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Afghan Atrocities Warn, If You Watch
Sunday, September 23, 2001
By Margery Eagan / BostonHerald.com Columnist

Location -- Source
You click on the Web site and see a home video of an Afghan woman on her knees in the middle of the Kabul Ghazi Sports Stadium.

She wears a baby-blue burqa. That's the head-to-toe covering, slits for eyes, no peripheral vision, that the Taliban requires be worn by women who, before 1997, made up 70 percent of that country's teachers, 40 percent of its physicians, 60 percent of its university teachers and half of its government workers.

The kneeling woman looks behind her as a bearded man approaches with a machine gun. He puts its barrel to the back of her head. She turns to face the ground. And he shoots. Bam. No preliminaries. No hesitation, proclamations or last words. You see something dark exit the woman's head. You see what appears to be the impact of the bullet splaying dirt beneath her, before she falls. It's dated Nov. 16, 1999.
(More: BostonHerald.com News Source)

You'll see a lot of these news shots in the months to come. I didn't hunt down the actual site Margery Eagan is referring to, feeling her words were enough for this board.

Not really enough information in the slaying of the woman, lacking any data whatsoever on a possible crime, and public executions are common for many Middle Eastern nations, not just Afghanistan. It’s a sight you don’t forget, and is ruthlessly chilling to Western concepts, but it remains a fact of -- death. Just an everyday form of capital punishment, in this case more than likely for some religious offense.

Dan