Edward Thizzerhands said:
So, I was having a conversation with a client of mine. He is Afghanistanian and was born and raised there until he was 15 or so. He then moved here and is now 26 and was in Afghanistan during the September 11th attacks getting married (arranged). I decided to ask him about “Al-Queda”. I asked him if anyone over there has ever heard of them. He said “NO, nobody in my country knows who this Al-Queda is”.
A group consisting of anywhere from 50-1000 members unheard of in a country with extreme poverty, low literacy rates, and shoddy radio/TV? Is that a surprise to you?
Further more, the Taliban is NOT a militia group. It is a religious faction of the Muslim religion. They are not violent or Muslim extremists as the Bush administration has made him out to be.
According to many "Qutbites" in the Middle East, the Taliban's rule was supposedly "true Shar'ia", or the closest to rule by Islamic law in the Middle East. There was even talk of making Mullah Omar the new caliph, and Afghanistan the new caliphate, though it was ceased because Omar lacked the religious credentials.
Would you call Jerry Falwell a religious extremist? What about Pat Robertson? The most conservative followers of any Abrahamic religion (Christianity, Judaeism, Islam) usually tend to be the ones called "extremists", and also the ones who tend to be most likely to believe in the use of violence.
And there are decades or recorded violence among the Taleban, the Northern Alliance, and basically every group which ruled Afghanistan. The Taleban is a militant group no doubt, just as the USA is a 'militant' country in some respects. But they are a tribal group first, and Islamic secondly. The fact that they are "militant" merely owes to the fact that they live in a land racked by war and bloodshed.
But did they enforce their rule with summary executions, imprisoning, etc? Of course. It was well documented by many, many sources. Very, very few states in the Middle East do not have some sort of large-scale government repression, on a spectrum from Egypt (govt. harassment, censoring) to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taleban (summary executions, beheadings, detainment).
Even in Egypt, one of the more liberal countries, the mutaween can still basically arrest and kill you on little to nothing.
To look at the leaders of one of the poorest and most conservative countries in the Middle East and say "No, of course they weren't militant" - I'm not sure what sort of logic that follows.
The U.S. knew where Osama was the whole time, and yes he was in a cave. But, Afghanistan is NOT the big of a country…IF the U.S. REALLY wanted Osama…they could find him.
You can read accounts of Torah Borah (when bin Laden escaped) from Afghani sources, Pakistani sources, US sources, etc. The fact that the events surrounding the escape of UBL to Pakistan can all be basically read in the same chronology and timeframe on basically every source either means that the events are part of a huge government conspiracy that involves Middle Eastern newspapers and journals, Arab forums and websites, and Arab satellite TV, or thge story is true and our forces are as bumbling and ridiculous as American leadership.
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