Taliban being paid $150 a month to stop fighting

The Taliban must be laughing their asses off over this. Get paid to take a break from killing the kuffur while waiting for the allies to pull out of Afghanistan. What more could a jihadi ask for?

FROM NDTV.COM:

Taliban being paid $150 a month to stop fighting

Indo-Asian News Service, Updated: November 28, 2011 11:56 IST

London: Taliban cadres are being paid 100 pounds (over $150) a month for desisting from action and will be allowed to keep their weapons as part of a new initiative to end the insurgency in Afghanistan, a media report said on Sunday.

The "reintegration" program, which has the full support of NATO, is intended to keep them from attacking troops of the NATO-led International Seurity Assistance Force (ISAF), the Daily Telegraph reported on Sunday.

Those who have attacked and killed British forces are also given an amnesty, meaning they will not be put on trial.

The amnesty extends to all Taliban fighters, including those involved in atrocities, such as killing children, beheadings or hanging women.

The agreement is part of a policy signed by the British government in which insurgents are being allowed to "walk off the battlefield" and enter a "reintegration" scheme.

Instead of interrogating members of the Taliban joining the program, they are asked to fill up a questionnaire to seek from them their reasons for joining the insurgency.

The strategy has been formulated to encourage the Taliban to stop fighting and return to their communities with "dignity and honour".

Over 2,700 insurgents have been reintegrated into mainstream Afghan society since October 2010, with 800 now described as "showing interest in leaving the Taliban".

Major General David Hook, the director of the Joint Force Integration Cell in Kabul, admitted in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that the program would be difficult for many British families to accept but insisted that reintegration was vital if peace was to be achieved.

Germany backs peace talks with the Taliban

The Taliban have won. For the allied countries to negotiate with the Taliban is the height of folly if they think the Taliban will honor any commitment. The Taliban see this as a "hudna", a temporary truce used since the time of Mohammed as a tactic to bide time until they are strong enough to renew their attacks on the Afghan government. Once the allied troops leave in 2014, the Taliban will again attack the government and probably overthrow it.

These "peace talks" are of course nothing more than a face saving ploy for the West.

FROM THELOCAL.DE:

Germany backs peace talks with the Taliban

Published: 27 Nov 11 15:12 CET

Germany's foreign and defence ministers called Sunday for the Taliban to be included in Afghanistan peace talks, ahead of a major international conference for the war-ravaged country next month.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that negotiations with the Islamist militant group was the only realistic option for lasting peace.

"Reconciliation does not happen among friends but rather between erstwhile opponents," Westerwelle was quoted as saying. "That is what we need to work on instead of speculation about who might not be ready to reconcile."

Germany has the third largest contingent of foreign troops in Afghanistan but had long rejected proposals to include the Taliban in peace negotiations.

Westerwelle, who will host ministers from more than 100 countries in the western city of Bonn on December 5 to discuss the future of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO troops in 2014, said there was no guarantee of success. "But all agree that it must be tried," he said.

The West "cannot simply say, 'You are evil, we won't negotiate with you'," added de Maiziere.

"We cannot exclude everyone from the inner-Afghan reconciliation process who once had a sword in his hand," he said. Only when "a sufficient number of important groups" take part will the peace process have a chance of working.

Westerwelle said the war in Afghanistan could not be won militarily.

"After 10 years it is obvious that in Afghanistan, there can only be a political solution, not a military one," he said.

Taliban fighters frequently attack convoys supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, as part of a 10-year insurgency against the western-backed Kabul government since US troops toppled their regime in 2001.

This month, Afghan elders backed talks with Taliban who renounce violence, despite the assassination in September of peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani which officials blame on insurgents.

De Maiziere said Berlin would keep troops in Afghanistan after the NATO pullout at the end of 2014, to focus on the training of local forces.

Afghan woman jailed for being raped by her cousin's husband is offered release if she marries her attacker

As horrible as this is, it's only the tip of the iceberg of Islamic "law" in action. Women in Afghanistan are regularly treated this way for the crime of being raped. In some even more backwards (if that can be imagined) regions of the Ummah, the woman would have been stoned to death. This is what Islamists wish to impose on all of humanity. The only bright spot in this article is that it is now being aired in the mainstream media, rather than being suppressed.

Forewarned is forearmed. All the little concessions given to Muslims in the West lead to just this end.

FROM DAILYMAIL.CO.UK:

Afghan woman jailed for being raped by her cousin's husband is offered release if she marries her attacker

* Gulnaz was convicted of adultery because she had sex outside of marriage by being raped
* After falling pregnant by her attacker, she and the baby were jailed for 12 years
* She has been given the choice to marry her rapist and be freed from jail

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 7:29 PM on 23rd November 2011

An Afghan woman raped by her cousin’s husband has revealed how she is faced with a horrific dilemma – marry him or spend the next 12 years in jail.

Gulnaz was aged just 19 when she was convicted by a court of adultery, even though she tried to prevent the attack.

Now she is in Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, serving out her sentence with her rapist’s child.

But now she has been given an option that most women would consider nothing less than repulsive - starting a new life with the man who attacked her.

And, even more incredibly, she is willing to.

