hello, In all this talk about not rushing to war, I think it's important that we really think about what the Taliban is doing to its own people. I saw a documentary last night on CNN. An English woman (whose father was from Afghanistan) went with a film crew into Afghanistan. This is what she said, and caught on film: - They are using sports stadiums "football" which I assume means soccer here in the US as places of execution. She filmed women getting shot in the head in front of crowds. Apparently the Taliban received international funding for this stadium. When she asked 'why don't you use it for football, since that's what you got funding for' a Taliban official responded that they need a place to do their important work and the international community should fund them to build a place of execution if they are unhappy with them using a football stadium. I found this to be chilling. - They are taking over villiages and executing civilians. She showed mass graves and groups of bodies. She implied that they were performing mass rape of women and children. This wasn't stated, but it was strongly suggested, as when she interviewed 3 girls ages 9, 12, and 15. Their father had been taken prisoner and their mother was shot. Then the soldiers stayed in their house for 2 days. When she asked what the soldiers did, they wouldn't say. - Women can't work, so they are reduced to begging in many cases. Of course, they also must be covered from head to toe. - Girls over 12 are not allowed to go to school. If anyone is caught teaching them, they will go to jail. - Makeup is banned. Beauty parlors are now a form of subversion. - Hospitals for women are atrocious (she filmed one that looked like a slum) and women die for lack of medical care. 1/4 of children die before they reach their 5th birthday. - Homosexuals are shot. - One of the most feared buildings is the society for the promotion of virtue and the suppression of vice. People who go in that building sometimes don't come out - they go directly to jail. - Music is banned. She showed ribbons of torn cassette tape dangling from a tree. - The Afghans are not one single ethnic group, but several - as she called it "a mosaic" who, she claimed, have lived together peacefully for centuries in a particular villiage until the Taliban came along. Also, don't forget the story of the woman in Pakistan who had her eyes gouged out and her ears and nose cut off because her husband thought she was having an affair. Where did she get medical treatment? The United States. Her husband is in jail, unlike nearly all perpetrators of "honor crimes". Like everyone else, I don't want to see killings of civilians. They have obviously suffered more than enough. But the Taliban is truly evil to its own people and the whole world has been looking the other way. They deserve to be taken out in my opinion. Also, my understanding is that the US is providing aid to Afghanistan, but the Taliban is keeping it from getting to the people most in need. On Larry King last night, they discussed the plight of an American female relief worker who went to Afghanistan to help and is now jailed by the Taliban. Her parents are in Pakistan trying to get her out. What they are doing to her in jail (if she's still alive) I don't even want to think about. This is what happens when Americans try to help. I've heard a lot on this list criticizing the US and its awful foreign policies. There is a lot to criticize, I grant you. However, where is the recognition of the evil the Taliban is perpetrating? As a female, I can tell you I don't want to live there. I don't think women anywhere in the world should be subjected to this. I know that the civil war was awful and the US funded Bin Laden. however, I think what the Taliban is doing is terrible enough that we should stop placing blame for past actions and focus on doing what we can. In my opinion, what's sad here is that no one really cared about the misery of the Afghan people until the US became a target. Mary
