another nation in violation of international law. Therefore, to put it
mildly this is aggression of one state against another and not war. To put
it bluntly, it is terror against innocent civilians as an excuse for
terror against other innocent civilians. Is this the justice which our
Lord has thought us?
Again, the ultimate aim of this aggression, is not
terrorism, or Osama Bin Laden, but the control of the enormous reserves of
oil buried under Afghan soil and the Caspian sea and the snatching
of a share of the arms trade in that area by the American weapons industry
from the exclusive hegemony of the Russians and the Chinese, in view of
the immense potential of billions of dollars in profits offered by
the ongoing conflict between India and
Pakistan. In fact it is reported that the dictator of Pakistan, Musharaf
has already signed a secret multibillion dollar deal with the U.S. for the
supply of sophisticated weapons of mass destruction like the ones employed
in Afghanistan, in return for the betrayal of the Taliban.
In other words, this aggression against Afghanistan
is also serving as a shop window for American military hardware; or to put
it bluntly again; The Afghani people are serving as guinea pigs to show
how more destructive and devastating American weapons are when confronted
with their Russian and Chinese counterparts.
But what did the Taliban do so wrong to deserve such a punishment by the all mighty U.S.A? Well, the biggest mistake of the Taliban was that in their four years in power they dared to turn the cold shoulder to the continuos courting of American multinational oil companies wanting to grab the countries' immense oil reserves and worst still they offended them by turning down these companies' offers of billions of dollars of income from oil extraction, fearing that the flow of money into Afghanistan could bring with it corruption and all the "sins" of the western world, thus putting at risk the Mullah Omar's strictly Islamic society. This obsession of the Mullah to create and preserve a model of a truly Islamic state has also been the main reason why in their four years in power the Taliban embarked on an agrarian reform, confiscating and burning the all profitable opium plantations in the areas under their control and turning them into non profitable corn, wheat and vegetable plantations and persecuting opium growers; a reform which has earned the Taliban many enemies amongst the rich opium growers; the same opium growers who today fill the ranks of the so called Northern Alliance.
Before the Taliban took power, anarchy and corruption reigned supreme in
Afghanistan. The great opium growers and their Mafia ruled uncontested,
with the complicity of the then American-backed President, Rabbani.
Brothels were everywhere, alcoholism was an epidemic and rapes, murders,
kidnappings and all sorts of crime were the general rule. The Taliban,
with the help of the Pakistani government took power with the aim to clean
up Afghan society. And notwithstanding their extreme and ruthless methods,
they succeeded. The law of the jungle was substituted by the law of the
Sharia. Brothels were outlawed and prostitutes and male sex
offenders flogged. All women were forced to wear the Burka, according to a
Taliban spokesperson, "to defend public morality and the dignity of
women themselves against men who would otherwise look upon them as objects
of desire and not persons and would be tempted to use them".
"Obscene" pictures of naked women and film stars were also
forbidden, as was the viewing of TV and the listening to music which they
considered the sound of the devil.
Even money transactions were strictly controlled with barter being the main method of commerce. This was done to avoid people falling victims to adulatory; becoming more fond of money than of Allah. Of course, the extreme measures implemented by the Taliban to bring law and order to Afghanistan might raise eyebrows and most people in our western style society might be scandalized and consider such a system as barbarism.
But shouldn't we, as true Christians be more
scandalized by drug trafficking, money extortion, thefts, kidnappings,
prostitution, pornography, adultery, indecency, gambling and all the
forbidden fruits of the so called freedom brought about by our U.S.A.
style free society? Or have our values so radically changed as a result of
the incessant pounding of our "free!" western media that now
half naked girls roaming our streets are normality and a woman in burka is
a scandal? Or worst still; Not listening to music is a scandal and the
murdering of thousands of innocent people to impose our western style
society on others is not? But of course this is again the result of our
exemplary free and democratic western media which considers women in burka
and the lack of music as of news value while the massacre of innocent
civilians as not.
The English paper Daily Star of Wednesday, November the 14th. 2001 is a typical example of what I mean. On the front page the headlines read; "Kelly's Got It All" and accompanying this heading, the picture of Hollywood film star Kelly Brook in a transparent black dress, displaying her naked bottom and her voluminous silicone engineered "boobs". The article continues by reporting the most important news of all, how this actress has become the new sex symbol and the number one object of desire of males in the U.S.A. Then you turn the pages, and you find the usual chorus of how less fortunate Afghan women were under the Taliban and how happy and jubilant they now are under their liberators and our friends, the so called 'Northern Alliance".
No news of the atrocities being perpetrated by these "freedom fighters". How women were being stripped of their burkas, beaten, raped tortured and having their "boobs" cut off and then brutally murdered. But then, in a short article by Jerry Lawton concealed in page 6, the horrendous news of what these liberators were really doing. I quote: "The worst atrocity was the bloody execution of 100 children as they hid in fear.......in their school". Under the sub heading "Skinned", the article continues; "The mobs shattered youngsters' limbs by beating them with rifles until their parents handed over food, equipment and arms. The children's mothers were shot dead before their eyes. Fathers were beheaded or skinned alive......Worried Human Rights campaigners said at least 500 had died in the savagery".
But this story does not deserve to become a headline
because since no CNN, no CBS no BBC no Reutors or Associated Press
reported it, therefore it means it is not of news value. Only the
Qatar News Agency Al-Jaseera reported it in headlines, but it was
immediately silenced by one of the many American "collateral
damage" bombs which "by mistake!" destroyed their
transmitter in Kabul. The same "collateral damage" bombs which
have hit "by mistake" schools, hospitals and homes, murdering
thousands of innocent civilians.
If we are presenting this type of model of the Christian culture to Islamic nations, how can we expect to convince them that our system is better than that of the Taliban and that this aggression against Afghanistan is justified; let alone convert them to Christianity? Who are we to judge and condemn other cultures in the first place? Wasn't it that same Jesus Christ who once said, "Don't look at the speck of dust in the eyes of others; see the log which is in yours", and again "Whoever is free from sin cast the first stone".
And if we are scandalized by the "medieval mentality" of the Taliban with regard to money, see what Jesus has to say in the Gospel; "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the gates of heaven". Well Mr. Young, maybe that would clarify a bit who qualifies most for the position of devil in this new holocaust.
As a last advice I recommend that you turn to page
three of the same Daily Star, because maybe, one day, that same
page might be occupied by the picture of an Afghani woman who once wore
the Burka. But then we would not be scandalized. Rather we would be
entertained and hate the Taliban even more for concealing for four long
years such beauty from our hungry and lustful eyes and we would be
surprised how much progress Afghanistan would have made since the fall of
that tyrannical
regime.
And maybe one day that same woman might hit the world headlines and newspaper front pages with the heading " Miss Afghanistan is the new Miss World" and everybody would be happy and with the conscience in peace because now Afghanistan has become a member of the international community of "democratic" states in a globalized world, where Darwin's law of "the survival of the fittest" has been abolished in favor of the "survival of the richest and the most corrupt".
And while Afghanistan reverts back to the massacres,
rapes and corruption of "our friends," the 'Freedom
Fighters", we start to grab the full meaning of one of the thousands
of leaflets dropped by American planes on the Taliban troops, which reads;
"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!".