Dressed in a veil, with her baby in her lap, Gulnaz explained how it was the only way out of jail, and the only way around the dishonour of having sex outside marriage.

She recalls the day that changed her life two years ago, which began her long nightmare.

Her assailant arrived at the house when her mother left for a brief visit to the hospital.

‘He had filthy clothes on as he does metal and construction work,’ she told CNN in an exclusive interview.

‘He closed doors and windows. I started screaming, but he shut me up by putting his hands on my mouth,’ she said.

After the attack, she hid what happened as long as she could. But soon she began showing the signs of morning sickness.

She received not sympathy but prosecution. But she appreciates she is lucky to get a second chance.

Many women in her position have been killed, for the shame such incidents bring on the community.

Now, if she marries her attacker she has a chance to restore her honour and to give her child a family.

‘I was asked if I wanted to start a new life by getting released, by marrying this man’.

She added: ‘My daughter is a little innocent child. Who knew I would have a child in this way. A lot of people told me that after your daughter's born give it to someone else, but my aunt told me to keep her as proof of my innocence.'

CNN tracked down Gulnaz's rapist in a jail across town.

He denied raping her, but agreed that she would be a likely target if she got out of jail.

He insists that it will be her family, not his, that will kill her.

But Gulnaz's plight has found international attention.

The European Union part-funded the team of documentary makers who interviewed her and other women facing a similar plight but have decided to spike the project after watching it.

The EU said it was concerned about the safety of the women in the film, saying they could be subject to reprisals.

The film-makers however suspect that the EU might also be motivated by its sensitive relationship with Afghan justice institutions.

Careful with that weird, Quran-doting uncle

I touched on this crap a few days ago, but Diana West puts it in proper perspective. the absurdity of American troops bowing to Islam is beyond tyhe pale. We are there supposedly to rid these barbarians of an even more primitive and barbaric form of Islam and the thanks we get is to be trteated like dhimmis. Oh wait, all filthy infidels arfe to be given the dhimmi treatment by all Islamic sects.

Time to get the hell out, treat Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Islamic Axis of Evil and contain them like we did to the Soviet Union.

FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:

Jewish World Review Nov 4, 2011 / 7 Mar-Cheshvan 5772

Careful with that weird, Quran-doting uncle

By Diana West

Uncle Sam is getting a little weird -- make that a lot weird. Having dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into a sinkhole called Afghanistan populated by misogynistic, pederastic, tribalistic and religiously supremacist primitives to no avail, he has hit on a new plan for winning those ever-elusive Afghan "hearts and minds."

Uncle Sam has decided that the answer lies in the latrine with the U.S. Marine Corps. No kidding. When nature calls, Uncle Sam has decided he wants every U.S. Marine equipped with a map and compass, or some other way of knowing direction. This is to ensure that no U.S. Marine in Afghanistan urinates in the direction of Mecca ever again.

Now, there's a winning strategy.

It's still OK, of course, to spread baksheesh (payola) indiscriminately, chase jihadis into twisting mountain gorges, clear any road laced with improvised explosives -- blow up, even, and bleed all over the place. Just make sure your sense of direction is sharp when it really counts.

Take spitting. According to an article in the North County Times, the word is: Ix-nay on itting-spay toward ecca-May, guys. If there's a pinch between teeth and gum while you're hiding out in a cold valley, figure out where Mecca is (2,000 miles away) before letting anything out of your mouth. Oh, and when it's time to catch some shut-eye "when sharing a base with Afghan army troops" -- if you can sleep, given the frightening odds an Afghan National Army soldier might turn his gun on you -- don't, whatever you do, let your combat boots point toward you-know-where.

That would be "culturally insensitive" and, therefore, it seems, worse than anything Afghani (or Pakistani) jihadist butchers might do (beheadings, rape) because they, as Muslims, are automatically "culturally sensitive." Apparently to compensate, senior Pentagon brass created something called the USMC Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning to teach Marines to exist in the Islamically approved fashion.

When Marines learn not to excrete in the direction of Mecca -- home of the black cube known as the Kaaba -- and not to sleep with their boots toward Mecca, what are they really learning? They are learning to become intensely sensitized to the whereabouts of Mecca; how to be guided by that magnetic north for Muslims as a matter of the most personal habits and hygiene, all in accordance with Shariah (Islamic law). They are learning to act like Muslims. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em?

Such "culture learning" blends seamlessly with an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) guidance to all troops in Afghanistan to revere the Quran and its teachings. That's the unmistakable message of COIN Advisory #20100924-001, which I found on the ISAF website.

"Never talk badly about the Quran or its contents," says the guidance, a no-nonsense formulation of Islamic prohibitions against any criticism of Islam. Touching it is out, too. "It is considered culturally insensitive for any non-Muslim to touch a copy of the Quran," ISAF explains. Why that is indeed the Islamic case, ISAF doesn't explain. Presumably, it might upset troops to learn that this injunction exists because Muslims consider non-Muslim "najis," or unclean, and thus unfit to touch their religious book. Before searching people, ISAF advises, "ask them if they have a Quran or religious item present. If so, ask them to remove it or put it in a suitable place before conducting the search."

