The nature of the enemy

From a NATO ISAF press release today:

Taliban extremists have been desecrating cemeteries and burial sites, using children as bombers, and violating Islamic tradition, according to ISAF officials here.

“They placed explosives on a 6-year-old boy and told him to walk up to the Afghan Police or Army and push the button,” said Capt. Michael P. Cormier, company commander. “Fortunately, the boy did not understand and asked patrolling officers why he had this vest on.

“This type of action is not tolerated by any culture or any people,” said Maj. Donald A. Korpi, ISAF’s Regional Command-East spokesman. It was the people in the area who first reported these activities to the Afghan security forces in the Andar district, he said.

So, all ye who advocate we Beat A Retreat out of Iraq, surely it wouldn't be much longer before you want to yank us out of Afghanistan as well.

What comes next? What will the people who do this sort of thing do next once we're no longer there to thump heads?

From Reuters:

Bednarek said U.S. forces were making some grisly discoveries as they scoured Baquba.

He said residents led soldiers to a house in the western part of the city that appeared to have been used to hold, torment and kill hostages. Soldiers destroyed it.

"When you walk into a room and you see blood trails, you see saws, you see drills, knives, in addition to weapons, that is not normal," Bednarek said.

Torture houses were also found in Fallujah when the US went in and cleaned it out.

What kind of people torture other human beings? I don't mean the Abu Ghraib putting people on a leash kind of "torture". I mean true, searing pain torture. Will these people suddenly go passive and become onion farmers?

Will these people suddenly feel compassion for a lost and beaten US as it slinks out of the Middle East?

Or do you think they'll continue with their dream of getting us into their torture rooms?

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The Sweetness and Light blog also noticed the Baquba story.