Breaking out…

A lot of Afghan women, like the beautiful actress above, are trying to break out of their religious prison but their shariaist society makes it extremely difficult (like this unfortunate actress). After all, this is just a small part of the mindset they’re living under:

Tabari IX:113

“Allah permits you to shut them (women) in separate rooms and to beat them, but not severely. If they abstain, they have the right to food and clothing. Treat women well for they are like domestic animals and they possess nothing themselves.

Qur’an 4:15

“If any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four witnesses from amongst you against them; if they testify, confine them to houses until death [by starvation] claims them.”

Bukhari:V3B48N826

“The Prophet said, ‘Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.’”

Ishaq:185

“In hell I saw women hanging by their breasts. They had fathered bastards.”

Qur’an 24:6

“And for those who launch a charge against their wives, accusing them, but have no witnesses or evidence, except themselves; let the testimony of one of them be four testimonies, (swearing four times) by Allah that he is the one speaking the truth.”

These quotes were collected from here (Bare Naked Islam). Now of course you can find very similar things in the Old Testament, the difference being that even Orthodox Jews of the Torah and Christians today have long since moved on from acting on such monstrous beliefs. More quotes here.

If we leave: Afghan women and the revenge of the taliban

Click on pic for article.

Aisha, 18, depicted on the cover above, “was dragged from her home by the Taliban after running away from her husband. Despite her pleas that her in-laws had been abusive, that they treated her like a slave, that she had no choice but to escape, a Taliban commander said that she must be punished, lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing. Aisha’s family members carried out the punishment: her brother-in-law held her down while her husband sliced off her ears and nose, then left her to die. She is now hidden in a secret women’s shelter, where she was taken after receiving care from U.S. forces.” Incredibly, after all these years we’ve been in Afghanistan this sort of thing is still widespread (here.).

Here is another story on this same subject.

UPDATE (Oct 12/2010): Afghan girl gets last laugh on Islamic taliban thugs. Here (Daily Mail).

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Related: Here’s a HuffPo take on this Time article.

Related: “Part Oprah, part Hannah Montana, The Mozhdah Show is the latest sensation to hit Afghanistan’s television screens……The audience freezes. Divorce is a taboo subject in Afghanistan, one spoken of in whispers, if spoken of at all. Jamalzadah senses the mood and quickly ad-libs in her trademark no-nonsense style. ‘This is the truth. We should not run away from the truth.’ ” Here.

Related: Taliban hunting informants. Here.

Related: Past post–Taliban up the ante in the battle of the sexes.

Related: Should the weather leave Afghanistan? Monsoon floods kill 64 civilians. Here.

Related: What’s happening in Turkey? “Down a glum, dark back alley in Istanbul, I found a sinister sight. In a workshop two stern and bearded men were bent over sheets and patches of very black cloth, their sewing-machines whirring urgently. I was plainly unwelcome and they objected to the very idea of being photographed. I quickly saw why. They were making dark robes and masks for women to wear. They looked to me as if they longed for the day when every woman in sight was clad in their workmanship…” Here.

Related: Past post–The taliban, Spiderman, and Hannah Montana

Related: Past post–Quoting the taliban

Related: Past post–New rules

Related: Quantum leap: 21st Cen doctors enter the Dark Ages

Er, looks like the Afghan war could be prolonged…

“…Commanders have ordered a U.S. military unit in Afghanistan to patrol with unloaded weapons [this is ther er... part], according to a source in Afghanistan. American soldiers in at least one unit have been ordered to conduct patrols without a round chambered in their weapons, an anonymous source stationed at a forward operating base in Afghanistan said in an interview. The source was unsure where the order originated or how many other units were affected…” Here.

Political/cultural mind map of Afghanistan leaves generals brain damaged

Afghanistan explained!!!

Click to enlarge

Check the story here

“Rules of engagement”

Afghanistan offensive: rules of engagement: “…If a man emerges from a Taliban hideout after shooting erupts, U.S. troops say they cannot fire at him if he is not seen carrying a weapon — or if they did not personally watch him drop one. What this means, some contend, is that a militant can fire at them, then set aside his weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location. It was unclear how often this has happened. In another example, Marines pinned down by a barrage of insurgent bullets say they can’t count on quick air support because it takes time to positively identify shooters…” Here.

New rules…

Why we should leave Afghanistan even before the next goat bleats. These are some of the official  New rules for troop operations in Afghanistan.

• No night or surprise searches.

• Villagers have to be warned prior to searches.

• ANA or ANP must accompany U.S. units on searches.

• U.S. soldiers may not fire at the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first.

• U.S. forces cannot engage the enemy if civilians are present.

• Only women can search women.

• Troops can fire at an insurgent if they catch him placing an IED but not if insurgents are walking away from an area where explosives have been laid.

Being in Afghanistan, I think it’s obvious, has nothing to do with stopping terrorism in the U.S. Stopping the threat of terror here is very easy. All we have to do is stop importing these fanatics (and yes, mulims in general), something we should’ve done long before 9/11. Curtail our bizarre immigration and Visa policies and, presto, we’ve curtailed probably ninety-five percent of the threats. For the reamining homegrown variety of terrorists let’s modernize our FBI’s computer systems; let’s replace those Altairs and Commodore 64s with some big boy equipemnt. That way when agents call up a list of bad guys they won’t have to sweat their machines crashing after uploading a 48k file.

Let’s stop illegal border crossings; the southern border fence is in stall mode; when it does move it moves at the pace of Model T negotiating the Autobahn. Meanwhile of course jumpers are running across the gaps and vast evnviornmentalist openings in the existing fence. They come in at about twenty mph on their top of the line Made-in-China Nike’s.

Let’s stop treating the grotesque gender-apartheid, death-to-infidels Sharia law advocates as imperial cultural ambassadors.

The Taliban, Spiderman and Hannah Montana

A NY Times journalist in the hands of the Taliban: “…He spoke a smattering of English, and my own beliefs seemed to interest and amaze him. During our six weeks together, he asked me a series of questions. Was it true, he asked, that a necktie was a secret symbol of Christianity? Was it true that Christians wanted to live 1,000 years? As the weeks passed, our captivity became increasingly surreal. My Taliban guards slept beneath bedspreads manufactured by a Pakistani textile company and emblazoned with characters from the American television show “Hannah Montana” and the movie “Spider-Man.” My blanket was a pink Barbie comforter…First hand NY Tines article here.

Musical tribute to the best of Afghan culture

Using his nation’s official musical instrument musician plays Afghan national anthem

Quoting Afghanistan’s Taliban

Mind-bogglingly astute observation: “The [NATO] soldiers have shaved their heads but when we see them washing they are still shampooing their heads, but they have no hair.”

Their charming and witty sense of humor: “Last year, after one attack near the town of Baramcha, there was the hand of one British soldier left on the field. We took it and we hung it as a souvenir in the room and sometimes we would shake the hand.”

Their silly harmless pranks: “We enjoy finding the [NATO] bombs unexploded. We have some guys with us, they are not Afghan, they use the bomb back on the British. I like to bury a gas canister on top of the bomb, the explosion is very large.”

Asking big and important questions: “When we go to a village at night the [NATO] soldiers come for us in helicopters. How can they see us? How do they know we are there? They have technology?”

On multiculturalism: “We have some other people with us, I can’t tell you where they are from but they don’t speak a language we understand.”

Taliban technology: “[We use] a bomb that recognizes the number [on a license] plate of a vehicle and only explodes with the number of the plate you put in a computer.”

Read article.