Finger mutilation is an age-old Islamic practice, and this is no surprise when it is being done in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
Posted on 08/22/2009 6:36:44 AM PDT by myknowledge
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Making good on a threat of election day violence, the Taliban sliced off the index fingers of at least two people in Kandahar province, according to a vote monitoring group.
After they cast their ballots, the fingers of Afghan voters are stained with ink to prevent them from voting multiple times. The fingers of the two women in Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban, were cut off because they voted, said Nader Naderi of the Free and Fair Election Foundation.
The Taliban had vowed to disrupt Thursday's election and the risk was too great for some Afghans to venture out, especially in the southern provinces that form the heartland of the radical Islamist group.
Just days ahead of the election, U.S. Marines and other NATO forces carried out military operations to clear and hold sectors that have long been in the Taliban grip, and free up the population to vote.
Sporadic attacks on election day killed 26 people and injured scores more. Still, Afghan officials hailed the voting as a success.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Finger mutilation is an age-old Islamic practice, and this is no surprise when it is being done in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
Ah...the peaceful religion of Islam.
Is Michael Moore pleased with his “freedom fighters”?
Sounds like the Taliban has alot in common with ACORN and the Black Panthers in Philadelphia.
Don’t bother MM. He’s probably doing a movie exposing how OB is trying to turn the country into a socialist paradise and we’re whining about it.
But then, Eric "The Coward" Holder feels this fine citizen, wearing his favorite 'community organizer' uniform complete with Jack Boots, was no threat to the area voters.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Since they only cut off a finger, instead of a head, would this be the moderate Taliban that Obama wants to negotiate with?
.....Same goal
It isn't that dissimilar to the behaviour of Julius Caesar at Uxellodunum - "...he decided to inflict an extraordinary punishment on those who had rebelled against him to deter the rest of Gaul. Accordingly, he cut off the hands of those who had borne arms against him, but permitted them to continue living. He scattered them throughout Gaul, determined that all of Gaul see that there would be no more mercy for continued defiance..."
The Taliban have followed a similar plot - take up arms or support the enemy by engaging in this activiies and you will pay.
Condemn the evil of this behaviour but don't underestimate it or paint it as 'islamic' and trivialise it or see it as somehow irrelevant: Remember Colonel Kurtz:
It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.
I still think Afghanistan has been mishandled for shortterm reasons. The best long term way to sort the Taliban out and the worst warlords would be to train and arm RAWA (Roughly stands for Afghan's Women's revolutionary association) who have been fighting Sovets and Taliban for years. Aside from deserving support, they are the one group Osama and co can never suborn!
Such an idea is a waste of American resources. One hundred MOABs at select targets including Mosques would have been a huge bargin. We would have made our point. Screw with America and you get living Hell in return. We wouldn't be stuck in a quagmire.
Why can’t they just use what they use in nightclubs...ink only visible under UV light? Problem solved.
“After they cast their ballots, the fingers of Afghan voters are stained with ink to prevent them from voting multiple times. The fingers of the two women in Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban, were cut off because they voted,”
And I can’t talk my family, friends and neighbors into going to a Tea Party with me!? What are Americans made of anymore? Are we just wusses? I’m ashamed.
> Sounds like the Taliban has alot in common with ACORN and the Black Panthers in Philadelphia.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see that ACORN was Taliban funded.
Just Muslims celebrating Ramadan. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
Religion of pieces.
Do you remember which jerk called the tea partiers “the taliban”? Oh yeah, what’s his face that called for the rape of Palin’s daughter. Letterman.
Nope. That would have been tactically effective but would have created plenty of martyrs, drummed up enemy recruitment and blackened a noble history. Good guys don’t shoot indiscrimantely.
It’s too late now, but the advantage of arming and training groups like RAWA is that it would bring nightmares t every fanatic elsewhere and cause fear that the oppressed 50% of teir nations who are woman are a potential fifth column...
Really, he is salivating.
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