"From 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban last controlled most of the country, they carried out mass executions and cut women out of public life, forbidding them from having jobs or getting an education. Even as recently as 2018, a Thomas Reuters Foundation survey of 550 experts on women’s rights ranked Afghanistan the second most dangerous country for women." 1
Impossibly bad situations call for outside-the-box ideas. This is one of them.
No sane human would want to live under theocratic fascism, which is precisely what this is. And no reasonable person, with even a passing grasp of Talibanism and its history, would again resort to "urging sanctions" to try and reach the Taliban with reason, "aid" (bribery) or any other "civilization" tool. We didn't try that while firebombing/nuking fanatical Japanese and Nazis, and we shouldn't bother to do so now. Because if there's anything The Greatest Generation taught us, it's this: Violent fanatics can't be reached with reason, only very fast-moving lead.
The world has once again abandoned Afghan women, like it did Iranian women, to the cruelest form of existence on earth in a collapsing country. Radical responses are now morally justified. Here's one of them: Form The Woman's Liberation Army (WLA) to liquidate the Taliban. Like this:
1. Channel the anti-Nazi, White Flowers Movement by constantly dropping paper and digital leaflets explaining that no legitimate religion would have to rely on force to win converts. Remind all that no one got to vote for the Taliban, an armed gang that violently seized a nation and who are now coming for anyone who they deem to be an adversary. There's even intra-tribal warfare amongst these crazies.
2. Create (sure Joe, send in the CIA/Mossad to enable this) an Afghan Woman’s Liberation Army. Since Afghan women must now (to be the least harassed) walk around covered in black garb (burqa, a/k/a boshiya) and cover their faces, they should coalesce into non-predictable assassination formations, cagily surround each Talibani and, while he’s preoccupied whipping a female, shoot or stab him to death, then instantly fade back into the crowd.
3. Learn from, and apply, the Taliban's tactics (guerrilla warfare) against them. Hitch explains at 4:00 minutes in, here. And the Ukrainians are illustrating how to do it here.
The "Taliban burqa" provides the perfect cover for that, impeding identification if not capture. WLA warriors should be sure and wear thin latex gloves so they don’t leave any fingerprints on the weapon that they drop immediately after each kill.
They should also kill in chaotic fashion, so the terrorizing effect of an unseen sniper settles in, and more and more Afghan males will then simply refuse to join the Taliban. Women can also refuse to reproduce with them and abort their rape spawn. Long term, virtuous females can simply extinguish an evil human group by preventing their reproduction. And the incessant brain/talent drain (fleeing to The West) will accelerate a necessary economic collapse that will foment, regrettably, another civil war (like in America, where we quietly hope that rival gangs mutually exterminate themselves).
Finally, the WLA should offer (in CIA drone-dropped paper and digital leaflets) “amnesty” to all Talibanis who help in “the patriotic elimination of these sewer rats from our society.”
Brutal? You bet. “C’est la guerre.” It's what they do, remember?
Put another way: “When they bring knives, we bring guns.” These Ukrainian women understand that.
A moment from history informs and inspires here:
In 1943, Niuta Teitelbaum strolled into a Gestapo apartment on Chmielna Street in central Warsaw and faced three Nazis. A 24-year-old Jewish woman who had studied history at Warsaw University, Niuta was likely now dressed in her characteristic guise as a Polish farm girl with a kerchief tied around her braided blond hair.
She blushed, smiled meekly and then pulled out a gun and shot each one. Two were killed, one wounded. Niuta, however, wasn’t satisfied. She found a physician’s coat, entered the hospital where the injured man was being treated, and killed both the Nazi and the police officer who had been guarding him.
The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance, NYT (3/18/21)
It might be supposed that the Taliban will stop and search all females after the first few assassinations, then publicly torture, maim, and execute "suspects" to make examples out of them.
I think not. Allah doesn't permit males to even look at, much less touch, non-spouse female flesh. CIA/Mossad psy-ops can generate written/oral reminders that Allah will severely punish males for viewing/touching females. Those fanatic assholes already believe that -- why so many of them sodomize sheep and little boys (this, too). And the West can assist with non-metal-detecting weaponry -- including "Putinesque hypodermic needle jabs" within a passing crowd.
Meanwhile, it's a war, so the WLA can retaliate against Taliban reprisals by "disappearing" every Talibani even thinly connected to such acts, thus terrorizing them into abandoning the Taliban (yep, fight terror with terror -- again, it's war). WWII European Resistance females, let's not forget, successfully lured Nazi soldiers into forest and back alley "kill zones."
Western forces can help not only with a steady, covert weapons supply stream, but also by slipping high tech gear into the entire country to keep enabling internet access. That way, 2001-2021 born Afghans can be constantly reminded what the Taliban are depriving them of (freedom), and encourage them to help the WLA quietly liquidate these 7th century psychos. The WLA's mantra: "Hunt these Nazis-with-a-god down, and kill every last one of them."
There's plenty of precedent for this. On the "war of ideas" front, the CIA smuggled myriad bootlegged copies of "Dr. Zhivago" into Soviet territory during the Cold War. Putin learned well from that. He's now feeding Fox News and the Rethuggers to divide and destabilize us with Big Lie Speak while imprisoning and murdering his opposition. Plus, he sends out hit teams with exotic, military grade "plutonium-class poisons." I'm amazed that short little fucker hasn't been sniped, frankly.
On the kinetic-action battlefront, we'd be emulating Putin's "bounty offers" for every American GI killed. WLA soldiers can win cash bounties to support their families for every little fuck-wad that they exterminate. Given how far the Afghan economy is going to fall, $300 bounties will suffice. I'll personally donate to that reward fund (an overpopulated earth benefits most by depopulating civilization's Sewer Rats first).
