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Thread: the friendly taliban

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    the friendly taliban

    If you haven't yet seen this , it is well worth a read. Its fairly common knowledge that suicide bombings are not always carried out by the willing, but its rare to get first hand accounts like this.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    If you haven't yet seen this , it is well worth a read. Its fairly common knowledge that suicide bombings are not always carried out by the willing, but its rare to get first hand accounts like this.
    One of the weaknesses of Western (particularly US) individualism is the tendency to over-emphasise the individual, without paying enough attention to the social, economic and cultural contexts of behaviour. We do it with terrorism and we do it with criminality in general. As a result, we can, to some extent stop terrorists/criminals and punish them in one way or another, but this is most likely to happen once they've become a terrorist/criminal. By then, it's mostly too late.

    That article offers a rare insight to the context of terrorism. It's nothing more than a glimpse, but it still tells us a great deal.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Quote Originally Posted by Meena who would not become a suicide bomber
    I want these Taliban to be burned alive.
    She knows no better and should be forgiven for wanting this. Bearing in mind her upbringing it's hardly surprising that she wishes for such things.

    I would like the Taliban to simply stop killing and become useful members of their society. If they were to divert their zeal and passion to construction rather than destruction they could create heaven on earth.

    The terrorist threat of the Taliban has got religion at the bottom of it. But it's also going to be solved by religion. Don't ask me how, I wish I knew. But all it would take would be for the religious leaders of the Taliban to start preaching forgiveness, tolerance and peace.

    Of course there would have to be an amnesty like we saw in South Africa when Mandela became President. And that is barely working. But it's going in the right direction.

    The Muslim faith is full of charismatic leaders who are obeyed without hesitation - all it would take would be for them to say that the killing has to stop.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    The Muslim faith is full of charismatic leaders who are obeyed without hesitation - all it would take would be for them to say that the killing has to stop.
    Do you think that's all it would take? Really? It'd be the first time it's ever happened that easily in the history of the human race. It also ignores how the Taliban emerged in the first place.

    One of the curious things about charisma is how it interacts with what people already want. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela simply said what a lot of people were thinking. He became a symbolic rallying point for change that was already emerging within the culture. He became a voice for the majority of the country and did so in a way that was acceptable to a significant proportion of the white population.

    The belief that a few leaders can change the way everyone thinks is another part of the myth of individuality - the same myth that leads some people to believe that capturing Osama Bin Laden is the key to defeating terrorism. Or removing Saddam Hussein was all that was needed to fix Iraq.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Taken at face value, one can only hope that it isn't a true report.

    Several things about it bother me, apart from the obvious ones. I'm no Taliban supporter, and maybe they are all murderous and evil - whatever - but this report is excellent but unsubstantiated propaganda for those who oppose them. The Taliban give lots of genuine reasons to be hated, feared and despised but I'm still a bit disturbed when we're being fed, apparently without question, a line. The film of the Kite Runner did exactly the same, presenting Taliban members as crazed paedophiles.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy MacGregor
    The terrorist threat of the Taliban has got religion at the bottom of it. But it's also going to be solved by religion. Don't ask me how, I wish I knew.
    You and me both. I can't see how the massive gulf between extremist Islam, the political aims of the Taliban and Western thinking are going to be bridged by a hate war, fuelled by articles such as the one above. A small amount of religious & cultural knowledge and understanding on both sides has got to be a pre-requisite. I just worry that 100% of Muslims get tarred with the same brush as the 0.01% who indulge in activities remotely like the ones described.

    I don't want to disrespect this woman's testimony, if true, and I think there has to be some truth in it somewhere. But the implication that many Islamic martyrs have to be drugged or bullied I suspect is, broadly speaking, untrue. We don't have to look too far back into our own history to find many examples of people who were prepared to suffer and die horribly for their religious principles - why are we surprised when we find that kind of passion in Islam? Of course, I could also use that comparison as evidence of how unspeakably regressive and barbaric the whole concept is, especially when used to take out swathes of innocent bystanders.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff332 View Post
    The belief that a few leaders can change the way everyone thinks is another part of the myth of individuality - the same myth that leads some people to believe that capturing Osama Bin Laden is the key to defeating terrorism. Or removing Saddam Hussein was all that was needed to fix Iraq.
    Leadership is exactly that. There is a huge difference between someone who leads and someone who orders. And right at the far end of the scale is someone who orders with the threat of death or torture if those orders are not carried out.

    Removing Saddam Hussein was nothing more than a start. If the allies thought that they simply had to remove Saddam they'd have done it and handed the country straight back to it's people. It was never going to be that simple and only those of simple mind would have thought otherwise. There is a saying about "winning the war but losing the peace" - we all know that a difficult part of winning a war is what you do after you've won.

    With regard to what Muslims are doing about the Taliban, I'm not aware of massive condemnation of the Taliban's actions among the Muslim world. If the Muslim nations were strongly against the actions of the Taliban they would be with us fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

    I get the impression that the moderate majority of Muslims in the UK are expending a lot of effort in denying that they are involved. I am not aware of Muslim leaders telling the Taliban that what they're doing is wrong. That would be a start. If they say it long and hard enough there will be a change in public opinion. But they have to start saying it in the first place.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post

    With regard to what Muslims are doing about the Taliban, I'm not aware of massive condemnation of the Taliban's actions among the Muslim world. If the Muslim nations were strongly against the actions of the Taliban they would be with us fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
    Yes. I would be a lot happier if the moderate Muslim community openly condemned the extreme politics of other Muslims. But they don't. I think that means that they agree with at least some of the aims of the Taliban - maybe the adoption of stricter Muslim values, pride in Islam, and the desire for a higher Muslim influence on the world. I think also, individuals are under pressure to fall in with extreme thinking to protect their own standing within the community - nothing especially sinister, but still very effective.

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    Re: the friendly taliban

    Quote Originally Posted by jivecat View Post
    Yes. I would be a lot happier if the moderate Muslim community openly condemned the extreme politics of other Muslims. But they don't. I think that means that they agree with at least some of the aims of the Taliban - maybe the adoption of stricter Muslim values, pride in Islam, and the desire for a higher Muslim influence on the world. I think also, individuals are under pressure to fall in with extreme thinking to protect their own standing within the community - nothing especially sinister, but still very effective.
    Maybe when the USA stops killing 50 of them at a time at wedding parties (colllateral damage ?). they will change ?

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