Call Me Hawk

I love “Mad” magazine. I haven’t read it in years, but some of my fondest childhood memories are of slumber parties (where my parents weren’t) where I could sit with my buddies and read “Mad” and “Vampira” and “Famous Monsters of Filmland.” I could go on and on about “Mad”, and how much I loved some of the artists. Don Martin, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones and the “usual gang of idiots” never failed to amuse and yes, I’ll say it, educate me. In particular, I remember a short lived series by Al Jaffee called “Hawks and Doves”, and I’ll be damned if I can find any information on the series, but the basic premise was that officer Hawks was always in opposition to Private Dove(s); it was juxtaposed against the Vietnam War. As I remember, the strip did not take sides, and instead skewered both for their views, which ultimately lead the young reader to realize that neither side had the upper hand. The bottom line was that killing each other was a bad idea no matter how you sliced it, and for years, I clung to that philosophy. Today, however, I am going to deviate from that. I am going to be hawkish. Read a little more, and if you don’t agree with me, fine. I will gladly recant my position if a suitable argument can be provided to refute my stance, which is simply this: If we (and I mean everybody, not just America) do not stop the Taliban in Afghanistan, we will at best have blood on our hands, and at worst, become victims ourselves.

As of this writing, the Taliban say they will release two of twenty one South Korean captives in exchange for the release of 21 Taliban prisoners held in Afghanistan prisons. Doesn’t this seem fair, in a way? Kind of? Maybe? Well, no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even resemble fair play. In fact, it is a perversion of what we would think fair play is. 23 South Korean Christian relief workers in Afghanistan were taken prisoner in late July. Two have already been shot in cold blood, murdered by the Taliban, and now, under the guise of diplomacy, they want to negotiate for the release of the remaining 21. Just today, the Taliban captors say they are engaged in talks to successfully secure the release of two sick Korean women, as if they are somehow suddenly compassionate captors. “God willing,” they say, the captives will be released, if, of course, the Taliban prisoners held in prison are released. The Taliban would have you believe that it’s not them, but Allah himself who is responsible.

I want to spread my hawkish wings and sharpen my hawkish beak and say that if anyone goes out of their way to negotiate with the Taliban, they are legitimizing terrorist tactics, and giving credence to the notion that kidnapping and murdering innocents is an acceptable means to an end. If this were the way the world worked, any country could kidnap a bunch of North Koreans, (or Iranians) and murder a few, and then negotiate the release of the rest to put a stop to their nuclear weapons program. Or maybe, they could kidnap some Dutch residents and show those pot smoking, prostitution-friendly deviants that their lifestyle won’t be tolerated. (That’s just an example, of course. It is my goal to visit Amsterdam just once before I die.) My obvious point is that America, and every other civilized culture doesn’t resort to that sort of barbaric, prehistoric behavior because we’ve realized that it is inhumane, and counterproductive to the growth of the species. The cretins of the Taliban, however, seem to be stuck in the cave, and can’t find their way out. In fact, I don’t think they want to, which is why I think we should wipe them off the face of the earth. And by the way, when I say “we,” I mean every thinking, empathetic person no matter what their country of origin.

The obvious argument here is that two wrongs don’t make a right, and if I’m advocating murder, I’m no better than them. The difference, though, is that they murder proactively, (and they won’t stop) whereas I am being reactive. They are in all respects a cancerous tumor, and as we would remove an infection from a body, we must remove the Taliban from the body of humanity before they infect and destroy it. The doves among us would cry for reeducation, and I’m not completely opposed to that, but they often fail to understand that this sort of religious fervor is instilled at a very young age. I remember learning things at a young age, and some of those things are ingrained so deeply that I’m not sure I could change my mind about them, and that’s the problem with reeducation. You and I know that it’s wrong to steal and lie and kill, but in order to understand the Taliban mentality, you must understand that the children are taught, just like you and I were, that killing is good if done in the name of God. Think about that for a minute. The lessons that most people learn (golden rule stuff) are a part of our collective being, and although it’s hard to believe, there is another school of thought that believes the opposite, that killing is good if done for the right reason, and it is just as ingrained in them as it is in us. I would spare the children (although I’d keep a close eye on them) and kill the men. I would do this because I know that if given the chance, they would do the same to me. Am I being paranoid? Maybe, but consider that if a militant Taliban zealot were to read this, I would be marked for death for speaking my mind.

Did you know that under Taliban law, it is a crime for women to laugh loud enough to be heard? That it is a crime to listen to music or watch movies or TV for anyone? That a person can be executed for possessing literature deemed “inappropriate”? Did you know that all people are forced to pray five times a day; failure to do so is cause for execution. There are those who would say it’s not our business to be the police of the world, but can you stand idly by in the enlightened 21st century and watch this sort of treatment inflicted on fellow human beings? People should not be punished for the crime of being born in Afghanistan. If we do nothing, we are just as guilty as the zealots of the Taliban. We are the world’s police and believe me, they want us to intervene.

Is the Taliban evil? Maybe not in the biblical sense, but in the realistic sense, it is. I am loathe to discredit alternative philosophies; indeed I welcome them as a means to improve, or at least, expand my own perspective. But the virtual enslavement of people and the kidnapping and killing of innocents is a way I cannot accept, and to see it in action in our time is anathema. It makes me sick and it should make you sick too. I’ve used this euphemism before, and I want to make it clear that I don’t use it in a cavalier fashion, so people please listen. Make no mistake: If thinking people do not crush the Taliban way of thinking, there will be no more thought.