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<p>Perhaps I was unclear. I’m not arguing that Hashemi misunderstood the context in which he told the joke; he was giving a political speech, and the Taliban’s treatment of women was an important point of controversy. I assert that what Hashemi said was not the rage-filled argumentative deathblow that you so desperately make it out to be, but rather a simple, mysoginistic joke that was apparently inappropriate given its audience and context. What he said does not necessarily reflect a history of unbending cruelty to women–it seems more like a clever (and rude) way of telling the woman to shut up. These kinds of jokes are omnipresent in American culture, and are not Taliban-specific.</p>
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<p>I certainly do not claim that the Taliban has been “good for Afghanistan”–overall, the negatives of its rule far outweigh the positives. But if you care to do a little research, you might find that at its inception, the Taliban did, in fact, do good things for Afghanistan. With a little bit of reading, you might find that the social structure of Afghanistan just before the Taliban’s rule was dominated by a warlord system–something that promoted widespread poverty and constant internal strife. </p>
<p>Although the Taliban eventually evolved into its current state, it began as a revolutionary movement meant to correct Afghanistan’s internal problems. A bit more reading might shed light on the fact that Hashemi began his involvement with the Taliban around the time of its inception, when it was viewed by many not as a horrible, domineering system, but as a sort of social savior.</p>