10-13-2001, 09:44 AM
According to a Washington Post article, on a link from www.msnbc.com (http://www.msnbc.com), the Taliban is conscripting recruits by force--literal force. Essentially what is happening is that the Taliban is dragging off residents and shopkeepers, jailing them, beating them with sticks, then offering to let them out of jail if they join the Taliban army and fight. According to one such conscript, his Taliban captors told him "It's a jihad. If you don't fight we'll kill you." This conscript also claims to have been shown the bodies of other young conscripts who had been shot to death for their refusal to join up.
The article details other similar anecdotes.
Not surprising from a regime which destroyed the great cultural works of art: giant statues of the Buddha, on the flawed premise that they were destroying them because they were "idols." The Buddha, while living, exhorted his followers not to worship him or rely on him, or on the order of monks, after his death. He urged them instead to rely upon their own reason and understanding--to be "lights unto themselves." The very opposite of idolatry, the opposite of blind faith, and itself a form of warning against it from the Buddha. But the stupid and ignorant Taliban knows of only their own fundamentalist beliefs.
The article details other similar anecdotes.
Not surprising from a regime which destroyed the great cultural works of art: giant statues of the Buddha, on the flawed premise that they were destroying them because they were "idols." The Buddha, while living, exhorted his followers not to worship him or rely on him, or on the order of monks, after his death. He urged them instead to rely upon their own reason and understanding--to be "lights unto themselves." The very opposite of idolatry, the opposite of blind faith, and itself a form of warning against it from the Buddha. But the stupid and ignorant Taliban knows of only their own fundamentalist beliefs.