-- "leave me for the moment -- you can beat me again later," a 17-year-old woman begs between sobs in a video airing on pakistan's private television networks and now posted on the internet. But the local taliban commander continues to flog her without mercy as a group of village men watch in silence.
these images were described in a recent new york times dispatch, which noted that the alleged transgressions of the woman could not be definitively established. The range of possible violations of the taliban's version of islamic law -- from stepping outside her house without a male escort to having an illicit affair -- is appallingly vast.
The video, apparently shot on a cell phone and given to a human rights activist, is not surprising in itself. The brutal subjugation of poor, uneducated women in rural pakistan and afghanistan is widely if incompletely known in the west. But the brief, blurry images are revealing.
The recent u.s. Strategic review, as well as learned tomes and countless op-ed columns, depict the struggle in the desolate border lands of the afghanistan-pakistan frontier as being rooted in fierce nationalism, the region's ancient warrior culture, the failures of nation-building, and the rebirth of jihadist terrorism.
But this video reminds us of another driving force too often neglected or minimized in the analysis and commentary: The desire of pakistani and afghan men to be left in peace to deal with their womenfolk as they see fit. There may be no more important recruiting tool for the taliban and other islamic extremist organizations.
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