Taliban Hang 15 Year Old

The Taliban continue their none too subtle approach to winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan. This time, the perceived sin that needed irradicating is a common one in the Islamic world: accepting anything at all Western.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban militants hanged a teenager in southern Afghanistan because he had U.S. money in his pocket, and they stuffed five $1 bills in his mouth as a warning to others not to use dollars, police said Monday. Taliban militants elsewhere killed eight police.

The 15-year-old boy was hanged from a tree on Sunday in Helmand, the most violent province in the country and the world's No. 1 poppy-growing region.

"The Taliban warned villagers that they would face the same punishment if they were caught with dollars," said Wali Mohammad, the district police chief in Sangin.

In the same town, the Taliban also shot and killed a farmer because he was getting seeds at an aid station.

If the Taliban belonged to a more peaceful religion, they would have rendered under Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's, and they would have known that that poor, meek farmers seeking aid are blessed by God. But, unfortunately for the boy and the farmer, the Taliban and other Islamists belong to an intolerant, violent religion that has always been comfortable with the sword as a tool of evangelism.