[link|http://www.nando.net/special_reports/terrorism/impact/story/127981p-1347682c.html|Way to alienate what few influnetial friends you've got]

Excerpt:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (October 10, 2001 10:48 a.m. EDT) - Taliban loyalists have beaten Afghan employees of the United Nations and confiscated a number of U.N. vehicles, a U.N. spokeswoman said Wednesday.

"Staff have been beaten in Kabul, Kandahar and in Jalalabad," spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "A significant number not yet specified of vehicles have been taken by the Taliban in Kandahar," the headquarters of the religious militia...

The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Afghanistan two days after the Sept. 11 attacks because of fears of American military action. Hundreds of Afghan employees remained behind in the country, trying to continue delivering food and other humanitarian aid.

After a 1998 U.S. missile attack on Afghanistan, angry protesters in Kabul killed one U.N. international staffer injured another. The 1998 missile strikes were in response to the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, also blamed on bin Laden.

On Monday, four security guards at a U.N.-affiliated mine-clearing operation were killed during an American air raid on the capital.

A lengthy screed of garbled syntax and equally garbled semantics. Just like the old days. Meaning last week.

Somebody set up Ashton the bomb.

[link|http://www.phrusa.org/research/health_effects/afghan.html|And these people dare to lecture *us*?]

Excerpt:

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) strongly condemns the United Nations' recent agreement with the Taliban regime that denies immediate access to health care and education for women in Afghanistan. The Boston-based health and human rights group demands that the international body renegotiate its terms immediately.

The agreement which was signed on May 13, 1998 but surfaced only recently, places the United Nations on record as agreeing with the Taliban that women's access to health care and education "will need to be gradual." The agreement also states that women's right to education, health care, and necessary development activities shall be based on "international standards and in accordance with Islamic rules and Afghan culture."

"The U.N. endorsement of Taliban restrictions on women's basic rights to education and health care is a betrayal of international human rights standards and of the female population of Afghanistan," said Leonard S. Rubenstein, Executive Director of PHR. "Furthermore, the Taliban's denial to women of the right to attend school or earn a living, is entirely inconsistent with Afghan history and religion".

[link|http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2001/10/15/fault.html|Here's hoping he doesn't get killed for this].

Excerpt:

A certain fixation on the past took hold alongside a deep uneasiness with the present. Religious reform did not take off. The Muhammad Abdu project to renew Islam the way Martin Luther reformed Christianity ended at the turn of 19th century in disarray, opening the way to more extreme versions of the religion. Efforts to modernize the Arab language and bridge the gap between the spoken vernaculars and the written classical did not materialize. Public spheres--such as a free press, trade unions, civil societies--for debating matters related to the common good were not established. And most important, Muslims and Arabs never resolved the question of political legitimacy. They failed to develop workable models, which has made every attempt at political change long and dangerous.

The question of legitimacy is flagrant in Iran, where President Mohammed Khatami and his supporters won all the popular elections but could not win real power, which instead resides with Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. In Syria it seems there is no way out of Hafez Assad's authoritarian legacy. If Saddam Hussein finally falls from power in Iraq, heaven knows who might replace him, so ruthless has he been in suppressing rivals. Yasser Arafat's lack of a mandate has made him unable to make historic decisions in the peace process, so he instead alternates between directions.

The weak legitimacy of local regimes leaves the most essential themes of social and political destiny hanging, creating a vacuum to be filled only by populist politicians and extremist groups, by wars and civil wars. By failing to establish effective polities, we have perpetuated our impotence, making it all the harder to catch up with the West. Lebanon, the only pluralistic example in the Arab world, was destroyed by its own religious sects and its neighbors. Among the states in the area that don't work or barely do so are Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan, Algeria and Lebanon.

Arab intellectuals, who ought to encourage change, have largely failed in that role. For the most part, they did not detach themselves from the tribal tradition of defending "our" causes in the face of the "enemy." Their priority has not been to criticize the incredible shortcomings that they live with. They tend ceaselessly to highlight their "oneness." Thus they help stereotype themselves before being stereotyped by any enemy. It is in this particular history and this particular culture, and not in any alleged clash of civilizations, that the roots of our wretched present lie.

[link|http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/10/26/ret.rodgers.otsc/index.html|Abdul Haq done in]

See, this is why we don't negotiate with terrorists.

Excerpts:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The Taliban says it has executed high-profile Taliban-opposition leader Abdul Haq.

The report comes after it was learned that Haq had been arrested by Taliban forces while he was on a peace mission in Afghanistan for the exiled Afghan king, Zahir Shah...

The Taliban had been broadcasting on its radio stations before the bombing campaign began that anyone who came speaking kindly of the deposed king Zahir Shah would be guilty of treason. There are now reports from the Taliban foreign ministry that Abdul Haq has been executed.

This is an extraordinarily devastating psychological and diplomatic blow to the West, which had been placing its bets on Haq, hoping that he might rally the anti-Taliban support. And it also is a very powerful statement on the part of the Taliban itself, that it is going to deal ruthlessly with anyone who challenges its power in Afghanistan.

I say:

All bets on Haq? I sure as hell hope not, as a matter of principle. He was worth a shot, now that play is done. Time to obliterate the Taliban.

[link|http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/07/gen.uncs.taliban/index.html|Maybe if the Taliban had been nicer to the UN]

Excerpt:

The Taliban have called on the U.N. to help thousands of displaced Afghans who are facing rapidly deteriorating conditions as a result of worsening weather and continued U.S. bombing.

But the U.N. has hit back at the Taliban, saying that they have been hindering humanitarian relief efforts.

On Tuesday Security Council President, Ambassador Patricia Durrant of Jamaica, called on the Taliban not to impede the aid effort, saying that the Council "deplored the looting of UN offices, and the Taliban's takeover of humanitarian relief sites, including food and supply warehouses."

Hey, I'm no big fan of megacorps, based in Redmond or elsewhere. But blaming the capitalist system for the problems of the Muslim world just won't wash, [link|http://www.thenewrepublic.com/111201/lindsey111201.html|and here's why].

Excerpt:

But where the argument falls apart is in blaming globalization for Muslim countries' economic woes. For the sad fact is that, while newly liberated market forces have indeed fomented dramatic changes around the planet (mostly for the better), one place they haven't fomented dramatic--or even substantial--change is in the Islamic world. With a few notable exceptions--Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, some of the Gulf states--most Muslim countries have kept international economic integration at bay. Highly restrictive barriers to trade and investment choke off the international flows of goods, services, and capital. Nor has globalization reordered these countries internally. Pervasive economic controls stifle competition, while the institutional infrastructure on which markets depend remains pathetically underdeveloped. Most Muslim countries are more or less immune from globalization's creative destruction. They live in self-imposed exile from the new global economy. In other words, it is not globalization that fuels Al Qaeda--but its opposite. For if the challenges of adapting to global economic integration are daunting, they pale in comparison to the frustrations of living in the defunct and discredited collectivist past.

[link|http://www.thenewrepublic.com/123101/rubin123101.html|No wonder they can't get their act together]

Excerpt:

There's an old Pashtun proverb, Sami told me, that goes something like this: "A cousin is good against another tribe. A brother is good against cousins. And a son is good against brothers." Which is why if you don't give birth to a son here in Pashtunwali land, you're as good as finished. "All your assets will go to your enemy," said Sami, who has only four daughters. And who's the enemy? Your cousin.

I say:

It's called amoral familism, and it is a recipe for chronic backwardness. It boils down to a failure to consider the big picture, a narrowness of moral imagination just one step short of nihilism.