Think the Navy SEALS who zapped Osama bin Laden asked him to put his Quran in a "suitable place" first? We can only hope.

Of course, there's more: "Additionally," ISAF continues, "verbal disrespect for Islam and/or the Quran is considered as inappropriate as physical desecration of the Quran. Insulting the Quran is an act of blasphemy."

The way Islam treats women stinks = verbal disrespect for Islam. The verses of the Quran that call for jihad against infidels are heinous = insulting the Quran. But ISAF, veritable mouthpiece of the coming caliphate, deems such talk "inappropriate" and outright "blasphemy." This might win the generals an extra cushion at the foot of the caliph's throne. But, as the Marines are learning in their Culture Learning classes, they'll have to drink all their chai and finish their goat, first.

Alcohol Users Face Lash in Afghan Province

Afghanistan, the country that has cost us hundreds of lives and billions of dollars freeing from the Taliban are now implementing some of the same repressive and barbaric punishments the Taliban imposed. It's a lead pipe cinch that once the NATO forces are gone, the Taliban and al Qaeda will re-emerge stronger than ever.

I think it's past time to get out of Afghanistan and treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single entity and contain them much as the old Soviet Union was contained. Both are Islamic "republics" and both are spawing grounds for radical Islamists. The cost in American lives to support these two major hotbeds of radical Islam is just not worth it.

FROM RAWA.ORG:

Alcohol Users Face Lash in Afghan Province

Judges impose Sharia penalties after they were quietly introduced into legislation

By Hejratullah Ekhtiyar

Judges in Afghanistan’s southeast Nangarhar province have started sentencing anyone caught drinking alcohol to 80 lashes.

When the Taleban movement was in power in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, penalties derived from Islamic law were routinely imposed, such as stoning for adultery and amputation for theft. The post-2001 Afghan judiciary abandoned such methods.

It is still illegal for Afghans to consume alcohol, and a bill passed in 2009 includes provision for corporal punishment as well as fines and imprisonment for offenders. When the law was signed by President Hamed Karzai this June, it went largely unnoticed.

In Nangarhar, however, judges promptly started putting it into practice.

Abdul Qayum, the chief prosecutor in the province, said his office had requested the sentence in ten trials since the legislation came into force, and the effect of lashing offenders had been to cut the number of cases coming before the courts.

“If Islamic principles are implemented for other crimes, too, the level of crime and corruption will fall significantly,” he said.

Maulavi Abdul Aziz Khairkhwah, the head of religious affairs in the provincial administration, took a similarly hard-line stand.

“I can confidently tell you that security will not be established in Afghanistan unless the Sharia system and regulations are enforced,” he said.

Khairkhwah worked as a judge under the Taleban, and claims crime has spiralled under the government he now serves.
Public lashings are rarely implemented by the Afghan authorities
BBC News, Jun. 1, 2011: The BBC Afghan service has acquired recently-shot video evidence of a man being publicly whipped by a judge as a punishment for drinking alcohol. Such punishments are legal under the Afghan constitution but are rarely implemented. (Photo: BBC News)

“Westerners want to impose their democracy – which includes obscene acts, drinking alcohol and other immoral things – on Afghanistan,” he said. “These things are contrary to Islamic law. There are also individuals in the [administrative] system who grew up in the West and are loyal to it. They are not properly informed about Islamic laws.”

Recalling the old days, he said, “I agree that the Taleban went to extreme lengths, but Islamic regulations were generally enforced.”

Public support for the tough line on alcohol appears widespread.

“It was absolutely necessary to come up with this law,” lawyer Mohebollah Faruqi, said. “Islam has already prescribed the penalties, and legislators do not dare draft laws that go against Sharia.”

The head of the Independent Human Rights Commission in the eastern region, Rafiullah Bedar, said this form of corporal punishment was appropriate as long as the verdict was impartial and the accused was allowed a defence lawyer.

“The International Declaration of Human Rights is just an international document on ethics, not a binding document,” he said. “It allows national governments to envisage punishments for crimes in accordance with religious, national and cultural principles.”

Nangarhar resident Sharifullah told IWPR how police caught him with a bottle of wine in a park, and he then spent two months in prison before receiving 80 lashes.

“The 80 lashes were easier for me than six months in prison would have been,” he said.

Jalalabad resident Zainullah Rahimi said he doubted that such punishments would work as a deterrent as they were not carried out in public.

“I believe six months imprisonment would be better than 80 lashes, because drinkers would be shamed before their families, friends and wider society,” he said.

Sherzad, a political expert and legal advisor to the Afghanistan Civil Society Association, said the authorities may have introduced Islamic penalties to counter the widespread perception that they are kowtowing to the West.

“The government incorporated Sharia into this [anti-alcohol] legislation so as to weaken this negative perception,” he added. “The government cannot apply Sharia penalties for other offences because the foreign forces are still present here. The government doesn’t dare do so as long as they are here. They have a profound influence on our judicial system.”

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department

Not a single church, or synagogue either. Afghanistan must be proud to be as intolerant as Saudi Arabia.

"However, “the right to change one’s religion was not respected either in law or in practice,” according to the State Department.

