Fraters Libertas

Missing the Taliban

In today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press, columnist Laura Billings comes out in favor of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Not in so many words of course, but how else does one interpret the final sentence of this paragraph:

"... now that the public polls are suggesting an increasing ambivalence about war in Iraq, it might be time for the nation's moderator, Oprah Winfrey, to gather us together for a town meeting in which each side has a five-minute video montage to frame their argument. As is Oprah's custom, she could bring in surprise guests to add to the discussion. Maybe columnist Ann Coulter against a kid from Afghanistan who could testify that in the year since we "liberated" that country, child malnutrition has nearly doubled."

Sorry for making you slog through an entire paragraph of her prose, but in order to understand her "fanciful," satirical scenario, it was necessary. If you were ever considering subscribing to the St. Paul paper as an alternative to the Star Tribune, beware - this kind of hectoring, irate yet uninspired, wealthy urban-soccer-mom-with-attitude writing is the dominant editorial style for the entire paper. For other examples, see just about any column by Ms. Billings, Brian Lambert, Rick Shefchick, Glenda Holste, or Deborah Locke.

Getting back to Laura, notice, she’s using “scare” quotes on the term liberate. She’s listing as the only consequence of our intervention in Afghanistan an unattributed statistic about child malnutrition doubling. And she’s implying causation between our intervention and these malnutrition rates. To quote Chief Wiggum - “Whaaaaaa!?”

What are we to make of this? That because of this alleged increase in malnutrition she’d prefer a despotic theocracy, which supported and harbored the killers of 9/11 and sanctioned the ritualized rape, torture and murder of its citizens, remain in power? More to the point, she’s implying that the very victims of the Taliban’s brutal approach to governance were better off, more “liberated,” before the US went in and organized a consensual government (which has at least the potential to become democratic)? All because she believes Afghanis were more likely to be getting a caloric intake closer to what she herself enjoys on Grand Ave. (relatively speaking) a year ago than they are today?

Now that’s a blind commitment to the Food Group Pyramid! Call her crazy, but I have to admire her fixated loyalty to a cause. Since a review of the malnutrition statistics in Europe immediately after W.W.II would probably show drastic increases over pre-war totals, I fully expect next time she refers to our efforts back then, she’ll write of the US “victory” over the Nazis, or perhaps the “liberation” of France from fascism.

I’m sure she’s got some French- or UN-sponsored study to prove her doubled malnutrition thesis. (The Pioneer Press has to make sure she's not making this up, right? They have uphold at least some editorial standards, don’t they?) But I couldn’t find the source of her statistic. Googling for information on this I did find an article quoting a Taliban spokesman (whom I presume Ms. Billings would consider an unimpeachable source) from July 18, 2001 claiming Afghan children were already “ravaged” by malnutrition. That was more than 2 years ago, pre-"liberation". So what are they now - doubly ravaged?

Also, here’s a report from the UN, from June 7, 2001, not only indicating that malnutrition rates were “alarmingly high” (due to internal warfare, drought, and a crumbling economy), but also that the Taliban were engaged in systematic harassment of aid workers, including the threat of corporal and capital punishment. They imprisoned, assaulted, and threatened to kill those trying to distribute food to starving people, if the aid workers didn’t properly comply with the Taliban Islamo-fascist code.

I don’t doubt that conditions in parts of Afghanistan are abysmal. They have been for years, and they continue to be, for a variety of reasons. The US is already doing a lot to overcome this ($900 million in aid since Sept. 11, 2001), and perhaps we should be doing even more. But at least we can fairly say no one is going to be shot for trying to distribute food. And that sounds something like “liberation” to me.