mullah omar eid message

Statement issued on Al-Emarah, the Taliban's propaganda website:

Ameer Al-Mu'meneen Mullah Mohammad Omar Mujahid about the pleasure of Eid
al-Fitr

Eid Mubarak to the whole Muslims Ummah

In The Name of Allah The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

All Praise and thanks are due to Allah, the Lord of all that exists and may
peace and prayers be upon the Messenger of Allah, his family, companions in
entirety

Assalmualeikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu

To the Mujahideen and holy warriors (ghazeyan) who spend their days and
nights in protecting Islam and Muslims, I pray to Allah that He may accept your
worships and hardships which you had endure in the Holy month of Ramazan
(Ameen).

It is in people's knowledge that Eid has arrived in such a time when
Afghanistan and Afghans people are engulfing in a war perpetuated by America and
its allies. Everyday and night our youths are martyred, our women are widowed,
our elders are insulted and our women and children are being pushed into the
valleys of death, because thousand kilograms weighted bombs are being dropped
on our houses, mosques and fields under the cloak of democracy which is
nothing but America and its allies hypocrisy.

America has tried it best to lead stray and deceive our people, especially
women and children under the name of democracy, women rights and westerns
immoral ideologies. But on the other side the revitalization of Jihad by which
the punishment that is being inflicted by Afghan Mujahideen and Muhajareen
Mujahideen on the invaders and its puppet government has forced America and its
allies to admit that the invasion of Afghans homeland was a historical error
and their destiny is defeat in Afghanistan (Inshallaah).

It is the efforts of Afghans jihad (resistance) which has displayed such
gallantry and proficiency in the battlefield forcing the America and its allies
to negotiate with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan because they have
recognize that without negotiation it is impossible for them to find a way to
leave Afghanistan with some dignity in front of the world.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan during its rule had tried to protect national
interest and provided a peaceful life for its countrymen and at the same
time respected others who had respected Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which was
governed under the Islamic constitution. But America and its allies who
invaded our homeland for the purpose of bring democracy to Afghanistan with MK82
500-lb bombs, B-52 bombers and BLU-82 Daisy Cutter bombs, each weighing
15,000 lbs thinking that this way they will be able to make Afghans their slaves.

Through their actions the whole world has witness their barbarism, cruelty
and massacres. The civilize citizens of the world have watched them martyr
innocent people of Afghanistan, Iraq and in other parts of the world and their
supporting of totalitarian governments.

Peace loving population of the world is disenchanted and distressed by the
destruction which America has brought to the world and its inhabitants,
history has shown wherever America has entered with the slogans of democracy, peace
and stability those places have been decimate.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan still remain steadfast in its strategies and
wants from American and its allies to stop promulgating their satanic
politics and the incursion in the lives of Afghans by withdraw their forces from
Afghanistan as a respect to the people of Afghanistan and respect to liberty,
so the people of Afghanistan can again live in peace.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan desires that its neighboring countries should
help Afghans to drive western forces from Afghanistan as they did during the
time of Soviet Union invasion. They should not provide any kind of support
by recognizing that American foreign policies are a danger to the whole
region.

Finally I pay tribute and congratulate those who have lost their loved ones,
such as sons, brothers, husbands, fathers and relatives for the protection
of Islam and Muslims and may Allah provide us an Islamic constitution in
exchange for martyr holy blood (Ameen). Finally we request Mujahideen to be humble
in their victories, should spread brotherhood and love, must accept commands
of elders and have compassionate attitude towards the civilians especially
during combat action.


Eid Mubarak for all,

Walaikum Assalam Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu

Serviceman of Islam, Mullah Mohammad Omar

negotiation is moving with taliban

It seems like karzai is this time proceeding with his Taliban negotiation strategy, western sources have learned that members of the Taliban's leadership council have used go-betweens to negotiate their defection.
the plan seems to be international support or drafted. The British government has thrown its backing behind the strategy to split the Taliban.

At the same time, however, British officials have concluded that the Taliban is too deep-rooted to be eradicated by military means. Following a wide-ranging policy review accompanying Gordon Brown's arrival in Downing Street, a decision was taken to put a much greater focus on courting "moderate" Taliban leaders as well as "tier two" footsoldiers, who fight more for money and out of a sense of tribal obligation than for the Taliban's ideology.