“Muslims who converted away from Islam risked losing their marriages, rejection from their families and villages, and loss of jobs,” according to the report. “Legal aid for imprisoned converts away from Islam remains difficult due to the personal objection of Afghan lawyers to defend apostates.”

And yet the dhimmi and clueless state department fails to acknowledge that the greatest threat to apostates is death at the hands of enraged Muslims.

FROM CSNSNEWS.COM:

Not a Single Christian Church Left in Afghanistan, Says State Department

By Edwin Mora
October 10, 2011

There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department.

This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime.

In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan's new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country.

The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the State Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and covers the period of July 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, also states that “there were no Christian schools in the country.”

“There is no longer a public Christian church; the courts have not upheld the church's claim to its 99-year lease, and the landowner destroyed the building in March [2010],” reads the State Department report on religious freedom. “[Private] chapels and churches for the international community of various faiths are located on several military bases, PRTs [Provincial Reconstruction Teams], and at the Italian embassy. Some citizens who converted to Christianity as refugees have returned.”

In recent times, freedom of religion has declined in Afghanistan, according to the State Department.

“The government’s level of respect for religious freedom in law and in practice declined during the reporting period, particularly for Christian groups and individuals,” reads the State Department report.

“Negative societal opinions and suspicion of Christian activities led to targeting of Christian groups and individuals, including Muslim converts to Christianity," said the report. "The lack of government responsiveness and protection for these groups and individuals contributed to the deterioration of religious freedom.”

Most Christians in the country refuse to “state their beliefs or gather openly to worship,” said the State Department.

Article continues HERE.

How many limbs must be lost in Afghanistan?

COIN kills, and maims, and destroys young American lives. And, it does not work. The whole idea of "nation building" or winning the "hearts and minds" of backward, tribal, religious savages is beyond ludicrous. We are at war with what is basically a religion driven group of people who wish to throw the whole world back to the barbarism of the 7th century under Sharia.

There is no chance, ever, of convincing these people that Western values are worthwhile as long as they clew to Islam. A religion that declares that it's members are the best of humanity and that all others are the worst cannot co-exist with Western society.

FROM JEWISHWORLDREVIEW.COM:

Jewish World Review Sept. 23, 2011 / 24 Elul, 5771

How many limbs must be lost in Afghanistan?

By Diana West

Only the U.S. military could build a defensive wall of words -- "dismounted complex blast injury" (DCBI) -- around the bare fact that single, double, triple, even quadruple amputations are up sharply among U.S. forces on foot patrol in Afghanistan. So are associated pelvic, abdominal and genital injuries, according to a newly released report.

Even the antiseptic language of the report is excruciating, as when it calls for "further refinement" of "aggressive pain management at the POI (point of injury)," or highlights the need to train more military urologists in "phallic reconstruction surgery."

It isn't management but prevention that is called for.

These grievous injuries have increased because more U.S. forces are on foot patrol in Afghanistan. More Americans are on foot patrol in Afghanistan because counterinsurgency strategy puts them there. Every story I've seen on the new amputation report makes this connection. The Associated Press account is typical: "The counterinsurgency tactic that is sending U.S. soldiers out on foot patrols among the Afghan people, rather than riding in armored vehicles, has contributed to a dramatic increase in arm and leg amputations, genital injuries and the loss of multiple limbs following blast injuries."

But what exactly this counterinsurgency (COIN) tactic is designed to accomplish remains off the radar. The fact is, Uncle Sam is asking young Americans to risk limbs, urinary function and testicles to win something not only intangible but also fantastical. They walk the bomb-packed byways of Afghanistan to win -- to "earn" -- "the trust of the Afghan people." This is the mythological, see-no-Islam quest that drives U.S. COIN strategy.

Once we finally admit that the unicorn hunters are wrong, once we stop trying to remake Afghanistan in something akin to our own image, once we start preventing Islam from remaking the West into a Shariah-compliant zone (with counterterrorism strikes, not foot patrols, as needed), these shattering body blasts to young Americans on the other side of the world will cease.

Meanwhile, "the trust of the Afghan people" is the holy grail of the Washington establishment, and, even after retiring from the military, Gen. David Petraeus, now director of the CIA, remains chief myth-maker. "Earn the people's trust," Petraeus wrote in a signal "Counterinsurgency Guidance" issued Aug. 1, 2010. From his list of how-tos -- which range from dispense payola ("COIN-contracting"), to "help them develop checks and balances to prevent abuses" (good luck with that), to "drink lots of tea" -- one order stands out, particularly in light of this week's report on amputations resulting from foot patrols.

Petraeus wrote: "Walk. Stop by, don't drive by. Patrol on foot whenever possible and engage the population."

One year later, the Army is reckoning with the carnage and after-care requirements that are consequences of this key tactic of COIN strategy. It is high time for the rest of us to reckon with them, too. Is COIN working? Is the burden of suffering that the nation is placing on the military worth the return? Frankly, when it comes to winning "the trust of the Afghan people," is there any return?

