From Reuters (via OTB):
Afghan soldiers beheaded four Taliban fighters after guerrillas cut off the heads of an Afghan interpreter for U.S.-led forces and an Afghan soldier, a government commander said on Tuesday.Perhaps the folks in the Pentagon need to take some notes. Posted by mhking at June 22, 2004 03:28 PMThe interpreter and the soldier were beheaded after becoming separated from a patrol of Afghan and U.S.-led foreign troops in the Arghandab district of the southern province of Zabul on Monday night, Namatullah Tokhi, commander of the government’s 27th division in the province, told Reuters. He said government troops later captured and killed four Taliban guerrillas in the same way. “They cut off their heads with a knife, so when our forces arrested four Taliban, we cut off their heads too.”
Do they really need to take notes?
The goal here is to stop our people from being beheaded. Does beheading the opposition lead to safety for American civilians abroad? Or does it just lead to more beheadings?
--|PW|--
Posted by: pennywit at June 22, 2004 04:03 PMPenny, your statement suggests that decapitations will not continue so long as we never drop to that level. Consider an alternative: if we do not send any sort of message in response to enemy violence, will our enemies not think us weak? Everything I've seen from Afghan culture suggests that that's precisely how they'd interpret it. In other words, by not retaliating in kind, you might actually encourage decapitation, as the enemy will believe they can get away with it with impunity.
Posted by: Beck at June 22, 2004 04:18 PMI say...........An eye for an eye. But I would be much more harsh on the punishment and torture for them.
Posted by: Kelly Edwards at June 22, 2004 05:52 PMI don't think we need to do beheadings. I think we need to do some selective daisy cuttings and MOABings. Declare certain parts of Iraq "Resumption of Combat" zones, and start demonstrating that Iraq ain't Somalia and Dubya ain't Bubba.
Posted by: McGehee at June 23, 2004 11:41 AM