Sean Langan Escapes The Taliban
Langan is a filmmaker who went into Taliban territory to interview "Khalifa" Siraj Haqqani and Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, planning to ask them if Al Qaeda has a nuke. He was captured, but walked away after three months being held prisoner by captors who threatened to behead him. James Gordon Meek writes for the New York Daily News of Langan's time in a terror camp in Pakistan:
"The world's leading terrorists are there - safe, and with the time to plot and plan attacks," Langan told the Daily News in his first U.S. interview.Now he's warning President-elect Barack Obama of the "clear and present danger" of another Sept. 11 hatched in Pakistan.
"If another 9/11 happens, it'll be by the same perpetrators of the greatest attack in history," he said. "It's a race against time."
The threat posed by the extremists there is not surprising.
What shocked him, however, was the total indifference to human life shown by his captors. Their own children were as expendable as bullets in an AK-47.
How did he get captured? When he was going to do his interviews...
A letter on Haqqani's stationary accused him of spying, which the journalist said typically means "you're dead."Thrown into a tiny blacked-out room with his terrified Afghan translator, they were rattled by the constant chattering of machine guns, mortars and grenades around the house that served as a jail. Overhead, they often heard the steady hum of U.S. Predator drones.
"I was in a valley surrounded by training camps, bases and caves. Arabs were having meetings there - Al Qaeda - making plans," Langan recalled.
One extremist bluntly explained, "We are meeting and discussing global jihad issues."
Terror plots since 9/11 in Britain, Spain and India have been traced to Pakistan's tribal areas, the source of most current terror threats, according to the CIA and a federal terror commission.
Langan heard an ex-Pakistani minister on the BBC one day denying Al Qaeda operated camps inside the country.
"I had to turn up the radio to hear his denial over the sound of gunfire from all the training camps," Langan said, grinning.
During interrogation, they demanded he identify his young sons - an infuriating attempt "to bring innocence and light into a dark, corrupted world," he said.
Fearing a beheading, he revealed one son's name is Gabriel, as in the archangel, and one of the holiest names in Islam.
The Taliban wept - and Haqqani sent a letter of apology.
A teary-eyed interrogator threw his arm around Langan and showed him a young boy's photo on his cell phone.
A father-to-father moment?
Hardly. The next photo showed the bomb-strapped kid blowing up a U.S. Humvee.
"I'm looking at him like, you're a sociopath," Langan said.
Questioning him about Western decadence, a clueless Taliban asked if "your women can marry animals - even small ones."
Langan by then had lost two teeth and 40 pounds, but his sense of humor suddenly returned.
"I don't think that is true, but why do you?" he asked.
The goon had seen a picture of a yellow-haired woman "kissing a frog" in her hand with a crown - the "Frog Prince" of fairy tales.
Islam and literacy -- the two do not exactly go hand in hand.
via Jihadwatch
There's a "red flag" in the article: "the steady hum of U.S. Predator drones".
If you can hear it, you can shoot it, and there is considerable incentive to do so because of the threat of the missiles they carry.
So there is considerable poetic license being taken.
Radwaste at December 10, 2008 2:07 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/12/10/sean_langan_esc.html#comment-1612290">comment from RadwasteI always figure with something like this there is some, uh, poetic license. Not like we can call up the Taliban for a quote to verify.
Amy Alkon
at December 10, 2008 2:27 AM
you know, in science fiction, there are often stories of barbarians getting hold of modern weaponry and decimating civilizations... You can find that in real histories too, but it hasn't happened in a long time, and Sci Fi isn't real... so why worry over that? these Neo-barbs will surely become civilized eventually, put down their weapons, free their women and play nice with everyone...
I'm afraid of what the eventual answer is to this. In the last 500 years many civilizations have changed a great deal. Theirs has regressed. Are we willing to take the steps to win?
SwissArmyD at December 10, 2008 9:25 AM
These people are just unreal!!!!!
Feebie at December 10, 2008 6:48 PM
SwissArmyD, we NEED to take the steps to win, whether we're willing or not! This just proves what I've been saying for years: we need to, literally, LEVEL the playing field. (This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around. And I'm NOT sorry for the earworm!) They mean business; SO SHOULD WE. Turn that whole area into a freakin' parking lot. They don't give a shit about the innocent, why should we? And don't give me that "we're better than they are" crap. 9/11/2009, anyone? And it'll probably be sooner than that, if they can manage it. We should see to it that they don't. What are the powers that be not getting about this?
Flynne at December 11, 2008 6:20 AM
They should just drop a planload of silicone women on the training camps (like the one in 'Lars and the Real Girl'). Nothing defuses male aggression like getting laid, and they're certainly too uncivilized for real women. This will keep the young boys safe too, because before they blow up their little sons, I'm sure someone has sexually assaulted the poor kid.
Chrissy at December 11, 2008 12:27 PM
heh, flynne, I have Stop Making Sense in the player this moment...
But beyond this, you have to think about what you are saying. Are you really going to ask a soldier to kill in this way? Sure it happens, and so does PTSD. But the guys that that I know who have come back after accidentally ending an innocent life? Some of them just can't live with it, and all are crushed by the guilt...
That's why I put it as mostly hypothetical. We need a better anwer than fighting exactly the way they do, though I don't know what it is. Otherwise we are neo-barbs just like them.
SwissArmyD at December 11, 2008 1:08 PM
"We need a better answer than fighting exactly the way they do, though I don't know what it is."
Why not? You have ample historical evidence.
No one in the US has the political will, guts, call-it-what-you-want to admit that battles kill people AND that it's best that the other guys die. We've this strange notion that the battlefield is a place for individual honor. Nonsense. It's for overwhelming superiority when you can get it, to extinguish resistance.
This is supremely ugly. No, it cannot be politically correct, no matter how many times you say "insurgent" rather than "enemy", or "detainee" rather than "prisoner".
On any battlefield, inaction has consequences just as dire as action. If you do not target the refuge you enemy takes, they take refuge, and come at you again. Oh, gee, it's a house, or a mosque. Do you think that had any bearing in WW1 or 2? Hell, no.
Here's reality: when Americans leave base to go work on a construction project, they can be crowded at the job site by kids looking for candy. Since the Americans now can't use their guns and are mobbed, it's easy to ride a scooter or car into the crowd and set it off.
And then CNN blames it on Americans being there.
Radwaste at December 12, 2008 9:53 AM
Patton: "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
We've forgotten this.
brian at December 12, 2008 11:04 AM
Leave a comment