2 children beheaded by militants, Afghan authorities say

[happyslug]

26. This article is about a 10 year old and a 16 year old boy, not a girl in school

I have to accept the fact that the Taliban has shot girls for going to school, but so did the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s (The Contras shot anyone going to school, but that includes girls by definition). There are reports of teachers being killed by the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive of 1968 (The report is quite clear, the Viet Cong, once they took a city, went to all the teacher's home and ordered them to report to a central location, where they were all shot).

All of the above was done for the same reason, to show locals that they can NOT depend on the Government for anything, including protection and education. A secondary reason is such teachers tend to be under the control of the Government and thus agents of the Government whose mission is to report ANYTHING that is against the Government.

Killing of Teachers is a well known guerrilla activity against a government they oppose. The Government of Afghanistan seems NOT to interfere with the traditional education of boys in Afghanistan (and most of that seems to be heavy infiltrated by Taliban supporters) and being traditional not a threat to the Taliban nor indications of support for the Government. Thus education of women is new for education of women was rare in Afghanistan (Except under Soviet Influence, now long gone AND education by their Mothers and other female relatives, which was the norm in most of Afghanistan even during Soviet Times). Thus the various efforts to educate Afghan women are viewed as an attack on the Taliban (and attacks on girls going to such schools, are attacks on the Government).

Now, the above is true of Afghanistan, but we are talking about TWO BOYS BEHEADED ON A DUMP. That has NOTHING to do with the Taliban attitude to the education of women. Something else is afoot with this killing and it appears to be a some sort of warning to other about something to do with that dump. I mention my thoughts on the dump above and will NOT re-list them here, but this involves something other then the education of women, what it is is unknown but has little to do with the education of women and the Taliban's attack on women.

Side note: I use the term "Soviet times" in the above paragraph. Joseph Stalin made the last King of Afghanistan, King on Afghanistan just before his own death. Why? Stalin knew that Afghanistan was a tribal land that would be hard to suppress, so he left it alone and put a king in charge who would keep the local busy and out of his hair. That position was maintained till the 1970s when hard liners in the Soviet Union decided that having a kingdom within the Soviet Empire was unacceptable. These hard liners decided to move Afghanistan into the 20th century and ran into the problems Stalin had foreseen and avoided. This lead to unrest in Afghanistan, an overthrowing of the King by pro-soviet groups, then more unrest, then a full scale invasion, and more unrest and then the slow drawn out guerrilla war the Soviet Union fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Afghanistan had been in the obit of Russian Control since the Russian Empire moved in Central Asia in the 1800s (as England moved into Afghanistan to offset these advances, was driven out as the Afghan came to look to Russia for support against England). This control continued after the Revolutions of 1917. Thus by 1952 Afghanistan had long been under the influence of the Soviet Union. Thus when I use the term "Soviet Times" I mean the period from 1952 to 1989, when the Soviet Union was the single most important foreign influence in Afghanistan. That ended with the collapse both of the Soviet Union (in 1989) AND the Communist Government of Afghanistan (In 1992). Since that time period the greatest influence has been Pakistan (and maybe Saudi Arabia via Pakistan). Only since the American Invasion of 2002 has American influence come close to those two.