This article from the Sunday Times plays right into my preconceived notions of what the people in Afghanistan are really like: desensitized, pragmatic, and uninterested in the Islamic fanaticism of their leaders.

When the Taliban complain about civilian casualties from U.S. air raids, it’s important to remember that the Taliban have their own long history of intentionally slaughtering Afghan civilians for nothing more than being from the wrong ethnic group. According to UN sources, there have been 15 massacres of civilians in Afghanistan over the past four years. These massacres were ordered by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar himself, and many were committed, at least in part, by the Arab Afghans who are in Afghanistan serving Osama bin Laden. When you see people from Muslim countries on the news condemning the U.S. for its bombing of Afghanistan, ask yourself why they’re not condemning the Taliban and the Arab Afghans with the same breath. The Arab Afghans are foreigners who answered the call to jihad, and now find themselves in Afghanistan not fighting “infidels,” but rather fellow Muslims who won’t fall in line behind the Taliban. That should tell you something about the corruption of their leaders, and their mindless devotion to those leaders.

Phil Agre: attack-related links. This is the first set in 5 days.

Our latest disagreement with the Taliban: the number of people who were killed by an attack on the Afghan village of Karam, and what they were up to. The Taliban says 200 villagers died in the attack, Donald Rumsfeld says that the Taliban are “accomplished liars.” I honestly have no idea who’s telling the truth. The attack has been a public relations boon for the Taliban — since they made the claims, governments of Islamic countries around the world are getting cold feet about our continued bombing of Afghanistan.

Note: this report from a Pakistani journalist working for the New York Times who was on the scene says that villagers are reporting 53 casualties, and that 22 bodies had been found.

I found the following quote in a story about how the CIA fights terrorism (link from Kausfiles):

“In successful cases, we can apprehend someone and move that person to another country where he can be arrested and interrogated,” an official said.

One major benefit of putting possible terrorists in the hands of foreign services, according to intelligence sources, is that most countries do not have the same legal rights and procedures as are practiced in the United States. Many foreign countries fighting terrorism use interrogation methods that include torture and threats to family members.

That’s right, in order to circumvent that pesky Constitution the CIA sends suspects to other countries where human rights are not respected.

There seems to be a lot of wrangling going on right now about what sort of government Afghanistan will have once the Taliban have been removed from power. My suggestion is this: a government composed entirely of women. I’m actually fairly serious here.

Our problem with Afghanistan is that the Taliban are willing hosts for all sorts of Islamic extremist terrorist groups. These groups, and their Taliban hosts, are almost impossibly misogynistic. Women from any ethnic group can lead the country, and we can be sure that they aren’t in league with the terrorists, since there’s no way the terrorists would work with them.

Afghanistan’s greatest domestic problem is abuse of women. The Taliban has codified the abuse of women, as is well known now that the world is paying attention to what’s going on there. Before that, the Northern Alliance ruled the country, and allowed women to be brutalized with impunity. Women were free to work and go to school, but if criminals attacked and raped them, there were no repercussions. I find it difficult to believe that if women were in charge of Afghanistan neither of those situations would be tolerated. It’s certainly not a perfect solution, and perhaps not even a plausible one, but I think that any solution to the problem has to start with the empowerment of the women of Afghanistan. It’s obvious at this point that the men there aren’t willing to bear their responsibility to their fellow human beings.

For future reference: www.garagegames.com

Seymour Hersh reports in the New Yorker this week that an unmanned (but not unarmed) surveillance aircraft operated by the CIA had a vehicle carrying Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in its sights but did not fire on it because legal clearance for the attack could not be obtained. Hersh’s article is not available online, but according to the BBC story I linked to, the failure to pull the trigger greatly displeased Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

However, as far as I’m concerned, this sort of thing gives the United States whatever shreds of moral superiority we can claim when we compare ourselves to the rest of the world. For the time being, assassination is illegal in this country, and as such, it would have been wrong for us to evaporate Mullah Omar with an anti-tank missile, no matter how sleazy he is. Even if other people don’t respect us for it, it’s important to be able to respect ourselves.

Remember how I said last week that there were two anti-terrorism bills working their way through Congress, the Senate’s odious USA Act and the House’s less odious Patriot Act? You can forget the Patriot Act. The House leadership ditched the Patriot Act, which was crafted in the House Judiciary Committee, and took up the Senate bill instead. The bill passed in the House 337 to 79 with a few minor modifications and now we’re screwed. Be sure to read the bullet list at the end of the article, pretty much every bad measure that was under discussion has been included in the bill. Since this bill will almost certainly become law in its present form, the next step is to fight it in the courts. If you see any resources which address the constitutionality of the various provisions of the law, please email them to me.

Let’s talk about those dirty bastards in the recording industry again. They’re trying to get permission to break into our PCs to delete pirated files, and anything else, as long as they intend to delete pirated files:

An RIAA-drafted amendment according to a draft obtained by Wired News would immunize all copyright holders — including the movie and e-book industry — for any data losses caused by their hacking efforts or other computer intrusions “that are reasonably intended to impede or prevent” electronic piracy.

The real kick in the head is that they tried to get this provision added to the anti-terrorism bill the Senate passed last week. If any law of this sort is passed, you’d better not try to steal any of my weblog entries. I have rootkit and I’m not afraid to use it …