These questions didn't come up in the new report, naturally. Which isn't to say the report was devoid of political consciousness. By way of background, the report defines "dismounted complex blast injury" as a new pattern of injury. The definition is: "An injury caused by an explosion occurring to a Service Member while dismounted in a combat theater that results in amputation of at least one lower extremity at the knee or above, with either amputation or severe injury to the opposite lower limb, combined with pelvic, abdominal or urogenital injury. This definition is not meant to define a subset of injuries for policy-making decisions."

Oh, yeah?

High-profile assassination: Turban bomber kills Afghanistan’s top peacemaker

Such sweet irony.

FROM TRIBUNE.COM.PK:

High-profile assassination: Turban bomber kills Afghanistan’s top peacemaker

By Naveed Hussain / Tahir Khan
Published: September 20, 2011

KABUL/KARACHI/ISLAMABAD:

Former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated in his home in Kabul on Tuesday by a Taliban insurgent who set off explosives concealed in his turban, wounding a key presidential adviser and dealing a body blow to Kabul’s reconciliation process with the Taliban.

Rabbani was heading the 68-member High Peace Council set up in October 2010 to build contacts with the Taliban.

His death is the most high-profile murder since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban from power and comes just two months after Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was also killed.

It also comes just a week after a 20-hour siege by the Taliban at US embassy and Nato headquarters in the supposedly secure zone of Kabul.

The attackers arrived at Rabbani’s house in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighbourhood with Mohammad Massom Stanikzai, a top adviser of President Hamid Karzai and Rabbani’s deputy, for a meeting before the turban bomber detonated his explosives.

A member of the High Peace Council, Fazel Karim Aymaq, told The Express Tribune the men had come with “special messages” from the Taliban and were “very trusted.”

Article continues HERE.

Illicit drug production: Balochistan madrassa students harvest poppy on holidays

Here's a new one, using children from madrasses to harvest opium. Or maybe not so new. While Afghanistan has virtually no legitimate economy, it has become the worlds foremost producer of opium. Who says Islam can't compete in the world market?

FROM TRIBUNE.COM.PK:

Illicit drug production: Balochistan madrassa students harvest poppy on holidays

By Qaiser Butt
Published: August 5, 2011

QUETTA: Afghanistan, as of March 2010, is the largest illicit opium producer of the world, ahead of Burma, and Pakistan has a clinical role to play in this statistic.

In 2007, Afghanistan produced an extraordinary 8,200 tonnes of opium (34% more than in 2006), becoming practically the exclusive supplier of the world’s deadliest drug (93% of the global opiates market), according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007.

(Read: “The Global Afghan Opium Trade – A Threat Assessment”)

Being one of the world’s largest opium and heroin producer, the labour demand needed to cater to this extensive poppy harvesting and cultivation is met in an invariably peculiar way.

Hundreds of madrassa students from Chaman and adjoining tribal regions of Balochistan are engaged by Afghan farmers for poppy cultivation in Afghanistan’s two major heroin-producing provinces of Helmand and Kandahar for the past three months.

These Pakistani madrassa students rush to the Afghan provinces with strongholds of the Taliban, on lucrative money-making projects as soon as their madrassas are closed in the first week of June for the three-month summer holidays.

“It is a source of easy money for madrassa students,” says Saifur Rehman, a local social worker of Ziarat who is well acquainted with many in the poppy harvesting workforce.

“Each student makes around $15 to $20 a day,” Rehman reveals.

“They are being paid in the local Afghani currency which has gained strength against the Pakistani rupee in recent months.

“Most students returned home with $1,500 to $2,000 after the harvesting season last year.” Muslim scholars in Afghanistan remain divided regarding the issue of poppy cultivation and its harvesting in Afghanistan. A majority of these scholars declare poppy production against the Islamic injunctions but a few of them disagree and argue that it was permitted in Islam for medical purposes.

However, all of them remain unanimous that heroin production is forbidden in Islam.

Despite the debates, no serious effort is being undertaken by these scholars to prevent the students from engaging in poppy harvesting in Helmand and Kandahar.

(Read: Strengthen border controls around Afghanistan to end drug trade, UN)

“A few of the workers even fell unconscious during harvesting since they were not properly trained for the job,” Rehman says.

Poppy harvesting became the main source of livelihood for many Afghan and Pakistani families since the fall of the Taliban regime after the US and Nato attacks in September 11, 2001.

A 2007 UN report revealed that leaving aside 19th century China, which had a population at that time 15 times larger than today’s Afghanistan, no other country in the world had ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale.

Militants hang 8-year-old boy in southern Afghanistan

These are the people Obama wants to negotiate with. There is no end to the barbarism or depravity of Islam. Islam can justify any atrocity to further itself. This is what is coming to the West if we do not stop it. All the talk about co-existing with moderate Muslims is delusional. In country after country, Muslims are moving toward a more pure reading of Islam which means a more radical and extremist view. In the long run, the extremists will take over from any moderates.

FROM CNN.COM:


Militants hang 8-year-old boy in southern Afghanistan
By David Ariosto, CNN

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An 8 year-old boy was hanged by militants in Afghanistan's Helmand province after the boy's father -- a police officer in the southern city of Gereshk -- refused to comply with militants' demands to provide them with a police vehicle, officials said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the hanging, saying "this action is not permitted in any culture or any religions," according to a statement Sunday, which provided details of the incident.

