Taliban Chutzpah
The term “temerity” also came to mind when I read one of the Taliban’s latest statements this week.
“Senior U.S. officials” reportedly tell the Wall Street Journal the United States will be clamping down on pirate radio stations and web sites used to spread Taliban threats and propaganda. US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, is quoted comparing the Taliban radio stations to “Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines, a virulently sectarian broadcaster widely believed to have helped fuel the Rwandan genocide.” (Interestingly, the next sentence states, “The U.S. considered jamming the station in the 1990s, but ultimately chose not to.”)
Well, it didn’t take long for the Taliban propaganda machine to crank out a rebuttal (.pdf version on non-terrorist web page here). Some highlights drawing my eye….
Ohh, lookit the big bully!
“In the past they have spared no efforts, Americans should feel really ashamed that despite their huge material strength and superiority they are afraid of a few local Internet sites and FM radio stations, which cannot operate outside a 20 km radius, that the Pentagon intervenes and regards these limited and few sources as a great threat.”
Lies, all lies!
“…. the Americans alone in Afghanistan or outside it have started hundreds of radio and television stations and thousands of newspapers, publications and magazine to spread poisonous, false and hateful propaganda against the Taliban and to hide huge casualties and losses inflicted on them every day by the Taliban so that no publication, news agency or website could give the exact number of American losses of life and material on a daily basis in various parts of Afghanistan.”
And the best one, when will our oppression end?
“Those world organizations and institutions, which claim to uphold the freedom of expression, idea and pen, should condemn or foil this inadmissible American effort or at least seriously denounce it if they are really committed to these claims and slogans.”
Given these expressions of Taliban understanding and acceptance of a free and independent media:
“Taliban Warn Journalists Not to Enter Afghanistan Illegally”
“Journalist covering Taliban in Pak shot dead”
“Demands Unmet, the Taliban Take an Afghan Journalist’s Life”
I wouldn’t want to have the Taliban’s nerve in my tooth.
Sorta reminds me of this Reuters story from late last year:
“Afghanistan’s Taliban, notorious for summary public executions, urged the United Nations on Thursday to press the Afghan government to stop executing prisoners on death row, citing concern about fair trials….”
Chutzpah: killing your parents, then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you’re an orphan.
