Talking to the Taliban - Part 5 - View of the World

Front-line Taliban deeply ignorant about the world KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN March 27, 2008 The typical Taliban foot soldier battling Canadian troops and their allies in Kandahar is not a global jihadist who dreams of some day waging war on Canadian soil. In fact, he would have trouble finding Canada on a map. A survey of 42 insurgents in Kandahar province posed a series of questions about the fighters' view of the world, and the results contradicted the oft-repeated perception of the Taliban as sophisticated terrorists who pose a direct threat to Western countries. Faced with a multiple-choice question about Canada's location, only one of 42 fighters correctly guessed that Canada is located to the north of the United States, meaning the insurgents performed worse than randomly. None of them could identify Stephen Harper as the Prime Minister of Canada, and they often repeated the syllables of his name -- "Stepheh Napper," "Sehn Hahn," "Steng Peng Beng," "Gra Pla Pla" -- that reflected their puzzlement over a name they had never heard. Nor did they seem to associate the word "Canada" with anything except, in some cases, the soldiers now serving in Afghanistan. Most could not distinguish between the French- and English-speaking rotations of troops. One of The Globe and Mail's questions offered the Taliban a chance to volunteer any information about Canada: "Do you know about this country? What kind of people are there? Is it a big country or a small country? Poor country, rich country? Cold or warm? Do Muslims live there?" None offered any meaningful responses, and most of them simply declined to answer. One of the few who guessed, a 21-year-old farmer, seemed to think the word "Canada" indicated a faraway city. It might be an old and destroyed city," he said.

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YouTube | June 6, 2008

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