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[Leafsnail]

They don't exactly seem like liberals, but anyone who fights the Taliban can't be all that bad.

Just like how anyone fighting the Russians couldn't be all that bad.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They don't exactly seem like liberals, but anyone who fights the Taliban can't be all that bad.

Just like how anyone fighting the Russians couldn't be all that bad.

Even Soviet Russia under the thumb of Stalin was not even remotely as bad as the Taliban. They are easily some of the worst people to have lived in the last hundred years, competing only with the Khmer Rouge and the North Koreans for sheer brutality and madness. If they were even a little more crazy they couldn't exist as an entity for any meaningful period of time. To quote past MSH:

But didn't the taliban declare a ban on opium before we invaded?

When the Taliban were in power they had a ban on everything imaginable.

Under the Taliban regime, Sharia law was interpreted to forbid a wide variety of previously lawful activities in Afghanistan. One Taliban list of prohibitions included: pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards.[115] They also got rid of employment, education, and sports for all women, dancing, clapping during sports events, kite flying, and characterizations of living things, no matter if they were drawings, paintings, photographs, stuffed animals, or dolls. Men had to have a fist size beard at the bottom of their chin. Conversely, they had to wear their head hair short. Men had to wear a head covering.[116]

Like Wahhabi and other Deobandis, the Taliban do not consider Shiʻi to be Muslims. The Shia in Afghanistan consist mostly of the Hazara ethnic group which totaled almost 10% of Afghanistan's population.[120]

The Taliban were averse to debating doctrine with other Muslims. "The Taliban did not allow even Muslim reporters to question [their] edicts or to discuss interpretations of the Qur'an."[121]

The Taliban forced women to wear the burqa in public.[123] They were allowed neither to work nor to be educated after the age of eight, and until then were permitted only to study the Qur'an.[9] They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperon, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. They faced public flogging in the street, and public execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.[44]

Women were required to wear the burqa, a traditional dress covering the entire body except for a small screen to see out of. Taliban restrictions became more severe after they took control of the capital. In February 1998, religious police forced all women off the streets of Kabul, and issued new regulations ordering people to blacken their windows, so that women would not be visible from the outside.[125]

But on the subject of opium their views had a tendency to waver:

Another criticism was that the Taliban called their 20% tax on truckloads of opium "zakat", which is traditionally limited to 2.5% of the zakat-payers' disposable income (or wealth).[132]

Opium poppies are a traditional crop in Afghanistan, and, with the war shattering other sectors of the economy, opium became its largest export.

    "The Taliban have provided an Islamic sanction for farmers ... to grow even more opium, even though the Koran forbids Muslims from producing or imbibing intoxicants. Abdul Rashid, the head of the Taliban's anti-drugs control force in Kandahar, spelled out the nature of his unique job. He is authorized to impose a strict ban on the growing of hashish, "because it is consumed by Afghans and Muslims." But, Rashid told me without a hint of sarcasm, "Opium is permissible because it is consumed by kafirs in the West, and not by Muslims or Afghans."[142]

In 2000 Afghanistan's opium production accounted for 75% of the world's supply. On July 27, 2000, the Taliban issued a decree banning cultivation.[143] By February 2001, production had reportedly been reduced from 12,600 acres (51 km2) to only 17 acres (7 ha).[144] Opium production was reportedly cut back by the Taliban not to prevent its use, but to increase its price, and thus increase the income of Afghan poppy farmers and tax revenue.[145]

So yes, they enacted an opium cultivation ban. In the last year of their rule. For the sole purpose of making more money.

And as Sheb said, gems:

The Taliban took over emerald mines in Pakistan's Swat valley (not a tribal area), once the 'Switzerland of Pakistan', a popular tourist area for skiers. The government did not react to the move. The Taliban reached an agreement with the region's mining labor allowing the Taliban to keep one-third of the miners' output, while equally sharing costs. The Taliban does not take part in the mining operations.[148]

In short, the Taliban are the closest thing I've ever seen to absolute pure fucking evil and regardless of the motivations for US intervention in Afghanistan I am glad that it happened, if only so the Taliban are out of power.

[Leafsnail]

It's more that no matter how bad people are you can't necessarily assume that their enemies are your friend.  The Taliban was created from that exact logic, afterall.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I know that, but I think this in particular is a good thing. They tried to reason with the Taliban, the Taliban responded by trying to kill them. This is the kind of thing that will eventually turn people away from extremism in places like Afghanistan because it exposes people to the consequences of that extremism.

[Nadaka]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/libya-election-results-gadhafi-democracy-200748472.html

It looks like a "liberal alliance" is leading in Libya with a "fairly peaceful" election. In this context, liberal somehow means supporting sharia law.

http://www.libyaherald.com/party-profile-the-national-forces-alliance/

[Duuvian]

Local customs ya know. I'd advise them to show a great deal of mercy in their judgements however, especially regarding cultural things. If there is no need for a group to fight them due to injustice, then there is no fight, and if you never plant the seed of discord, the poison plant will not grow. Injustice as a term can also be applied to the penalty. Just because a power has power does not make it right. My advice to them is that I'm sure there are ways to find mercy in one's religion.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If the local customs are sharia law, then it is pretty clear that the local customs need to change.

[Nadaka]

If the local customs are sharia law, then it is pretty clear that the local customs need to change.

The local custom was Gaddafi law.

From what I understand the party is a compromise between the secularists and moderate Muslims intended to provide a populist platform that shuts the more aggressive Islamists out of power.

[scriver]

Basically making them to the region what the "Christian Democrats" is to Europe/South America. It's kind of similar to the Egyptian election, where even if the winners was the religious Muslim Brotherhood, they still wasn't the most extreme Islamist group in the election, which is at least a little something to be hopeful about.

[Ancre]

Besides, I was under the impression that in this region, basing your government on islamic values and your law on the sharia was kind of a given. It's a bit like saying "I'm a respectable and honest citizen, holding good religious values". It's their religious and moral and religious background.

What's important is not so much that kind of declarations than what laws they are actually going to make.

[Zangi]

Besides, I was under the impression that in this region, basing your government on islamic values and your law on the sharia was kind of a given. It's a bit like saying "I'm a respectable and honest citizen, holding good religious values". It's their religious and moral and religious background.

What's important is not so much that kind of declarations than what laws they are actually going to make.

Obviously, they should base their government on good ol christian and western values.  Ain't right any other way.

Yea... I'd have to agree with you there.

[DJ]

There's many interpretations of sharia, and not all of them are like what the Taliban enforced.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Sure, but sharia is a nearly 1400 year old code of all encompassing religious law. Even the more lenient interpretations of that are not really up to modern standards. Just because the Taliban were seriously off the deep end in every possible way doesn't mean that non-Taliban sharia is alright.

The Islamic world needs to experience a growth of secularism that doesn't originate from brutal foreign-installed dictators.

[DJ]

You can't force it on them, they must arrive at it through their own means. Rise of secularism in Europe wasn't exactly a smooth ride either. In the meantime, a mild version of sharia is the best we can hope for.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I realize it can't be forced. The brutal foreign-installed dictators are one of the reasons it hasn't happened yet. That said, while the West can't force secularism, because we tried that and it ended horribly, it doesn't mean that we can't try to indirectly push things in the right direction.

Unfortunately, mild sharia is still pretty horrific, and also not what seems to be happening in Libya and Egypt anyway. Tunisia, on the other hand, is definitely going well so far.