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Why Brits Fight for the Taliban
Sunday November 4, 2001
By Faisal Bodi / The Guardian

From being an embarrassing caricature of Islam, in my eyes the Taliban have suddenly become the west's latest victims.

British Muslims owe allegiance to the British state - but they must win the argument at home against an imperialist war

While we stand around the pyres tomorrow night waiting for the potatoes to soften and watching Guy Fawkes being toasted to a cinder, most of us will, if only fleetingly, recall the fabled 17th century episode we are supposed to be commemorating.

Bonfire night, rag effigies and nursery rhymes have made the 5th of November synonymous with treason. In the popular mind the Gunpowder Plot, with its dramatic aim of blowing up the Houses of Parliament, has become the archetypal anti-state conspiracy and its main executor the personification of treachery. Paintings of the day portray Fawkes' gang of eight as a whispering clique, scheming to do away with the government of the day.

This cloak and dagger image of treachery is very different from the sight of British Muslims jetting off to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban. Perhaps here is something refreshingly honest about the scores (rather than the hundreds of volunteers claimed by some groups), who have made their way to Afghanistan to join what they see as a war of resistance, a defensive jihad, against the US and Britain. As reports claimed last week that some of them have already been killed in action, some MPs called for the 1351 High Treason Act to be applied to those who survive to return.
(More: Observer.co.UK News Source)
2001 © Guardian Unlimited / Guardian Newspapers Limited.

From being an embarrassing caricature of Islam, in my eyes the Taliban have suddenly become the west's latest victims.

Why do I need to understand why idiots run off to die in Afghanistan, all just to support a bunch of bent cranks who want to rule the world? This guy just needs to put a cork in that bottle o’ whine. Anybody wanna buy this cracker’s plane fare to the front lines?

Dan