Afghanistan, Still Losing the War, Part 10

CTV is reporting the same story.

Media in this country is horrible.

_______________________________________________________________

There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

Found this.

Are all these rules and restrictions true???

Quote:

Taliban restrictions and mistreatment of women include the:

1- Complete ban on women's work outside the home, which also applies to
female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female
doctors and nurses are allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul.

2- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied
by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).

3- Ban on women dealing with male shopkeepers.

4- Ban on women being treated by male doctors.

5- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other
educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into
religious seminaries.)

6- Requirement that women wear a long veil (Burqa), which covers them from head to toe.

7- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in
accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.

8- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

9- Public stoning of women accused of having sex outside marriage. (A number of lovers are stoned to death under this rule).

10- Ban on the use of cosmetics. (Many women with painted nails have had fingers cut off).

11- Ban on women talking or shaking hands with non-mahram males.

12- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

13- Ban on women wearing high heel shoes, which would produce sound while walking. (A man must not hear a woman's footsteps.)

14- Ban on women riding in a taxi without a mahram.

15- Ban on women's presence in radio, television or public gatherings of any kind.

16- Ban on women playing sports or entering a sport center or club.

17- Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.

18- Ban on women's wearing brightly colored clothes. In Taliban terms, these are "sexually attracting colors."

19- Ban on women gathering for festive occasions such as the Eids, or for any recreational purpose.

20- Ban on women washing clothes next to rivers or in a public place.

21- Modification of all place names including the word "women." For example, "women's garden" has been renamed "spring garden".

22- Ban on women appearing on the balconies of their apartments or houses.

23- Compulsory painting of all windows, so women can not be seen from outside their homes.

24- Ban on male tailors taking women's measurements or sewing women's clothes.

25- Ban on female public baths.

26- Ban on males and females traveling on the same bus. Public buses have now been designated "males only" (or "females only").

27- Ban on flared (wide) pant-legs, even under a burqa.

28- Ban on the photographing or filming of women.

29- Ban on women's pictures printed in newspapers and books, or hung on the walls of houses and shops.

Apart from the above restrictions on women, the Taliban has:

- Banned listening to music, not only for women but men as well.

- Banned the watching of movies, television and videos, for everyone.

- Banned celebrating the traditional new year (Nowroz) on March 21. The Taliban has proclaimed the holiday un-Islamic.

- Disavowed Labor Day (May 1st), because it is deemed a "communist" holiday.

- Ordered that all people with non-Islamic names change them to Islamic ones.

- Forced haircuts upon Afghan youth.

- Ordered that men wear Islamic clothes and a cap.

- Ordered that men not shave or trim their beards, which should grow
long enough to protrude from a fist clasped at the point of the chin.

- Ordered that all people attend prayers in mosques five times daily.

- Banned the keeping of pigeons and playing with the birds, describing
it as un-Islamic. The violators will be imprisoned and the birds shall
be killed.

- Ordered all onlookers, while encouraging the sportsmen, to chant Allah-o-Akbar (God is great) and refrain from clapping.

- Ban on certain games including kite flying which is "un-Islamic" according to Taliban.

- Anyone who carries objectionable literature will be executed.

- Anyone who converts from Islam to any other religion will be executed.

- All boy students must wear turbans. They say "No turban, no education".

- Non-Muslim minorities must wear a distinct badge or stitch a yellow
cloth onto their dress to be differentiated from the majority Muslim
population. Just like what the Nazis did with Jews.

- Banned the use of the internet by both ordinary Afghans and foreigners.

And so on...

ON November 8, 1994 the UN Secretary-General
presented the interim report on the situation of human rights in
Afghanistan prepared by Mr. Felix Ermacora, Special Rapporteur of the
Commission on Human Rights, in accordance with Commission on Human
Rights resolution 1994/84 of 9 March 1994, and Economic and Social
Council decision 1994/268 of 25 July 1994.

Parts of the report about women's rights sitaution says:

The Special Rapporteur's attention has been drawn to the Ordinance on
the Women's Veil, which is reported to have been issued by a
nine-member professional committee of the High Court of the Islamic
State of Afghanistan and which reads as follows:

"A denier of veil is an infidel and an unveiled woman is lewd".

Conditions of wearing veil:

1. The veil must cover the whole body.
2. Women's clothes must not be thin.
3. Women's clothes must not be decorated and colourful.
4. Women's clothes must not be narrow and tight to prevent the seditious limbs from being noticed.
5. Women must not perfume themselves. If a perfumed woman passes by a crowd of men, she is considered to be an adulteress.
6. Women's clothes must not resemble men's clothes.