Western intelligence/covert military operatives should focus on helping WLA warriors to best exploit their unique strategic advantage: a burka that enables them to literally live within Talibani extended families and exploit the “hide-in-plain sight” factor. No other rebel group in history has had this baked-in, constant element of surprise.
Bottom Line: The Taliban used religion, "hide-within-groups" camouflage and warlord-level tribalism to ultimately triumph. The WLA can copy and exceed that with burqas concealing knives, guns, and Putin-poisons.
Yes, this is brutal. But history reveals that fanatics cannot be reached with reason. It's why our nation pinned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star on my dad for helping to exterminate Nazis. And for anyone shocked by what I'm writing here, remember the Dresden and Tokyo fire bombings (I consider them even more horrible then the A-bombings).
Anticipated flaw in this analysis: The Taliban could vitiate the "coalesce and kill" method by dictating that females must be accompanied by males when in public and never be within, say, 10 feet of each other. That would force the WLA to recruit male allies who agree to help WLA members conduct "coalesce and kill" operations in crowds. We also know (even during the U.S. civil war) that savvy women can masquerade as men to overcome this. Males who assist can (again, this is a baked-into-the-culture feature) augment their facial hair to impede identification.
Obviously, urban areas would see the most "exterminating"; less so in rural regions. That may be enough to topple the Taliban. A few good "snipers" can keep entire garrisons locked into a military base. Able WLA soldiers can render the mere thought of joining the Taliban unthinkable.
Finally, don't forget the ultimate WLA covert weapon: Females become mothers who can "brainwash" and thus raise their offspring to think incisively and analytically, then reject theocratic fascism in any form (a concept universal to all "thinking" societies).
Alas, this is an open, evolving concept. Liberation, let's not forget, has to start somewhere. But in the meantime, let's not fuck around with "diplomatic pleasantries." An armed gang has taken over an entire nation (or, more accurately, a series of warlord fiefdoms) and rules only by violent terror, not consent. They're fanatic criminals, nothing more. People of reason have more than adequate moral cause to systematically exterminate every last one of them.
But let us not forget The Larger Problem: How the Madrasahs will continue to produce an endless supply of jihadists. The solution, of course, is obvious: Confront all religionists and convince them to abandon the dangerous social toxin (here's just one example) that they perpetuate. Dissuade the "tamer" religionists from handing over 10% of their wealth ("tithing") and join me in reforming government policies that force us all to indirectly subsidize religionists via tax exemptions, and "In God We Trust" advertising on our money.
Remind them that, analytically, they stand on the same continuum as the jihadists (they perpetuate hearsay-based beliefs that not only foment needless, "us v. them" divisiveness but, in too many regions of the world, crazy-ass violence). Educate them that supporting a "Suburban White American" ("mainstream") religion is part of the problem, for they are simply supporting pseudo-legitimizing trees of the same, crazy-violent forest (The Inquisition, Heresy Torture-Executions, The Crusades, Trump-corrupted Christian Right Rethuglicanism, etc.).
This is the universal drumbeat (we'll call this The Second Enlightenment) that all can easily join and, thanks to the internet, steadily insinuate into the nuttier-religious corners of the world to supplant The Books of Revelation with The Book of Reason. Reason that vanquishes Fantasism (of which religiosity is a subset) can spread to naturally extinguish all such organized madness (the mainstream and fringe religions), thus Islam, its Madrasah schools, and the violent psychos they produce. Reason that separates Church and State and prevents arrogant religionists from ever again seizing and misusing governmental power against their non-adherents ("the infidels!"). Reason that results in uniform rules for all.
And yes. Start with the young, first. Which is precisely what the Religionists do (after sexually mutilating me, Catholics dipped me in "holy water" when I was a baby, then constantly brainwashed in every elementary school grade . . . it took me until I was 16 to unwind that shit from my brain; too many of my brethren have failed to do so). For every arrogant Christian aiming to foist "school prayer" upon our kids, People of Reason can and must counter with Reason-based messaging.
Annnd, it's working! 25% of my son's generation is now "non-believer" categorized. That's in America. The internet can accelerate that Triumph of Reason here, and now planet-wide: Again, our spook agencies can quietly disperse internet-enabling tech into the Afghan and other Middle Eastern regions. We know that information is power. Groups like these folks are proving it. It's also proven by the fact that autocrats darken the internet -- to prevent truth and reason from vanquishing them.
But truth can and must prevail, especially in the religion-based dictatorships that ultimately send jets into buildings.
This is how we do it. Guns, knives, poison jabs and, ultimately, religion-dissolving Truth.
Because as Ted Olson (lost his wife on 9/11) reminds:
[T]he Taliban and the terrorists with whom they collaborate do not forget. They are driven by a cruel, rigid, harsh and unrelenting religious zealotry. They dominate and oppress their own people, subjugate their women, and torture and behead anyone who dissents or departs from their barbaric regime.
We know who and what they are. We have labeled them as terrorists and placed bounties on the heads of some of their leaders. Yet it takes immense resources, tenacity and, sadly, loss of lives to fight them. The effort and cost can be enervating. We grow tired; we want to wish them away. We start to forget.
And that is what we have done. We have chosen to blind ourselves to our known and unrelenting enemy. We resort to comfortable and soft concepts such as “diplomacy” and “negotiation.” We pretend they have changed. We listen to soothing lies. We fantasize that if we just put our arms around them, they will be nice, civilized, decent. Remember how well that worked with Hitler.
(Source).
I agree with you, Ted. We must hunt them down and kill every last one of them. Here's the WLA flag.