Choosing his words very carefully, and revealingly so. It’s not just the story reproduced below, but other sources from Reuters to RTTNews, that show he condemns the fact that there was no trial, but stops short of condemning the idea of Sharia punishments (lashes or stoning) for “adultery,” and of condemning the cruel, unusual, and barbaric punishment that stoning is. There are, after all, influential clerics to please.
The Taliban are flourishing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Corruption is omnipresent, Sharia is enshrined in the constitution of Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda’s top leadership continues to go about its business while the president of Afghanistan panders to the jihadists and their sympathizers.
But let’s all step back, take a deep breath, and remember why this conflict began, and what we’re fighting for.
The right to build roads?
No, that can’t be it. Surely, there must have been something else… An update on this story. “Stoning deaths by Taliban condemned by Afghan president,” by Jill Dougherty and Mati Matiullah for CNN, August 17:
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the stoning deaths of a young man and woman in northern Afghanistan over the weekend, calling the executions by the Taliban “unforgivable.”
“Executing these two young people without trial is a crime, an act of inhumanity, and is counter to Islam,” the president said in a statement Tuesday.
Again: Not a word about the idea of stoning, or execution for adultery.
The Taliban stoned to death a man and a woman in northern Afghanistan for allegedly having an affair, officials said Monday.
The stoning took place Sunday in Dasht-e-Archi district, in the village of Mullah Qali — a village dominated by the Taliban in Kunduz province.
The pair was accused of having an illicit sexual relationship, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor said.
The woman was about 20 years old and the man was about 27, said Mohammed Ayuob, district governor of Amam Sahib, which is also in Kunduz province. The woman was engaged, and the man was married to another woman. The two had been held by the Taliban for about a week, Ayuob said.