Our Afghan allies

When Bibi Aisha's nose and ears were cut off by her husband and her in-laws, no one expected much to be done about it, especially because it happened in a remote area under Taliban control. . . .

Now it appears that, while Afghan law enforcement did not have a long enough arm to reach into the village that Aisha had fled, the police nonetheless did have long memories and this week arrested one of the suspects. . . .

Aisha's case came to prominence in August when Time magazine used a picture of her on its cover, with the suggestion that this was what would happen if the West left Afghanistan. A child bride, Aisha had fled her arranged marriage to a Taliban fighter but was captured and returned to the village, where her husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law carried out the mutilation, after approval by the local Taliban mullah. Left for dead, she said, she then fled to the safety of a women's shelter in Kabul run by Women for Afghan Women, which publicized her plight a year later. . . .

It is rare for the police in Afghanistan to intervene when local villagers impose punishments for social crimes, even severe ones such as flogging and stoning, which are allowed under Shariah law, the legal code of Islam based on the Quran. There is no Shariah law provision, however, for cutting off the nose and ears of a runaway child bride.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013620068_bibi08.html

If they had simply raped, beaten, whipped, flogged, imprisoned, chained, tortured, enslaved and sold the runaway child bride, they would have gotten away with it. In fact, it would be considered perfectly socially acceptable action in Afghanistan

But, "there is no Shariah law provision . . . for cutting off the nose and ears of a runaway child bride." So, this one time, the groom and his family went too far.

For some reason, our government believes that we can get these people to convert to Western style secular democracy if we simply police their cities and drop enough drone bombs on them.