One of the few people I actually believe when I hear anything about Afghanistan is Michael Yon. He has spent a lot of time there and has the contacts to find out the truth, and because he reports for himself, he is free to tell the truth.

Michael posted an article today about the recent poisoning of Afghanistan girls because they were attending school. His article posts the emails between him and one of the Taliban leaders. He relates the correspondence:

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid fully owned up to their terrorist attacks that unfolded just days ago in Kabul and elsewhere.  He emailed to me, and contacted large media, and took credit for multiple suicide and other attacks.  And so it was natural to ask Mujahid if the Taliban (there are many groups, and there are lone wolves) was behind this atrocity against the girls yesterday.

His answer today:

“we are respecting womens .  taliban movement became in power againt those who kidnape womens and rap girls .  we don,t know about these girls , who and for what reason they kidnape. we are not support this .  Their arae a  lot af those creminals who were involve in that kind of cases b4 , now they are in power . and I personly sure that  in this case they will be involve”

And so I responded to Mujahid’s answer with a question.  Will the Taliban bring these criminal(s) who poisoned the girls to Islamic Justice?  Mujahid answered minutes ago:

“As I wrote u in my last mail we are agaist this criminals activety , so of corse we will bring them to islamic justice.”

Of course, not everything that happens out there is in accordance with the policies of the Afghanistan government, or our troops, or the Taliban.  When a Soldier or Soldiers apparently murdered 17 Afghans, those murders were not sanctioned by our side, though it looks like we own it.  Likewise, the Taliban did abolish opium and the use of boys for sex, and they did hang people for raping women.  Meanwhile, the government of Afghanistan is more apt to make a woman marry someone who rapes her.  This is a complex mess.  There is no black and white in this.  The more you learn the more your head spins.

If there is any good news out of this, it is that many girls are in school.

The bottom line here is that Afghanistan is a mess.