A Foolish Appeaser

Barack Obama declared his intention to seek rapprochement with "moderate" elements within the Taliban to bring them into the political process and bring peace to Afghanistan. The idea that there are any Wahhab fanatics who comprise the Taliban-a collection of hardened Sunni extremists who are the most violent misogynists who have ever lived and who gladly employ horrific barbarism to advance Islamist tyranny,  who can be negotiated with, is absurd. These terrorists, who gladly hosted bin Laden and al Qaeda and offered him their protection even after the September 11 attacks, must be defeated on the field of battle. There is nothing to talk with them about-they are wanton murderers who kill under the guise of religion and enforce their will by publicly executing those who demur often by beheading as was the case when a twelve year old boy was made to sever the head of an alleged American spy with a dull blade. The Taliban murdered a woman because her profession was dancing. If it took re-instituting the draft to put sixteen million men under arms as we had during World War II, it would be worth it to rid the world of this atavistic scourge. There are no moderate Taliban to engage any more than there were moderates among the Iranian ruling cadre during Iran-Contra.  Our Secretary of State rushed this week to appease the recently aggressive Russia, blaming the breakdown in relations between the countries not on Russia's bad actions that included invading a former Soviet republic, cutting off natural gas to neighbors in the heart of winter, and a campaign of murder against critics including reporters in Russia and even a former Russian agent in London, but on the Bush forty-three administration for a supposedly bellicose anti-Russian posture that never existed. Relations worsened with Moscow solely because Russia is turning herself back into an aggressive tyranny just as she was in the bad old Cold War days under the imprimatur of Soviet Communism. It is a shame there are no Jack Kennedys or "Scoop" Jacksons left in our ruling party who seek to confront and defeat evil in the world, rather than seek a cowardly compromise with it.

Facing the Music

The atavistic Wahhabi former rulers of Afghanistan banned among other things music. They forced men to grow beards, but their most fierce animosity was reserved for women. I read on ABC's morning crawl that Taliban had been detained for an acid attack on women and girls who they had caught in the cardinal offense of education. The punishment for the Jihadi perpetrators of this crime against humanity should be swift and certain justice perhaps the same as the Nazi war criminals at Biskupia Gorka. But then a more sardonic and long lasting consequence came to mind. The acid throwers should be subjected to hearing the collected works of Andrea Dworkin read to them by Pashtoon speaking females who resemble the arch-feminist and are unveiled and clad in Western dress twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for the rest of their lives. Maybe an Irving Berlin score could accompany the readings.