TALIBAN FLOGGING 17 YR GIRL - PAR FOR COURSE !

President Obama – a peek at your Good Taliban.

A 17-year-old Pakistani girl is punished in a horrific flogging by Taliban militants for being seen with a man who is not her husband.



Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging.He said it was the Taliban's right to thrash women and that the girl was being punished for coming out of her house with another man who was not her husband.

Mobile phone footage shows the girl begging for mercy as she receives 37 lashes at the hands of her brother while two others hold her down.

'Please stop it,' she begs but the men completely disregard her desperate pleas and pathetic attempts to defend herself.

But some claim the commander ordered the flogging to get revenge after the girl refused to accept a marriage proposal.

Indian Express reported: The Taliban have now issued new dictum in the areas under their sway asking parents of the grown up daughters to marry them to militants or ‘face dire consequences’.

This new force-marriage campaign is being run in most of the areas in the Pakistan's troubled NWFP through regular announcements made in mosques to congregations.

Salma, who teaches in a primary school in Peshawar, told the influential ‘Dawn’ newspaper that Taliban have told families to declare in mosques if they have unmarried girls so that their hand could be given in marriage, most probably to militants.

If they did not do so, the girls would be forcibly married off; the newspaper quoted the 30-year-old widow as saying.

She also said the Taliban in the Swat valley of NWFP have threatened women with dire punishment, if they are found outside their homes without identity cards and a male relative accompanying them.

Couples should also carry 'Nikah Nama' or marriage certificates with them when they venture out of home or they will be in trouble, she said.

"I have heard that Taliban have announced that if a girl above the age of seven is found outside her house, she would be slaughtered," Salma said.

Daily Times, Pakistan, carried an interview with Sufi Mohammad. This one is a gem.

Daily Times: You said in a 2005 interview with us that what Al Qaeda and the Taliban are doing in Pakistan is haram. Are Maulana Fazlullah’s activities over the last sixteen months also haram?

Sufi Muhammad: Yes, I said that about Al Qaeda, but not about the Taliban. Let me say...that debate on past happenings is disallowed in Islam. A hadith sharif says, what has happened in the past should not be discussed.

But how can we proceed without debating the past?

The hadith sharif says a Muslim should not discuss past happenings because he may not remember all the [details] and, therefore, he may...sin by not speaking the truth.

Imagine this scenario – As per Sufi Muhammad, one can commit crime, probably murder, but can cite hadith sharif and say “Hey, you know what, I do not remember much, and since I may lie, under Hadith sahrif, I am allowed not to discuss past happenings”. Wow! Let the floggings and killings start !

On a more serious note, DAWN newspaper is reporting: “The result of this glorification of jihad for decades is that once the militants turned their guns on Pakistan itself, which was inevitable for anyone willing to acknowledge the facts, people were completely unprepared. Yesterday’s ‘heroes’ had seemingly overnight become the new enemy, and for no convincing reason. But there are plenty of reasons to worry about militancy. One, territorial control is a key aim of the militants.

There is a historical explanation though for the climate of denial. For a generation, Pakistanis were led to believe that armed jihad was a noble cause, first of course in Afghanistan and later in Kashmir, because our security establishment deemed it necessary for the pursuit of its own narrow definition of national interest. The result: a nation with a warped sense of right and wrong.”

For the American perspective on the Af-Pak issue, click here. One of the observations: “The Bush strategy was maximalist only in its rhetoric,” comments one Hill Democratic foreign policy staffer. “It promised the Marshall plan but never delivered.” Obama’s plan “is trying to have a more flexible approach, to try and see what works. They don’t come in with an over-arching ideology. Be prepared to have one strategy in Kandahar and another strategy in Helmand. And one strategy in Kandahar when it has a good governor, and a different strategy if a corrupt one.”

Sharon Chadha sums it up best when she states: “As unbelievable as this may seem, Admiral Mullen still apparently hopes that he can count on support from Islamabad. As he told the Times reporter, "I’m completely convinced that the vast majority of the leaders in Pakistan understand the seriousness of the threat.”

Really. Is he smoking opium or what?”

Conclusion:

Information Minister for NWFP Iftikhar Hussain said on Thursday that 95 per cent of Pakistan’s problems could be resolved if the country (meaning : PAKISTAN) ‘stopped interfering in Afghan affairs’ and that Talibanisation is a ‘foreign-funded agenda supported by Pakistani agencies (meaning ISI) which has facilitated blood bath across Pakistan.’ ‘Its strange that we put others (meaning AFGHANISTAN, INDIA) in trouble and think all will be well here, if we kill them its Jihad, if we destroy their schools its Jihad, if we destroy their country it is termed jihad and if all this bounces on us than we wonder why it happened.’

Hamid Gul, the old veterans of ISI and Army who control Taliban and are themselves thoroughly immersed in the Taliban ideology - this is their biggest battle to survive.

Long War Journal reports: "A senior Lashkar-e-Taiba military commander behind the Mumbai terror assault and thought to be in Pakistani custody is directing complex military operations into India-held Kashmir.

Yusuf Muzammil, the senior operations director for the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been overheard by Indian intelligence requesting Hizbul Mujahideen Chief Syed Sallahuddin "to push a large number of militant cadres into the state" of Jammu & Kashmir."

Dawn report & Information Minister for NWFP Iftikhar Hussain were talking about these exact machinations of Pakistan Army & ISI. If Hamid Gul & team wins - its apocalypse now !