Because a Conservatard is a Conservatard, Whether In Kansas or Kandahar

ummagumma.co:

He Told Us So

I finally got around to reading Markos Moulitsas' American Taliban. If you haven't read it, turn off the computer right now, go get a copy, start reading and don't do anything else until you finish. It's only 237 pages and you won't be able to put it down anyway.

It's been out for less than a year, and already events have proven Moulitsas dead-on right and all the critics who berated him for overreaching by comparing wingnut freakazoids to the Taliban Dead. Wrong.

He warned about deadly violence, and we got the murder of a federal judge and attempted murder of a Congresswoman. He warned about obsessive control of other people's sex lives, and we got draconian anti-abortion laws. He warned about misogyny, and we got budget cuts aimed at destroying women. He warned about bloodthirsty warmongering, and we got secret military operations in Pakistan, Yemen and now Libya. He warned about anti-science, anti-facts crusades, and we got massive attacks on public education.

This book, condemned even by supposed liberals for being so rude, if anything actually understated the case.

The Af-Pak Taliban and their muslim fellow-travelers are a pathetic joke compared to the Xian American Taliban. It is the American Taliban that is the genuine existential threat to American liberty and democracy.

As Moulitsas concluded:

We understate the danger posted by their demands for uniformity of thought - their thought - at our own peril. By polluting out knowledge with misinformation and doubt, they create a climate of distrust around reason itself. By intimidating free and independent thinkers, they smother not just dissent by habits of thought that lead to creativity, innovation, and problem-solving. They long for a citzenry that is equal parts frighteed, ignorant, military and dogmatic, a citizenry eager to hand over the reins of power in exchange for the illusion of certainty and security.

Whether they succeed or not, whether the American experiment scceeds or not, may largely depend on men and women who are willing to relentlessly call out ignorance, who are willing to stand up to protect democratic ideals and processes, and who fight, dain and day out, to resist the imposition of a bloodthirsty, repressive, dogmatic worldview.

Recognizing the kinship between Islamic extremists and their American Taliban cousins may be only a first step in rolling them back, but it's the foundational one.

Your Nation-Building Tax Dollars At Work

The "modern" "democratic" government we installed in Afghanistan just showed us the true wages of nation building.

The International Herald Tribune reports that the Supreme Court of the country formally known as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has upheld a 20-year prison sentence for an Afghan university student accused of blasphemy. His alleged crime? Writing and distributing an article criticizing the role of women in Islam.

The 24-year-old student, Parwiz Kambakhsh, was sentenced to death in 2007 after accusations that he had written and distributed the article in question. Last year a Kabul appeals court commuted the death sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment. Kambakhsh disclaims authorship of the article, saying he downloaded it from the Internet.

Kambakhsh’s lawyers and his family say he has been denied a fair trial. Afzal Nooristani, a defense lawyer for Kambakhsh, said that he "was not allowed to talk with the judges and officials, which is a complete violation of law." Kambakhsh’s defense team and his family only learned about the Supreme Court’s decision recently. The decision was made in in secret on February 12, and only came to light when the attorney general’s office issued orders to enforce it.

According to the Tribune, Kambakhsh’s brother issued a statement decrying "the tragic level of justice in Afghanistan today. It is just a make-believe system of justice and humanitarianism. The reality is that the Afghan government and judiciary, although supported by the U.S., the UN, the EU and other democracies worldwide, is morally bankrupt."

Human rights organizations and many Western diplomats agree: although Afghan president Hamid Karzai has made assurances of freedoms of press and speech, the Afghan news media has suffered from threats and attacks from the Taliban and pressure from the Afghan government. Karzai’s critics allege

Let's not forget this is the Supreme Court of the government we installed. To repeat, this is not a Taliban leftover - this is the American-installed government that has sentenced a student to death for the crime of - reading. (How long do you think he'll actually survive in the hell of an Afghan prison?)

I'm happy to write a blank check for a massive airlift to evacuate every woman and child out of Afghanistan and resettle them permanently in the U.S. Let the Taliban fuck goats and each other into oblivion.

But not another goddamn dime to legitimize un-democratic, inhumane, Dark Ages oppression.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....