Taliban Guy at Yale

[cosar]

<p>I don’t really need to do “a little research,” as I followed the development of the Taliban regime closely as it was happening. (That may be part of our disconnect - you probably view the Taliban as history rather than current events.) By the time Hashemi went on his U.S. roadshow, the atrocities of the Taliban were plain as day, and Hashemi was the Taliban spokesman defending these atrocities. After he returned to Afghanistan (and before 9/11) a UPI story described Hashemi as “rumored to be Afghanistan’s next foreign minister.”</p>

<p>Here’s an interesting op-ed piece from the Yale Daily News that I hadn’t seen before (though it’s a couple of months old). Apologies if it’s been posted before.
<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=32322[/url]”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=32322&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>An excerpt:

Rahmatullah Hashemi and Malalai Joya seemingly have much in common. Both are 27, come from the same region of Afghanistan and are interested in international relations. But the similarities between Hashemi, silver-tongued former spokesman for the Taliban, and Joya, one of the new Afghani Parliament’s youngest members, end there. Not long ago, while Hashemi toured the United States defending the public murder of unchaste women, Joya risked her life to teach girls – which at the time was a capital crime.</p>

<p>Visiting last week, Joya gave Yale a piece of her mind. Hashemi’s presence here is, to her, “disgusting” and an “unforgivable insult.” . . . “Hashemi at first should face the court,” she told me, demanding he be brought to his native country and answer for his role in advancing the Taliban’s foreign policy goals so many years. </p>

<hr>

<p>“This kind of germ does not belong in the U.S.,” Joya told me, and after having heard the few scraps of equivocation Hashemi has shared in the month since his front-page expose, I am inclined to agree. Had Joya been caught for her underground activities during the Taliban era, she probably would have been publicly executed and Hashemi would have defended her public murder.

</p>