for the moment any discussion of the possibility of the Taliban ever officially “surrendering”…
This is a whole culture, Zenster. You can’t put an an entire culture into a resettlement camp. You also seem to be assuming that the “Taliban” is just a leadership cadre of maybe a few hundred men, and that once we “got rid” of them, that their entire Fundamentalist Islamic sect would simply wither away. This is manifestly ridiculous. There are millions of Islamic Fundies out there who believe the same things the Taliban does, but they’re just not as obnoxious or overt about it. Their women don’t wear burqas, but they still don’t have any rights.
You also seem to be assuming that “indoctrinating” this “leadership cadre” would make any difference to the Fundamentalist Sect that these men belong to. Would imprisoning and “indoctrinating” the Rev. Billy Graham, or the Rev. Oral Roberts, have any effect whatosoever on the millions of Christian Fundies out there? Of course not. I’d expect a huge backlash, for one thing. People who weren’t in the “resettlement camps” would take up the banner of Fundamentalism and carry on. You could expect similar results from any similar treatment of the Taliban leadership.
Why do we need to “do something” with them, once the “Afghanistan thing” is over? As I’ve said before, it’s their home, they have a right to live there, and to practice the religion of their choice. The Afghan people have a right to the government they want. It seems that for the last few years, they’ve wanted Islamic Fundamentalists. And now it seems that they may be ready for a change. But it’s not the “American way”, it’s not the way of Democracy, to round up the losers and “re-educate” them. That’s what the Commies did. That’s what Joe Stalin did. Shall we behave like Papa Joe?
What did Abraham Lincoln do with his “losing side”? He simply sent them home, much to the dismay of some in his administration, who angrily demanded punishment for the rebels. If I have to choose between emulating Abraham Lincoln and emulating Joseph Stalin, I’ll take Lincoln, and that’s not just because I live in Illinois.
While I largely agree with DDG, some things should be corrected.
The Afghans did not ‘choose’ the Taleban but early on certainly many folks quite opposing them as they seemed to be the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, some conservatism in religion was clearly welcomed by a large portion of the population reeling from literally decades of near-total war. I don’t imagine any society would be much different in this aspect, a return to reassuring roots.
Second, it is important for all to require that there is not one Afghan people. Rather Afghanistan is an entity made up of many ethnic groups. Many here imagine somehow that the Taleban came out of nowhere. Their practices are rooted in the dominant Pashtun group of the southern half of Afghanistan. More extreme but not utterly alien. Other folks, such as Uzbeks never had such extreme practices and don’t much care for them.
However every bit as much as the Taleban were wrong in imposing their rules on the Tadjiks and Uzbeks, the pretension that Westerners could successfully reeducate a large portion of the population away from their beliefs is fundamentally wrong-headed.
Face it folks. There are no Saturday matinee answers to this. This is not a Rambo in Afghanistan.
And, as a thinking, rational human being I refuse to demonize anything. Ever. I find your celebration of your need to demonize the Taliban perfectly appalling.
Trust me, Zenster, the women around you (the thinking, rational women around you) are not pleased, amused, or flattered by your compelling need to demonize a segment of the human race because of its “other-ness”. Quite frankly, every time you go off on one of your anti-Taliban rants, you scare the crap out of them.
Who elected you a one-man Feminazi army? Who made it your job to single-handedly bring the Gospel of Women’s Lib to the Third World?
Oh boy. You people need some reality training.
We have on display a group which gave its imprimatur to an attack on a country that they not only had no quarrel with, but that had actually helped them no less than a decade ago when they were invaded by a foreign country.
This is not rational behavior.
Their internal policy towards dissidents of any sort is a simple one: kill them.
Their response to us when asked to hand over Bin Laden was also a simple one: come and get him, if you can.
If anyone out there honestly thinks that the vast majority in the U.S. is unwilling to go in there and do precisely that after 9/11, you’re living in a fantasy world.
This is not the USSR going in to prop up some failing regime. Nor is it the British going in on some imperial adventure.
This is a country that was brutally attacked on its home soil going over to attack and destroy the culprits. Nothing more, nothing less. Adjust your thinking: the Taliban has no future. Period.
Rational? Maybe, it is very doubtful the rural, backward untravelled Taleban leaders such as Mullah Omar have more than vaguest understanding of the United States nor what happened on 11 September.
They do, however, have direct and indirect experience with facing off a superpower willing to be far, far more vicious and bloody than the United States and then a decade of unremitting, unrelenting and utterly unforgiving civil war.
Their rationality and their judgement is bounded by their life experiences. As is yours, evidently.
Non-sequitur. The issue is not whether large numbers of Americans currently might support an invasion of Afghanistan, ya ghrabi, it’s whether one could be * effectively * mounted and whether it could reasonably achieve the objectives set out for it: say the capture of Bin Laden and the leadership.
Or would the action led to an endless morass, with massive Afghani deaths, a steady stream of American casaulties and no effective resolution?
Could it be done? Oh yes it could be done.
Would it be intelligent and achieve * our goals* both political and other? I seriously doubt that.
Yes, that is correct. That does not remove the practical, factual problems.
