"Our" Afghanistan is committed to human rights, wants a democratic government based on it, but is prevented by the Taliban, says the Northern Alliance's embassy in Kuala Lumpur. The Northern Alliance is known here as the Islamic state of Afghanistan, and its embassy does, as the need arises to show it exists, tell the world, if not Malaysia, how wonderful things are in its bailliwick, and how the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, more widely known as the Taliban, makes short shrift of all those wonderful ideas Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues made it a requirement for good governance. "Our ideology is unlike the Talibans," it said, and the Islamic state's "broad-based and multi-ethnic character" is proof of this commitment.

The NA is not involved in hosting terror groups, the Taliban is. Because the Taliban, with armed forces like Mr Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda group, the Pakistan "occupying force", and receive "orders and instructions" from Pakistan "fanatics". The Taliban, therefore, are "criminals in accordance with the provisions of the Afghan criminal code (1974). Further, "they have committed high treason and they would be tried and punished "in due process of law inside Afghanistan." At least, Malaysia at least knows why the Anglo-American aerial bombardment goes on relentlessly: it is to ensure the Taliban is brought to justice under the AFghan criminal code. Why then is the Pentagon and Whitehall briefings ignore this important fact in their daily briefings? What are Washington and London so queasy of bringing into power these paragons of human rights and justice as the Islamic state of Afghanistan claims it is?

Where was this respect for the criminal code when it was in power after the Soviet Union was booted out of Afghanistan? Did not ISA (NA) elements throw acid upon women who had makeup and were unveiled, when it was in power? Or is it its considered opinion that women are lower than dogs in Afghanistan? Was the criminal code applied when they ruled the roost? Why did the people rise with the Taleban then to force them into the corner of Afghanistan where the minority tribe they represent? If they rose because the AFghan criminal code was applied strictly, then why is this international coalition against (of?) terror are so terrified of the ISA in power. Why do they believe then that the ISA in Afghanistan would be more horrific than Dr Mahathir's ISA, and should not, under any circumstance be in charge in Kabul? Since it is, in its view, a modern state, with respect for people and property, why I wonder does it not state when free and unfettered general elections would be held?

So, there is an aspect of the bombardment that the British and American briefers miss, as casualties mount, and bombs drop where they should not, and briefers rush to escape public odium for its "one must be cruel to be kind" policy of bombing indiscriminately to force the Taliban to vomit MR Osama from Afghanistan's cavernouse mountain caves. The Americans would have been more likely to accept if the bombing was to force the Taliban to be accountable under the law. And the ISA plans to try, and punish, those guilty of all these horrendous crimes. The Taliban leaders, in case Malaysians did not know, are "criminals who should be brought to justice for the crimes they have committed in Afghanistan.".

The ISA's commitment to law is such that the Talibans are guilty before the trial -- first the trial, then the execution -- and they should not be in any future government the Anglo-American coalition against terror would install. Only one thing is certain: ISA and IEA, or to put it in the current idiom, NA and the Taleban, play no part in that. If the NA was a normal choice, why is this crazy scheme to put an octogenarian king in power for the very reasons he was booted out by his brother-in-law three decades ago?

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my