Political prisoner, activist, journalist, hymn-writer, emerging thinktanker, aspiring novelist, "tribal elder", 2019 parliamentary candidate for North West Durham, 2024 parliamentary candidate for North Durham, 2028 candidate for Mayor of the North East Mayoral Combined Authority, Shadow Leader of the Opposition, "Speedboat", "The Cockroach", banned from Twitter so officially more dangerous than the Taliban, eagerly awaiting the second (or possibly third) attempt to murder me.
Friday 19 August 2011
Who Are The Taliban?
There are no Taliban distinct from the Pashtun community as a whole. There are ultra-Islamist Pashtun nationalists, and we call them the Taliban. But that is all that they are. They want what they want in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or at any rate in the Pashtun parts of both. But that is all that they want. Objectionable they certainly are. A threat to us they certainly are not. Or, at least, they wouldn't be. If we left them alone. By getting and staying out of their country.
Remember the Buddhist statues destroyed a decade ago? The Taliban would have had the (non-Muslim) British Council compound in their sights all along.
ReplyDeleteFunny how it has taken them this long, then.
ReplyDelete