Great, Rambo. I’m sure the movie script makes it just that easy.
Collounsbury, get this through your head, and get it good: there is a vast difference between what happens in a war when a country is defending itself and when its going in on behalf of some third party.
No one believes any of this is going to be easy. But listen to this: as of right now, we have these anthrax letters making the rounds that may or may not be from Al Qaeda. We have no idea how many more Al Qaeda agents are in this country or attempting to make their way towards this country looking to do great harm.
Under these conditions, there is no choice: we will do whatever it takes to get rid of their base in Afghanistan, and to get rid of their principal pillar of support there. It’s not like we can sit around waxing philosophical about whether or not we should or can do this or that. Thousands have already died over here, (as I write this the WTC is still smoking, a month and a half later) and the prospect for more of the same is quite high. Cheney has repeated at every opportunity that in this war the casualties at home are quite likely to be higher than the casualties among our soldiers, and not just because of the deaths at the WTC and the Pentagon.
We are in this fight for our survival, personal and collective.
Do you honestly think, under these conditions, that anything less than total victory is going to be accepted by the American public?
Obviously, no.
Stop that knee from jerking, Collounsbury. This isn’t Vietnam, or Kosovo, or Bosnia, or the Gulf War. It really doesn’t matter how hard it’s going to be anymore, and no one over here is in the least bit interested in understanding anything about the Taliban or Al Qaeda, beyond what it will take to utterly and completely destroy them both.
And you’re right, my outlook is bounded by my life experiences: I saw that attack on the WTC happen outside my office window. My second sentence to my wife on that morning on the phone was: “This is war.” Since that day, everyone over here knows that this is war, and we know it not just intellectually, but in our bones, through and through. There is no room in our minds for anything less than destroying utterly the people who did this to us and are planning more of the same.
That’s my life experience, Collounsbury. I know that it’s us or them, and I for one am rooting for the guys who are trying to make sure it’s them.
Ah, pantom, you annoy me, in a somewhat uninteresting fashion.
Yes, I indeed there are differences. I also understand the reality of policy choices, of achieving real goals rather than feel-good hollywood script goals.
Indeed, except perhaps those who believe that a simple invasion, “driving” the Taleban into the mountains destroys an organization that is not necessarily fully run from or indeed controlled by those in Afghanistan.
They are without much doubt not from al-Qaeda for reasons already well-elaborated in the ‘profiling’ thread. Moreover, I seriously doubt they are in fact by any group connected with al-Qaeda.
In any case, invading Afghanistan --which mind I am not against by any moral grounds at all, any hesitations I express are those purely based on cost-benefit analysis based on my best read of the situation-- does nothing to break up al-Qaeda in the USA.
Fine, Rambo. Great. It’s all scripted.
But al-Qaeda is a diffuse organization. It is ‘cellular’ – the base such as it is in Afghanistan is convenient, but contributed little (except perhaps money, but then I rather doubt that the base’s existance eased the money xfers, based on my practical experience in the region) to the training of the hijackers of 11 September.
Aims in Afghanistan have to be measured agaisnt a global menu of costs and benefits. Does al-Qaeda effectively grow stronger elsewhere from an invasion and chasing after phantoms in Afghanistan, for example.
Your problem is your action movie understanding of the problem. My issue is not the slightest hesitation over spilling blood if necessary. It is achieving the actual goal, not the action flick goals.
If I were convinced a mass invasion could actually be achieved without handing the al-Qaeda kind of people precisely what they need for gaining support, I would support it without reservation.
But that strikes me as not being the case.
Philosophical? I am 100% practical. It is simply, I know something of the issue beyond war films.
I’ll say this once. I am from New York. My old neighborhood’s fire station is still decorated with a shrine. You know the Slope don’t you? I was just across the river in DC when things happened. **Don’t you ever fucking pretend to pull this card on me. ** Ever. I have interest in this.
Good for him. And he is right. That doesn’t mean one has to fight stupid.
I could give a fuck what the American public will accept or not.
What I care about is effectively, intelligently achieving our aims. That is the effective neutralization of al-Qaeda. An simple minded fucking invasion of Afghanistan does not achieve that.
Again, I repeat, I have no issues at all with pursing a war. None with casaulties. Nor do I shrink from the invevitable ‘collataral’ casualties.
However, to win a war, one has to have clear, unsentimental, accurate and above all well informed ideas of how to prosecute and how to achieve one’s actual objectives. Not just fulfill hollywood script ideas.
I’ll add that I have personal skills to contribute and insha’allah I will.
Knee jerking. You have not understood not one single point I have made. Read a bit of my comments here and elsewhere.
[quote]
And you’re right, my outlook is bounded by my life experiences: I saw that attack on the WTC happen outside my office window.
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That’s all well and fine. I refuse to bring my own personal issues into this, other than to say they are as intimate as yours if not more. That does not mean I will accept ignorance and ill-concieved trash as a solid basis for prosecution of war.
Chill, dude. They’re just religious extremists, not Evil Incarnate. They’re Fundies, not Satanic minions.
Religious brainwashing? What planet are you from?