The Taliban leadership, which is under the influence of foreign al-Qaida fighters, is thought to be vehemently opposed to talks. In a message released on Friday the group's leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, rebuffed an offer of talks from Mr Karzai.
Some worry the talks are a Taliban stalling tactic at a time of intense military pressure. "Everyone on the ground thinks they've had a real effect this year and they want to keep the pressure up through the winter," said a Nato official. "It's in the Taliban's interests to appear more conciliatory when they're under pressure."

competitive duplication of TV series in afghanistan

Kabul TV stations rely heavily on foreign and imported programs, prime time Kabul TV (6:00 to 9:00pm) is pretty much dominated by bollywood dramas. Whenever I flip through afghan TV stations in prime time its drama in all ten stations. That is not really offering much choice for the viewer. I was wondering why they do it. partly because second hand programs are all they can afford, since there is no copy right law in Afghanistan I doubt if they pay anything to producer, but also because second hand programs provide a higher rate of return than original production. Audiences watch drama and they have many choices of drama.  

the import culture in TV stations is changing, the programs now goes behind prime time brainwashing bollywood dance and hyper tragedy, imported content is spreading out of movies and drama series, there are  more and more programs which are imported. Hollywood reality shows and nature programs are famous. The only program which is left for local production is religious programs. I don’t think we should blame afghan producers for lack of inspirations; the market is not in their favor.

 

The question I would like to ask is where will bollywood drama culture take us? In an unregulated media market, or I’d rather say badly regulated in case of afghanistan, the greater the degree of conformity in audience tastes, the greater the tendency towards competitive duplication, this seems like a vicious circle where the TV stations decided to jump, diversity in programming would only occur in Afghan TV market if the number of channels is large enough to exhaust the profits in competitive drama duplication, afghan advertisement market already finds it difficult to sustain the existing number of TV stations, as a matter of fact the majority of them are not dependent on market but rather on political parties and foreign funding.

Foreign programs are generally subject to a ‘cultural discount’ i.e. they sell for less than domestically made programs of the same type, at the end of the day if afghan TV stations prove unable to produce afghan programs they would also be subject to ‘cultural discount’.

afghan civilian death compensation scheme

Over 155 Afghan civilians died in ground military operations, aerial strikes and suicide attacks by Taliban insurgents, US, NATO and Afghan government forces in September alone according to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission

In May 2007 the AIHRC found that US soldiers used "indiscriminate shooting and excessive force" during an incident on 4 March in Nangarhar Province in which at least 11 civilians were reportedly killed. [http://aihrc.org.af/Investigatoin.pdf ]

Only a few of the over 30 nations that have contributed troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan provide modest ad hoc "condolence" payments to the families of civilians who die in their military operations, a spokesman for ISAF said.
The rights watchdog said the US army formally apologised to the affected local people and paid a "condolence" sum of US$2,000 to each directly affected family. That is quite some amount, lets compare that to what is paid to Nato troops. Ben Parkinson a UK soldier who received multiple injuries in Afghanistan will receive 285K GBP ($580k) in compensation plus a comprehensive package of health and other sort of assistance. Another case was an RAF typist reported to have received a £484,000 (around 1million dollars) civil payout after injuring a thumb. UK wounded service personnel will continue to benefit from tax-free, index-linked guaranteed payments to compensate for loss of earnings.

The difference is Nato troops kill people when they are at their homes while Nato soldiers are in Afghanistan to fight and obviously dieing comes with it. the other difference is a Nato troop costs several hundred times more than an afghan civilian.
The AIHRC has, however, repeatedly demanded the establishment of a regular and fair "compensatory" mechanism which would provide financial assistance to families affected in armed conflicts.

"There must be a transparent system of payments to the families of every civilian victim of armed conflict, in conformity with Afghanistan's domestic laws," Hamidi maintained.
According to Afghanistan's current penal code, a person who mistakenly kills an individual should pay Islamic compensation ('Diyat') equivalent to the price of 40 camels to the affected family - roughly $25,000.