NGOs out, polio in

The dear dear Taliban – so wise, so reasonable, so helpful.

In a recent broadcast on his illegal FM radio station, Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah said, “All NGOs should leave Swat because they are creating problems for peace.” Fazlullah has also described all Pakistanis working for NGOs as “enemies of the country”. “They come and tell us how to make latrines in mosques and homes. I’m sure we can do it ourselves. There is no need for foreigners to tell us this,” Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said.

He went on to explain in more depth:

Muslim Khan told IRIN, a news network run by the United Nations, that “NGO is another name for vulgarity and obscenity. They don’t want us to remain Muslims and want to take away the veil from our women.” Khan claimed NGOs hire women who work alongside men in the fields and in offices. “That is totally un-Islamic and unacceptable,” he said.

Sound fella. He’s a medical expert, too.

Taliban militants in the former tourist destination of Swat Valley have obstructed officials from vaccinating over 300,000 children…Extremist clerics have used mosque loudspeakers and illegal radio stations to spread the idea that the vaccinations cause infertility and are part of a US-sponsored anti-Muslim plot…“It’s a US tool to cut the population of the Muslims. It is against Islam that you take a medicine before the disease”, said Muslim Khan, Swat’s Taliban spokesman, speaking by telephone.

You see? He knows how to make latrines, he knows it is unacceptable to let women work alongside men, he knows vaccinations are against Islam. Soon under the wise and benevolent rule of the Taliban, Swat will be full of illiterate shrouded women, contaminated water supplies, crippled children, and corpses. Ain’t regression grand?

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