# What's the thinking here??  (Taliban ban on polio vaccinations)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 18, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573 "2012-06-18T21:57:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/21 "2012-06-19T05:38:35Z")

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> [@mister\_nyx](#):
>
> 😕  
> 😕 Well uh maybe except for the case that was already cited in this thread involving **folks** pretending to be medical workers in order to secretly DNA-test locals. I mean, that wasn’t exactly driven by a desire to ensure that Pakistanis receive great medical care. Just sayin’.

One dude, not multiple.

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**Author:** ![mister\_nyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@mister\_nyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_nyx)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/22 "2012-06-19T05:46:58Z")

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> [@al27052](#):
>
> Would you like to have OBL living next door? Or for a more relevant question, how about Eric Robert Rudolph? I fail to see the harm that was caused.

If you can’t understand why it would be harmful to our interests for locals to discover that our supposed “medical care” is actually some military plot to identify and kill people, then I don’t know what to tell you. It seems like it should be pretty obvious that being caught in a lie as big as this is not good for us.

[QUOTE=al27042]  
One dude, not multiple.  
[/QUOTE]

You’re saying we sent over a fake medical professional to do fake medical work, and he was alone? He didn’t have any fake nurses or fake technicians or fake orderlies or whatever other fake medical professionals with him? Sorry, but that claim is kinda absurd.

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**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/23 "2012-06-19T06:44:39Z")

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> [@mister\_nyx](#):
>
> If you can’t understand why it would be harmful to our interests for locals to discover that our supposed “medical care” is actually some military plot to identify and kill people, then I don’t know what to tell you. It seems like it should be pretty obvious that being caught in a lie as big as this is not good for us.  
> You’re saying we sent over a fake medical professional to do fake medical work, and he was alone? He didn’t have any fake nurses or fake technicians or fake orderlies or whatever other fake medical professionals with him? Sorry, but that claim is kinda absurd.

I don’t think it’s “your” medical care. The guy was a doctor and was on the payroll of the Pakistani government, as most polio vaccine workers typically are(not that this guy was a vaccine worker at all). And no, it shouldn’t be harmful to your interests for locals to discover that one individual used a particular pretense to enable the identification and killing of a terrorist. If you’re in the local population, but not a terrorist, you would approve of such action. Or at least not expect it to target you if you’re not a terrorist. [This Pakistani article](http://dawn.com/2012/06/17/smokers-corner-of-birds-and-beasts/) presents evidence to suggest that in the areas where they actually happen, US targeted killings are not as unpopular with locals as may be thought. Relevant sections posted below(bolding etc. mine).

> [@](#):
>
> …not enough is said or done to censure the Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants that are the prime targets of these drones.
> 
> It is next to impossible for civilians living outside the conflict zone and the media to enter these areas. But in 2009 the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy (AIRRA) managed to conduct a relatively widespread survey of the public opinion about the drone strikes in FATA.
> 
> Five teams of five researchers each, interviewed a total of 550 residents belonging to all walks of life who were being struck by drone attacks.
> 
> They were asked what they thought of these attacks.
> 
> \*\*Most people thought that the drone attacks were accurate and effective in damaging the militants. \*\*  
> \<snip\>  
> Based on the responses the researchers concluded that certain notions held about drones and militants outside the Pashtun belt lacked substance and were mostly incorrect.
> 
> According to author, Farhat Taj, (a Pashtun and a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of AIRRA ), the drones have only killed a handful of civilians as compared to the militants who were struck down by the strikes.
> 
> **Taj claims that most locals in conflict zones like Waziristan saw US drone attacks as their liberators from the clutches of Islamist militants.**
> 
> \<snip\>  
> **In her book Taj relates how the people of Waziristan had told the researchers that in a compound with militants, the drones were more likely to only strike that particular room of the compound.**
> 
> \<snip\>
> 
> Nevertheless, the same year (2012) a detailed study and investigation conducted by the Associated Press found that militants were the main victims of drone strikes in North Waziristan contrary to the widespread perception in Pakistan that civilians are the principal victims.
> 
> During its investigation the Associated Press studied ten drone strikes. Its reporters spoke to about eighty locals belonging to North Waziristan. The reporters were told that at least 194 people had died in the (studied) attacks.
> 
> According to the villagers 56 of those were either civilians or men belonging to the tribal police and 138 being militants.
> 
> When the villagers were asked how they determined who was killed in drone attacks, they said that the bodies of militants were usually taken elsewhere for burial by their colleagues, while civilians were usually buried immediately and within the locality.