Karzai said he has ordered local authorities to root out the militants and arrest them "as soon as possible."

The boy was kidnapped Friday. It was unclear when he was killed.

Article continues HERE.

U.S. in talks with Taliban in move that could end the war in Afghanistan

I agree that we should get out of Afghanistan, but talking with the Taliban should have nothing to do with it.  Negotiating with them only gives them legitimacy.  These talks are only a means for the US to withdraw and claim all is well.  However, when the Taliban comes roaring back, the country will descend into the 7th century Islamic barbarism it had before 2001 under the Taliban.

We should simply withdraw all our troops and support personnel ASAP, burn or destroy anything we cannot remove and seize all their funds in Western banks.


FROM DAILYMAIL.CO.UK:

U.S. in talks with Taliban in move that could end the war in Afghanistan

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 3:32 PM on 18th June 2011

The U.S. and other countries are in preliminary talks with the Taliban about a possible settlement that could end the Afghan war.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai revealed the development today. It is the first official confirmation of U.S. involvement in negotiations. 

Diplomats have already said there have been months of preliminary talks between the two sides, and Karzai, who is a strong advocate of peace talks, has long said Afghans are in contact with insurgent groups. 

'Peace talks are going on with the Taliban. The foreign military and especially the United States itself is going ahead with these negotiations,' the leader told a news conference in the Afghan capital.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul declined to comment immediately.

Karzai was speaking the day after the U.N. Security Council split the U.N. sanctions list for Taliban and al Qaeda figures into two, which envoys said could help induce the Taliban into talks on a peace deal in Afghanistan.   

Despite hopes that talks with the Taliban could provide the political underpinning for the U.S. staged withdrawal from Afghanistan, the discussions are still not at the stage where they can be a deciding factor. 

Article continues HERE.

Afghanistan: Taliban suspected of burning two alive

These are the people Obama is negoiating with???  Makes you wonder just WTF is going on.  For the president of the United States to do anything other than exterminate these vermin is beyond belief.

FROM BBC.CO.UK:


27 May 2011 Last updated at 13:16 ET

Afghanistan: Taliban suspected of burning two alive
By Bilal Sarwary BBC News

A senior Afghan general has ordered the capture of a Taliban deputy governor alleged to have authorised the burning alive of two people.

General Daud Daud told the BBC that the incident happened last Friday in the northern province of Sar-e Pol.

He said that the gruesome killings were ordered by Maulvi Nasrullah, a deputy governor of the Taliban in neighbouring Balkh province.

Article continues HERE.

US Deepens Engagement with Afghan Taliban to End War

Big, big mistake.  The US is continuing to try to negotiate with the Taliban in order to be able to withdraw from Afghanistan while "saving face".  This is the height of foolishness as the Taliban are simply playing the US for suckers.  They are merely using the ancient Muslim tactic of takyya (lying) to gain a temporary truce in order to manipulate an enemy. 

That the US government is even speaking to the Taliban indicates that the UIS is about to capitulate and abandon Afghanistan to the barbarism that the Taliban had imposed 10 years ago.  Women’s rights will no longer exist, anyone who remotely allied with the US or the Afghani government will be hunted down and killed.  Does no one remember the repressive regime the Taliban imposed before?  No music, no dancing, no kite flying, no shaving of beards, no women on the street, no women in schools, no real schools for boys; only radical madrasses teaching hatred of anything non-Taliban.

Obama's abandonment of Afghanistan and his capitulation to the Taliban will surely lead to Afghanistan once again becoming a major training ground for terrorists from every corner of the globe.  Without the presence of NATO and the US in Afghanistan, Pakistan will plunge into chaos and a takeover by the most radical Islamists.  In other words, Afghanistan will sink back to 7th century fundamentalist Islam.


FROM NEWSMAX.COM:


US Deepens Engagement with Afghan Taliban to End War: Report

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 4:46 AM

SINGAPORE - The United States has stepped up direct talks with the Afghan Taliban for a political settlement of the 10-year-old war, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, a move that analysts said earlier was easier following the death of Osama bin Laden.

A U.S. representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, including one "eight or nine days ago" with a Taliban official considered close to the group's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the report said, citing an Afghan official.

It said that Washington was hoping to make progress in these talks before July, when President Barack Obama announces the first troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, part of a process of handing over responsibilities to Afghan forces by 2014.

Article continues HERE.

Why Is Karzai Cracking Down on Women?

Well, Hamad Karzai is showing his true colors.  There's no functional difference between him and the Taliban.  He's about to gut the private women’s rights groups by forcing them to answer to the government rules and regulations.  The problem here is that the government is controlled by the conservative (read radical Taliban) Muslims and will undo all the progress in women’s rights of the past few years.

The women of Afghanistan will be forced back into the Hell of 7th century Islam.

FROM THEDAILYBEAST.COM:

Why Is Karzai Cracking Down on Women?

by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

The Afghan president is planning to take control of women’s shelters, accusing them of corruption. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon talks to women who are afraid their rights are being taken away as a compromise for the Taliban.

Afghan officials are moving ahead with a plan to take over the country’s 14 women’s shelters, accusing them of misusing funds and a lack of transparency, though neither allegation has to date been substantiated with any evidence.

