Afghanistan is an American protectorate; its kleptocrat president is an American client, kept alive these last twelve years only by American arms. The Afghan campaign is this nation’s longest war — and our longest un-won war: That’s to say, nowadays we can’t even lose in under a decade. I used to say that, 24 hours after the last Western soldier leaves Afghanistan, it will be as if we were never there. But it’s already as if we were never there. The American imperium has lasted over twice as long as the Taliban’s rule — and yet, unlike them, we left no trace.

So Mark Steyn declares. “All we have built” he writes, “is another squalid sharia state” that practices the stoning to death of adulterers. And we can only nod in sad agreement.

In my book America Alone, I quoted a riposte to the natives by a British administrator. … The chap in question was Sir Charles Napier, out in India and faced with the practice of suttee — the Hindu tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier’s response was impeccably multicultural: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

He praises Napier’s “cultural cool”. His confidence in the rightness of his own culture’s laws was “in the long run, more effective than a drone”.

India is better off without suttee, just as Afghanistan would be better off without child marriage, honor killing, death for apostasy, and stoning for adultery. …

The American way of war is to win the war in nothing flat, and then spend the next decade losing the peace. The American people have digested that to the point where they assume that … the next intervention [would be]  a fool’s errand. The rest of the world grasps it, too. If Hamid Karzai treats Washington with contempt and gets away with it, why expect the Iranians to behave any differently?

A nation responsible for almost half the planet’s military spending goes into battle with the sentimental multiculti fantasist twaddle of Greg Mortensen’s Three Cups of Tea as its strategy manual — and then wonders why it can’t beat goatherds with fertilizer.

All true. But even if America did manage to put a stop to child marriage, honor killing, death for apostasy, and stoning for adultery in Afghanistan, wouldn’t they resume as soon as the last American troops left? As far as we know, suttee was not resumed in India when the British Raj came to an end. So Napier and his fellow administrators won the argument while they had the power to enforce their law. But that was India, a civilization. Who believes in an Afghan civilization – even if it has had periods with less stoning and more Western pop music in it?

Americans [might] sigh wearily and shrug, “Afghanistan, the graveyard of empire,” or sneer, “If they want to live in a seventh-century s***hole, f*** ’em.” But neither assertion is true. Do five minutes’ googling, and you’ll find images from the Sixties and early Seventies of women in skirts above the knee listening to the latest Beatles releases in Kabul record stores.

Those are undeniable signs of our culture, but are they the best we have to give for the improvement of barbarous s***holes? They are far from matching Napier’s gift to India. But nor are they the worst. What would be most representative of American culture now? The deeply depressing answer may have been given by the Obama Administration and the Pentagon: that cloying lying little book Three Cups of Tea.

 From Awdal News Network, Somalia:

The first reports were that Aisha Ibrahim Kuhulow was 23 year old, but her father now confirms for Amnesty International that she was only 13.

The girl’s young age, combined with the fact that she herself contacted the Shabab-militia who controls the town, in order to report the rape, failed to protect her from being sentenced to death by the Islamists for breach of Islamic law in having sex outside of marriage.

This child suffered a terrible death as demanded by the armed opposition forces that control Kismayo, says David Copeman who is responsible for Amnesty’s Somalia-department, to the news office, AP.

Hole in the ground

Thousands of people witnessed the grotesque execution of Aisha at a football stadium in the port town of Kismayo on Monday.

The 13-year old was led in and forced into a hole in the ground. The hole was then filled so that only her head was showing. About 50 men then started to throw stones at her, according to Amensty’s information.

After a while, nurses were called to check whether Aisha was still alive. The thin body was then brought out of the hold and examined. When it was established that she was still alive, she was again placed in the hole so that the stone-throwers could continue.

Shot

When some of the spectators tried to storm the stadium to save Aisha, the militia opened fire on the crowd, and a young boy was killed.

A spokesman for the Shabab-militia expressed regret for the boy’s death and assured that the soldiers who had opened fire would be punished.

However, it would seem that the men whom13-year old Aisha tried to report for rape have little to fear. None of them have been arrested.

 

 

The United Nations said Tuesday that a Somali stoned to death by Islamist militants after she had been accused of adultery was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped while visiting her grandmother.

In the first such public killing by the militants in about two years, she was placed in a hole and stoned to death on Oct. 28 in a rebel-held port city, Kismayu, in front of a crowd, after local leaders said she was guilty under Shariah, the legal code of Islam based on the Koran.

“Reports indicate that she had been raped by three men while traveling on foot to visit her grandmother in the war-torn capital, Mogadishu,” Unicef, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a statement.

“Following the assault, she sought protection from the authorities, who then accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death,” Unicef added. “A child was victimized twice — first by the perpetrators of the rape and then by those responsible for administering justice.”

The human rights group Amnesty International has identified the girl as Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow and said she was killed by 50 men who stoned her in a stadium in Kismayu in front of about 1,000 spectators.

When the family tried to report the rape to the Shabab militia that controls Kismayu, the girl was accused of adultery and was detained. None of the men she accused of rape have been arrested.

A Somali news agency adds more disturbing details:

Thousands of people witnessed the grotesque execution of Aisha at a football stadium in the port town of Kismayo on Monday.

The 13-year old was led in and forced into a hole in the ground. The hole was then filled so that only her head was showing. About 50 men then started to throw stones at her, according to Amnesty’s information.

After a while, nurses were called to check whether Aisha was still alive. The thin body was then brought out of the hold and examined. When it was established that she was still alive, she was again placed in the hole so that the stone-throwers could continue.

When some of the spectators tried to storm the stadium to save Aisha, the militia opened fire on the crowd, and a young boy was killed.

A spokesman for the Shabab-militia expressed regret for the boy’s death and assured that the soldiers who had opened fire would be punished.

However, it would seem that the men whom13-year old Aisha tried to report for rape have little to fear. None of them have been arrested.