These views may not be the whole truth, but they present an important side of the coin which often gets overlooked - the local civilian populace does not necessarily perceive the US’ targeted killings as a bad thing. It is not therefore necessarily harmful to your interests if the local population thinks that vaccinators may aid identification of terrorists. It is against your interests if the local Taliban overlord forbids this process to prevent the identification, but hey, the local Taliban overlord is against your interests anyway, and this is a very small marginal cost.

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**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/24 "2012-06-19T07:11:53Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> … "I’ve seen horrors…horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that…but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face…and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.
> 
> I remember when I was with Special Forces…seems a thousand centuries ago…we went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile…a pile of little arms. And I remember…I…I…I cried…I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget.
> 
> And then I realized…like I was shot…like I was shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my forehead…and I thought: My God…the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that, these were not monsters…these were men…trained cadres…these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love…but they had the strength…the strength…to do that.
> 
> If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral…and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling…without passion…without judgment…without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us." …
> 
> Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, somewhere in time, near the Vietnam/Cambodian border.

CMC fnord!

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**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/25 "2012-06-19T17:04:12Z")

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> [@bldysabba](#):
>
> To see this as purely, or even largely, caused by the Shakeel Afridi sentencing would be inaccurate, IMO. Certain muslim communities(including some in Pakistan and Afghanistan) have long had conspiracy theories regarding the purpose of the polio vaccine, viz. that the vaccine is a Zionist/American/Hindu plot to ensure muslims don’t have any more babby and are wiped off the planet. India’s only just managed to halt transmission of polio, even though it had halted transmission in all but two districts(out of roughly 600) more than 5-6 years ago. These two districts were both prey to the CTs. Eventually polio workers had to take the local imam along on their vaccination rounds to be effective. So the crazy regarding polio was well in place before this latest incident.

I’m pretty sure I cited the widespread belief of polio vaccinations being used for nefarious purposes in my post. The thing was, until Shakeel Afridil, it was just a Conspiracy Theory. And the golden goose was just delivered into the CT’s hands. An actual conspiracy using a fake vaccination program. If the CIA is willing to do it to get OBL then maybe they’re willing to do it to get _insert local warlord here_. It’s not rational from the outside, but it doesn’t have to be. Caesar’s wife must be above reproach. The CIA just gangbanged Caesar’s wife on the steps of the senate.

You want to be mad at someone, be mad at the people who just played into the CT’s hands and should have known better. You don’t expect generations of mistrust, the legacy of colonialism/imperialism, to just go away because you say you’re helping eradicate polio. You have to earn that trust by never, EVER, abusing what little trust they’re willing to extend. If I were a member of an NGO and was trying to run humanitarian aid into Pakistan I’d be absolutely furious. As it is I’m pretty cheesed off. Getting OBL in this way will cost many lives and set back humanitarian aid progress by decades until credibility can be re-established that they’re not CIA fronts.

Enjoy,  
Steven

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**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/26 "2012-06-19T17:08:19Z")

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> [@mister\_nyx](#):
>
> You’re saying we sent over a fake medical professional

He’s a real doctor and he’s Pakistani, so he wasn’t a fake doctor and “we” didn’t send him to Pakistan. He did participate in the fake vaccination program and he was, evidently, also kind of a crook.

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**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-thinking-here-taliban-ban-on-polio-vaccinations/625573/27 "2012-06-19T19:49:09Z")

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> [@Mtgman](#):
>
> I’m pretty sure I cited the widespread belief of polio vaccinations being used for nefarious purposes in my post. The thing was, until Shakeel Afridil, it was just a Conspiracy Theory.

The effect of “just a conspiracy theory” was to deny many children immunization against dangerous diseases. It’s not like the Taliban crazy is suddenly going to change things.

Apart from the possibility of sheer irrational hatred leading the Taliban to perceive that immunization is a “Western” thing, a possible motivation for this latest announcement is to pressure neighboring countries which don’t want to see a return of polio to get the U.S. to stop drone strikes so that immunization can resume (and of course, people in any country are only a plane ride away from infected people, and even full immunization (which we don’t have) doesn’t mean that everyone who gets a polio shot develops complete immunity). It’s a strategy doomed to failure, but p.r. has never been a Taliban strong point.

In addition to stupidity, paranoia and ethnic/religious hate (factors encouraging the spread of conspiracy theories in general), how much of the antivax sentiment in developing countries is fed by the activities of antivaxers in the U.S. and other countries? There’s this thing called the Internet and their ravings are accessible the world over. We recently saw antivax fears spreading in the Somali community in Minnesota, fed by antivax luminary Andrew Wakefield (who showed up in Minneapolis to spread his nonsense).

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