Women and Children First

Every day I read intelligence reports detailing the bodies of women found after having been stoned "to death" for transgressions such as traveling with a male who is not a relative. Just to explain how a stoning takes place, the accused offender is buried to her waist in sand and then stoned until "death." I place "death" in quotes because it isn't usually the stoning that actually kills them - the stoning breaks their spinal cord and shoulder bones, their forearms, shatters their hand and facial bones, sometimes a stone will hit with enough force and in just the right place to push out an eye, and almost always the teeth are broken - the killers don't have the patience to wait while they die from the wounds inflicted by the stones, so after the stoning they usually bash in their heads with the shovel used to bury them in the sand or back over them with a vehicle. The killers in the reports I receive are always Muslim extremists who claim credit for the stonings because it keeps people terrified. And terrified people are easier to control. When I say "Muslim extremists" I'm talking about the groups collectively known as the Taliban.

I don't get details of the number of orphans, per se, but my daily reports also contain details of the number of men and women who were executed in front of their children yesterday and last night by the Taliban - and, of course when the children are executed with the parents they appear in my reports. The Taliban do other, horrible, things to children including but not limited to dressing young boys in make-up (like little girls) and using them in lieu of women since "relations" with a woman out of wedlock are prohibited - the good, ole "letter of the law not the spirit of the law" defense. These atrocities are well-documented and common knowledge. You can easily find more information about the practices with minimal on-line research if you are so inclined.

My job requires also that I scour about 15 different public news sources for any news relative to Afghanistan. For the past 10 months, the only numbers rivalling those of people killed each night by the Taliban are the number of "women and children" killed as a result of some wedding or another having been bombed by the U.S. and/or Coalition forces.

What really happens is this: The Taliban move weapons and supplies (medical supplies, winter clothing, food, amunition, tanks) to their troops through giant tunnels in the mountains. These tunnels are not the kind you dig with a pick and axe - these tunnels are large enough to put an aircraft inside. I've seen tunnels wherein you can drive two tanks, side by side, with plenty of room for troops on foot to walk on both sides and not even feel claustrophobic - imagine a highway in a tunnel running from one side of Texas to the other. Concrete reinforced tunnels. BETTER than hollywood movie tunnels. I'm talkin' serious, professional tunnels. And, please notice my use of "troops" in reference to the Taliban. Not "groups", not "bands", not "gangs" - well-organized, well-trained troops making trips back and forth through the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan for supplies, for weapons, for ammunition, and to train more Taliban fighters.

THESE TUNNELS are quite valuable to the Taliban and their locations are some of the most valuable secrets in the war. SO, they build houses and even small villages to cover the entrances then they fill the houses with women and children to a) blackmail the people in the village into keeping the location secret so they don't lose their families and b) a ploy to keep the entrance from being bombed due to the international and national outrage of so many women and children being killed by US and/or Coalition forces.

Bottom line: When you read about all the innocent people killed by erroneous attacks against wedding parties please remember that most of them are shotgun weddings and the Taliban are holding the Uzis.