Monday, August 31, 2009

#151 The Life and Death and After-Life of a Taliban Wife

Let's take a closer look at the assassination (death-by-droning) of Baitullah Mehsud a few weeks past in Pakistan, and a couple of posts ago. For a moral dilemma. One for the nations to ponder, as the bloodstain soaks wider and deeper into the Middle East.

After further research, and pieced together from scattered and constricted news-reports, here's what happened last Aug. 6th: It all starts off in the Nevada desert, where some Air Force guy is playing computer games with his drone-missiles thousands of miles away. He's aiming one of these at a "modest farmhouse" in or near the village of Zanghara, located in the "tribal badlands" straddling the Afghan/Pakistan border.

As recorded on "drone-cam," and according to later reports, the aim is true: the flying robot hits Mehsud on the roof of his father-in-law's home. Dad might have reconsidered his dinner-invitation to the Taliban commander, had he known his daughter would blow up along with him. The drone-missile commits further "collateral damage" on two brothers, several bodyguards, and maybe on Mehsud's physician, who could be there attending to his long-time kidney and/or diabetes patient.

You see, Mehsud's "second wife" (which I suppose could mean either non-first-wife or harem-rank) is giving him a drip! That is, the poor, soon-to-be-widowed woman is administering some sort of intravenous procedure--talk about being "un-armed"--to her soon-to-be-widowered husband. The wife is officially un-named, of course, and technically, according to Islamic dogma, non-martyr material. After all, What's she gonna do with 72 virgins? Don't answer that.

Zoom ... boom. Mehsud became a bonafide martyr for the cause, and has probably become more valuable dead than than alive. Great recruiting tool. So too for the brothers and the bodyguards. Not so for wife #2. Like all other women in the Islamic world she's expendable ... at best a mere appendage of the husband in this case. NOT a great recruiting tool. For 100% of Islamic believers, Baitullah Mehsud has gone directly to Paradise, bypassing the divine judicial process and possible punishment/purgatory, and has already begun to enjoy the rewards of his martyrdom. As for Mrs. Mehsud ... not. How they talk female suicide-bombers into it, I'll never understand. (more)
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