It seems that safe havens for women suffering from domestic abuse and forced marriage would be an unlikely target for an anti-corruption crackdown from Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s government, which is mired in a number of corruption allegations, including those relating to Kabul Bank.

“Their allegations are baseless, and there is a very political reason behind this,” said Afghan civil society activist Palwasha Hassan of the Afghan Women’s Network. “We are afraid that this is just the beginning of the decline of women’s rights and every day they will take another freedom that women have won.”

As early as Monday, there could be a vote to move all shelters out of the control of NGOs, now running nearly all of the country’s shelters, and into the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. If passed by Karzai’s cabinet, women seeking shelter would be required to win approval from an eight-member board. They would face a compulsory immediate medical exam, followed by monthly medical screenings. They could be evicted from the shelter if a family member arrives to say they will take them in.

Afghan women’s advocates are vowing to battle back against the government regulation, though there is little they can do to stop the move. They say they see this as the Karzai government’s first assault on the gains women have won in the past ten years.

The Afghan president simply wants to pacify conservative elements, both Taliban and Northern Alliance, at a time in which he is seeking to make peace with the Taliban, say shelter organizers.

Item continues HERE.

Forced Marrage: Trading in daughters and sheep

And the degradation of women goes on in Islam just as it has for the last 1400 years.

Can't seem to embed youtube videos, but follow the link for a revealing look into the Afghan way of selling daughters for cash or sheep.

Youtube:
Forced Marrage: Trading in daughters and sheep

http://youtu.be/y96KBro7dSc

No More Dhimmitude

Andrew McCarthy lays into General Petraeus' cringing apologetic plea to the Afghans over the recent Koran burning in Florida.  There is no reason whatsoever to apologize to anyone for the legal political actions of any American.  To do so only diminishes America and emboldens our enemies. 

Whatever one's opinion about burning a Koran, remember that Muslims burn Bibles, Torahs and Hindu scriptures on a daily basis, not to mention burning churches and murdering Christians, Jews and anyone else whom Muslims deem to have insulted Islam in any manner. 

McCarthy finishes with three simple and common sense steps that need to be taken to reverse the influx of Muslim immigrants into North America.

FROM FAMILYSEWCURITYMATTERS.ORG:

No More Dhimmitude
April 5, 2011
Andrew McCarthy

As always, Mark leaves nothing left to say regarding Sen. Lindsey Graham — though I am tempted to suggest that maybe the country would have been better off if he hadn’t exercised his First Amendment right to offer help beefing up the Libyan regime when he was a special guest in Qaddafi’s tent a few months back.

I would instead like to draw attention to the repugnant statement issued by General David Petraeus and NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill:

KABUL, Afghanistan (April 3, 2011) – In view of the events of recent days, we feel it is important on behalf of ISAF [i.e., the International Security Assistance Force] and NATO members in Afghanistan to reiterate our condemnation of any disrespect to the Holy Qur’an and the Muslim faith. We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Qur’an.

We also offer condolences to the families of all those injured and killed in violence which occurred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Qur’an.

We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Qur’an, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.

Story continues HERE.

How they died: UN envoy reveals harrowing details of heroic workers' last moments

Once again, victims of Islamic violence have displaced blame onto third parties.  In this case, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan Staffan de Mistura blames a Koran burning in Florida for the murder of UN workers by Muslim fanatics. In doing so, de Mistura has removed responsibility from the murderers and in effect, has become a stooge for the murderers. de Mistura also demonstrates a craven cowardice that will only encourage more Muslim violence.

There can be no comparison between a legal, constitutionally protected political demonstration and the murderous response by Muslim.

FROM DAILYMAIL.CO.UK:

How they died: UN envoy reveals harrowing details of heroic workers' last moments before their brutal murders in Afghanistan
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:38 PM on 3rd April 2011

The head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan has described the horrific executions of seven colleagues.

Staffan de Mistura spoke in sombre tones as he described how the U.N. workers dashed into a dark bunker hoping to escape the mob of Afghan protesters angry over the burning of a Quran by a Florida church.

His words come as Pastor Terry Jones, the man de Mistura and many others blame for instigating Friday's protests, defiantly promised to put Islamic prophet Mohammed 'on trial' for his next 'day of judgement' publicity stunt.

His last protest, in which he oversaw the burning of a copy of the Koran after a six-hour mock trial, has been directly responsible for a wave of violence in Afghanistan that has left 30 people dead and inflamed protest throughout the Middle East.

Rage: Afghan protests against the burning of a Quran in Florida entered a third day with a demonstration in the major eastern city Sunday, while the Taliban called on people to rise up

Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, recounted their harrowing deaths of workers who hid in a bomb proof bunker.

The envoy told how the workers were hunted down and brutally slain – their bodies found later in three different parts of the compound in northern Afghanistan.

He said: 'They were killed when they were running out of the bunker.

'One was pulled out alive because he pretended to be a Muslim.'

Story continues HERE.

