HomeAfghanistan Rohde cont’d.

Rohde cont’d.

October 20, 2009 By dev Comments are Off

From part three of David Rohde’s harrowing account, “Held By the Taliban”:

It was a universe filled with contradictions. My captors assailed the West for killing civilians, but they celebrated suicide attacks orchestrated by the Taliban that killed scores of Muslim bystanders.

Thank you, someone’s finally saying it, and who better than Rohde.
Once again: According to the Human Rights Unit of UNAMA, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, “anti-government elements” (i.e., the Taliban and allied insurgents) are responsible for the clear majority of Afghan civilian deaths in the current phase of this conflict.
P.S. — More from Rohde:
My captors railed against the evils of a secular society. In March, they celebrated a suicide attack in a mosque in the Pakistani town of Jamrud that killed as many as 50 worshipers as they prayed to God. [My emphasis.] Those living under Pakistan’s apostate government, they said, deserved it.
Also from Rohde, this is completely insane:

My Taliban guards slept beneath bedspreads manufactured by a Pakistani textile company and emblazoned with characters from the American television show “Hannah Montana” and the movie “Spider-Man.” My blanket was a pink Barbie comforter.
[…]
They searched for ways to break the monotony. After dinner on many winter nights, my guards sang Pashto songs for hours. My voice and Pashto pronunciation were terrible, but our guards urged me to sing along….
[…]
On other nights, at my guards’ urging, I switched to American tunes. In a halting, off-key voice, I sang Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York” and described it as the story of a villager who tries to succeed in the city and support his family. I sang Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and described it as a portrayal of the struggles of average Americans.
[…]
The Beatles song “She Loves You,” which popped into my head soon after I received my wife’s letter from the Red Cross, was the most popular.

For reasons that baffled me, the guards relished singing it with me. I began by singing its first verse. My three Taliban guards, along with [hostages] Tahir and Asad, then joined me in the chorus.

“She loves you — yeah, yeah, yeah,” we sang, with Kalashnikovs lying on the floor around us.

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