Frontline: Return of the Taliban

Check out the new Frontline documentary on the Taliban (and Al-Qaeda) stronghold of Western Pakistan.

WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC IMAGERY.
--An early scene shows the public execution of criminals by the Taliban and the corpses strung up in public view for days as a sign.

The Pakistan InterServices Intelligence (ISI) helped create the Taliban, alogn with ISI supported madrassas (Taliban comes from "student", talib in Arabic) during the Soviet-Afghan war. Alexander the Great lost here, the British, the Soviets. The US?

Questions goinig forward. Will the ISI still be able to control the Taliban this time around? The Pakistani government/army has on a number of occassions (detailed in the film) cut deals with the Taliban, only to have them renig. They want Afghanistan; they will fight til the end.

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I had a dream the other night of Afhganistan. Its eerie, hautning beauty called to me. I was in a market in Kabul looking for Chloe who had wandered off to a clothes shop. It was like being in Saigon a year before the fall. The air was thick with fear. Every movement I looked in every direcxtion sesnsing where is the next suicide bomber comign from--each car that drove by who would have the gun pointed out and open fire? Some women walked around in burqas, others went openly as if to fight no matter what.

I went for my cell to calll her but remember getting no signal. I went into a church that had a side of hte wall blown out. I finally found her, grabbed her and the dream ended.