perfidy

Totally agreed. It's not the way.

By the way, what IS the way? No, I don't mean what is the way to arrest them, nor what is the way to kill them.

What is the way to stop this grotesque inanity? I don't know either.

Gentlemen,
The US did not put them up to this, nor did we need to. We may wring our hands at the "grotesque inanity" of this way, but it's their way, and it's been their way for a long, long time..

Afghans are an ornery, martial people. One fella I met who worked very closely with the then-Northern Alliance explained that he and his team often had to restrain their fighters, who wanted to skin the Taliban whenever they were taken alive. Skin. Them. Alive. Whoever's leading 'ghani units can tell them not to chop people's heads off, but leaders can't be everywhere at once.

Unless these beheadings are Bush's fault, or Rumsfeld's, in which case anything bad that happens anywhere can be pinned on either of them. Or, from the other side of the aisle, telling Afghanis to quit with the chopping is imposing our own value system over theirs, thereby making us guilty of cultural imperialism.

GL, totally understood. In no way is this anyone's "fault," least of all Bush & Co. I could have fleshed out my post with some unfocussed musings on the underlying "civilizing" mission inherent in the Bush Doctrine, and its inadequacy in addressing long-standing cultural ways, but felt that would be fatuous in a bunch of unique and laughable ways.

Personally, speaking as a squishy sometime cultural relativist, I'm completely fine with telling Afghanis to stop chopping off heads. Whether or not that'll do any good, however, is another question entirely.

Patton, I wish I knew what "the way" was, but I don't. I'm a historian, Jim, not an oracle! It's like auto repair. I don't know a good job from a great job, but I know when it's done wrong.

J,
In the unforgettable words of a favorite history professor, now retired: "As a historian I am uniquely unqualified to predict the future."

While I find it truly unfortunate that they like to cut each others' heads off, I don't feel quite as strongly about it I do when, say, they cut the heads off people who didn't sign up for that particular twisted fraternity. You know, foreigners and the like. And the actions of the Rwandans and Sudanese make those of the Afghanis against their countryment look rather sissified, now that I think about it.

Of course anything bad, anywhere, can be pinned on BushCo. It hadn't occurred to me earlier, but clearly this entire thing is the fault of the neocons and the joooos. I feel quite certain that "Anyone But Bush" would have done differently, should he be elected.

Hey, don't leave me out of it - white male oppression must share some of the blame.

Damn. Sorry for the oversight.

Johno: "Personally, speaking as a squishy sometime cultural relativist, I'm completely fine with telling Afghanis to stop chopping off heads."

Why? Execution is execution. We do it with needles (and not that long ago, yes, with beheading) - now we just make it more comfortable for the "viewer."

B, although head-chopping does make me squeamish, if that's their way, it's their way. What I object to is the revenge-killing part of the deal. Eye for an eye. Makes for great hollywood (well... not really...), but sucks all butt as a basic tenet of your civilization.

I know I'm a crazy liberal - but how is the American death penalty NOT revenge killing?

(ahem) Because it guarantees that the offender won't offend again, at least not in any way other than odorously?

Aside from that, there are valid arguments for revenge killing, when carefully applied, or when applied as something other than a basic tenet of your civilization.

For the record, though, if I were a juror in a capital murder case and had a choice of guaranteed lifetime incarceration or death penalty, I'd go for the former. And if I didn't have the choice of the former, I'd probably develop Tourette's syndrome rather than complete jury service. But that's just me.