‘World wary what shape will Taliban rule take after US pullout’
“SINCE the American withdrawal and the Taliban’s control of Kabul and the mass escape through all the ports of tens of thousands of Afghans, terrified at the return of Taliban, the world has been following and wondering if the Taliban has learned from its previous experience in a way that makes it work with the international community in a way that reassures Afghans, albeit slightly, the terrifying image that the world has known of over twenty years,” columnist Suad Fahd Al-Moajel wrote for Al-Qabas daily.
“The Taliban movement has committed massacres against Afghan civilians and burned down large areas of fertile land and destroyed tens of thousands of homes and banned all activities, media, drawings and photography and films that depict living creatures.
“The Taliban has also banned music in all its forms of art except for tambourines. It prevented girls from attending schools and imposed the burqa on women. The Taliban also bears responsibility for cultural genocide by destroying many temples; the most famous of them was the destruction of the famous Buddha statue in Bamiyan, which dates back more than 1500 years.
“One of the writers of political Islam wrote recently, timidly defending the Taliban movement, saying that it is an Afghan movement that aspired to expel the American occupiers and its allies from its lands, and that it has succeeded in this goal and that the exit of the occupier is a step towards restoring the Afghan people’s freedom bring good governance, administration, democracy, development, promotion of human rights and good dealing with the global system.
“Such an opinion is being put forward today by many in an attempt to distinguish between the ‘Islamic State’ and the ‘Islamic Taliban’ and whether it is fair to describe the Taliban as the terrorist outfit that has become the dominant feature of the Islamic State or ISIS.
“To begin with, the issue of the Western intelligence role in creating both entities should not be overlooked. News websites and reports are full of details that indicate and confirm the relationship of extremist groups with global and regional intelligence services, starting with the Muslim Brotherhood and all the way to all groups that claim traditional ‘preaching’ activities, and this of course includes spawning.
“The huge number of such entities since the end of the 1970s from alQaeda to Jund al-Sham to Jabhat al-Nusra, and ISIS, the Taliban and others and from Abu Qatada to Abu Hamza, Bakri, al-Baghdadi, al-Zarqawi and others the problem is that all of these people and all these entities claim that they are abiding by the content of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in order to show any opposition against them as an opposition against Almighty Allah.
“Both entities, ISIS and the Taliban, have flagrant hostility to Western concepts of democracy such as equality between men and women, respect for minorities, pluralism, human rights and freedom of expression. They grant themselves the absolute right to punish those who violate their approach and ideology, whether by public execution, amputation of limbs, or stoning to death.
“The emergence of the Taliban, ISIS and other extremist groups and intellectual and cultural backwardness gives justification for the efforts of Western thinkers such as Samuel Huntington, who is known for his famous statement and article over what he called ‘The War of Civilizations’ in which he summarized by saying that the conflicts after the Cold War will not be between nations, rather the cultural and the civilizational differences, will play the role of the first motive for struggles and conflicts, hinting according to his vision that the Islam punishments are mostly bloody and its scopes are also bloody, let alone that it would be easy for the Islamic values to be involved in internal struggles in the framework of the Islamic doctrines -- the Shiite and the Sunni -- for instance, and the ability to be involved in clash with each other.
“The problem is that the West knows very well the keys and details of our ideological culture and acts according to that understanding while we are still arguing about the difference between ISIS and the Taliban and whether the Taliban is better than ISIS because they may kill but not cut heads with knives.
“The US withdrawal from Afghanistan will not create a civil Taliban state that believes in democracy and freedoms and respects human rights. All what will happen is this step will enable the Taliban to get out of the cave and into the emirate, no more and no less.”
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“Military personnel of the Kuwaiti army of unspecified nationality, who participated in the wars of 1967 and 1973 on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts, all without exception, even professionals among them the state granted them the right to retire, and they or their heirs are still receiving pension until today,” columnist, former MP and the incumbent general manager of Scope Satellite TV Channel Talal Al-Saeed wrote for AlSeyassah daily.
“But those who had participated in the liberation war of Kuwait or in that of August 2, 1990 from this denomination of people, some of them who were taken prisoner and this is something has been documented, have not benefited from any pension and the same can be said of those who been released from the military service upon reaching the legal age.
“Such being the case, the question is, do those who participated in the liberation war of Kuwait particularly the bedoun not deserve the monthly pensions, while those who participated in the Egyptian and the Syrian wars deserve the advantages? In other words, how the army follows a double standard policy?
“The other important matter is the sons of these soldiers, whom the Kuwaiti army leaders did not think of accepting as volunteers in the army, knowing that the army needs volunteers, and they are undoubtedly first the sons of Kuwaiti women and should be accepted before the others, and perhaps in appreciation of the services rendered by their fathers.
“The army must have considered accepting at least one of the sons, if not two to complete their father’s career, to help them support their families.
“Ingratitude is unacceptable, and such people, who served honorably and faithfully, especially those who participated in the war to liberate Kuwait, must be treated in a special way, and the Kuwaiti army must be loyal to them. Either send them into retirement like their colleagues who have participated in the wars of Egypt and Syria, or their sons join the army. In honor of them, and out of loyalty, no matter how many they are, the army still needs the soldiers, and these are the sons of those who gave their youth to serve the country, and they must be honored, and perhaps their children’s acceptance of the army is the least they expect of honor.
“There is no justification for forgetting this important segment of the military who have become an important component of the Kuwaiti army, and the state must think about them and not let them suffer the hardship of living at the end of their lives.”