"In addition,

1. They must not perfume themselves.
2. They must not wear adorning clothes.
3. They must not wear thin clothes.
4. They must not wear narrow and tight clothes.
5. They must cover their entire bodies.
6. Their clothes must not resemble men's clothes.
7. Muslim women's clothes must not resemble non-Muslim women's clothes.
8. Their foot ornaments must not produce sound.
9. They must not wear sound-producing garments.
10. They must not walk in the middle of streets.
11. They must not go out of their houses without their husband's permission.
12. They must not talk to strange men.
13. If it is necessary to talk, they must talk in a low voice and without laughter.
14. They must not look at strangers.
15. They must not mix with strangers."

Realigned wrote:

Are all these rules and restrictions true???

First of all, you're using out-of date sources.

The people our overlords now call Taliban are not the same people who were armed and installed by the US to rule Afghanistan after the Soviet troops left.

See this article: [url=http://tomdispatch.com/post/175010/anand_gopal_making_sense_of_the_talib... are the Taliban?[/u][/url]

Second, most of those rules you cited are today imposed by the current rulers of Afghanistan and the tribal warlords who support them.

Which is why, as the topic of this thread suggests, "we" are losing the war. 

Perhaps you were hoping I had stopped using an annoying tag line. You were wrong; you're reading it now. Why not email a moderator to demand that signature/tag lines be abolished forthwith?

M. Spector wrote:

Realigned wrote:

Are all these rules and restrictions true???

First of all, you're using out-of date sources.

The people our overlords now call Taliban are not the same people who were armed and installed by the US to rule Afghanistan after the Soviet troops left.

Of course they arent. But the Taliban are educated at the same madrassas funded by the CIA, Saudis, Brits etc via Pakistan in the 1980s. Gohani, in "Who are the Taliban?", talks about "blowback", but the CIA never really cut ties to al Qa'eda and militant Islamists in the 1990's as they claim to have. They were needed in the Balkans, Chechnya, and former Soviet stani nations for destablization efforts still happening today. As Chomsky said, the best way to prevent terrorism is to stop participating in it.

Malalai Joya said she believes that the Northern Alliance commanders in Karzai's government are selling weapons to the Taliban to encourage the insurgency. The Yanks and NATO need a reason for occupying Afghanistan militarily. An outbreak of peace in Central Asia is terrifying for the imperialists. And it looks like the "Balkanzation" of Pakistan and Middle East is running on schedule.

Pakistani terrorists need to renew the friction between Pakistan and India in order to keep the Pakistani government wrongfooted.

Pak fear of India  keeps Pakistani troops facing India rather than the tribal regions, makes keeping an unstable Afghanistan necessary for Pak strategic depth, and requires the Pakistani government to keep the faith with the clans in order to count on their support against the possibility of Indian agression.

The Mumbai Massacre is a prime example of Pakistani terrorist mischiefmaking in the hope of provoking a reprisal from India. it is good to see India didn't fall for the gambit and chose to engage Pakistan diplomatically instead.

The solution to the Afghanistan question lies in a regional solution that starts with building trust between India and Pakistan.

George Victor wrote:

bert:

The solution to the Afghanistan question lies in a regional solution that starts with building trust between India and Pakistan.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But aren't you ignoring the struggles in the Land of Oz?

(Try Rory Stewart's The Places in Between for some better understanding of Afghanistan.

I wonder if NATO's "strategy of tension", as Daniel Ganser described it, has anything to do with undermining trust between Pakistan and India, bombings in 1993 Bombay, Bali and London, Mumbai in '08, and the phony war on terror in Central Asia today. 

Fidel wrote:

George Victor wrote:

bert:

The solution to the Afghanistan question lies in a regional solution that starts with building trust between India and Pakistan.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But aren't you ignoring the struggles in the Land of Oz?

(Try Rory Stewart's The Places in Between for some better understanding of Afghanistan.

I wonder if NATO's "strategy of tension", as Daniel Ganser described it, has anything to do with undermining trust between Pakistan and India, bombings in 1993 Bombay, Bali and London, Mumbai in '08, and the phony war on terror in Central Asia today. 

From under the protection of my tinfoil hat, I sometimes wonder if the fascination with 'rogue elements' of the ISI should not be extended to 'rogue elements' of western intelligence agencies that thrive on chaos.

Closing for length.