UN officials beheaded in rampage over Koran burning

It's just amazing how time after time, Muslim rioting and killing of innocents over trivial "insults" to Islam prove the point that Islam is a religion of intolerance, prejudice and violence.  A pastor in America burns a Koran and Muslims in Afghanistan kill UN personnel in retaliation.

Once again, murderous riots have taken place after a sermon by an Imam during Friday prayers.  This just goes to show that these murderous riots are directly inspired by Islam.

FROM INDEPENDENT.COM:

UN officials beheaded in rampage over Koran burning

By Farhad Peikar in Kabul

Saturday April 02 2011

Eight United Nations workers have been killed, and as many as 13 other people are feared dead after a violent rampage in northern Afghanistan by demonstrators protesting over the burning of a Koran at a church in Florida in the US.

The victims of the worst-ever attack on UN personnel in Afghanistan -- two of whom were beheaded -- included four guards from Nepal, and civilian staff from Norway, Sweden and Romania. It was also confirmed that five residents were killed.

UN officials said the final death toll from the incident in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif could rise as high as 20 and there were unconfirmed reports that the head of the UN Military Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) in Mazar-e-Sharif had been seriously injured.

Residents said about 2,000 demonstrators attacked UN guards stationed outside the Unama compound, seized their weapons and began firing at police.

Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman, said the protesters beheaded two of the guards and shot others before scaling an anti-blast wall to topple a guard tower and set fire to buildings.

He said: "Two of the killed UN staff were beheaded."

Story continues HERE.

Victims of Afghan massacre gave years of service

Islamic gratitude.  Another case study of the barbaric and primitive face of Islam in action.  The murder of ten doctors and aid workers who have devoted decades to helping the Muslim people of Afghanistan illustrates the true nature of Islam.


FROM NEWS.YAHOO.COM:

Victims of Afghan massacre gave years of service

In this undated photo released by Kay Shaw of Global Dental Relief, a Denver-based group that sends teams of dentists around the globe, Dr. Thomas Gra AP – In this undated photo released by Kay Shaw of Global Dental Relief, a Denver-based group that sends teams …

Afghanistan Video:Clinton: 'Heartbroken' Over Loss of Aid Workers FOX News

KRISTEN WYATT and ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writers and Associated Press Writers Kristen Wyatt And Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writers And Associated Press Writers – Sun Aug 8, 5:58 pm ET

KABUL, Afghanistan – One gave up a lucrative practice to give free dental care to children who had never seen a toothbrush. Others had devoted whole decades of their lives to helping the Afghan people through war and deprivation.

The years of service ended in a hail of bullets in a remote valley of a land that members of the medical team had learned to love.

The bodies of the 10 slain volunteers - six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton - were flown Sunday back to Kabul by helicopter, even as friends and family bitterly rejected Taliban claims the group had tried to convert Afghans to Christianity.
READ IT ALL:

Woman Publicly Executed by Taliban Was Pregnant

More from the religion of barbarity.  This is what we can expect from Islam if it ever gets the upper hand in the West.  All over the globe, wherever Muslims are in the majority, the most radical of them are taking over through the use of violence.  From Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, the most conservative Muslims are forcing radical Islam on the rest of the population.  While there are many moderate Muslims in the world, they are the first target of the radicals. 

We can expect the same pattern of radical Muslims taking over whatever Islamic centers are established in the Western world.

FROM NEWSMAXWORLD.COM:

Woman Publicly Executed by Taliban Was Pregnant

Monday, August 9, 2010 2:21 PM

HERAT, Afghanistan — The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by firing three shots into her head for alleged adultery, police said on Monday.

Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province Badghis.

The Taliban accused Sanubar of having an "illicit affair" that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi told AFP.

"She was shot in the head in public while she was still pregnant," Sayeedi said.

Sayeedi said a local Taliban commander, Mohammad Yousuf, carried out the execution before the woman's body was dumped in an area under government control.

The execution is a grim reminder of the Taliban's harsh six-year rule, from 1996 to 2001 in Afghanistan. The radical Islamists staged public stonings or lashings of those found to have committed adultery or sex outside marriage.

The then-Taliban government would also chop off the hands and feet of those accused of theft and robbery.

But a Taliban spokesman denied Monday that the militia was responsible for Sanubar's death.

"We have not done anything like that in Badghis or any other province," said Qari Yosuf Ahmadi, calling the report "propaganda" by foreigners and the Western-backed Afghan government.

The Taliban is not a unified national movement and small groups operate shadow government structures autonomously in pockets of the insurgent south.

The man who allegedly had an affair with Sanubar was not punished.

Head of Badghis provincial council Mohammad Nasir Nazaari confirmed the execution and said the Qadis district was entirely under Taliban control.

The deputy head of the religious council for western Afghanistan, Mohammad Kabaabiani, said the execution ran counter to Islamic principles.

Head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in western Afghanistan, Abdul Qadir Rahimi, condemned the killing.

"Any such trial is unacceptable and is a violation of human rights. All trials must take place in an authorised court observing every single measure of justice," said Rahimi.

Since their ouster in 2001, the hardline Taliban militants have executed many people they accused of spying for foreign forces, including at least one woman who was shot dead in Kandahar.

The insurgents last year publicly executed a young couple accused of eloping in Nimroz province, by firing squad in front of a mosque.