Holy Shit! The Taliban is Scary!

By Dr. Terrance P. Kiernan
Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow of Geopolitics and Security Studies at Cornell University

As a professor of geopolitics and security studies, I am keenly aware of the government’s methods of threat creation employed to keep Americans scared and obedient to the government in its role of father-protector. But as an extremely paranoid human being, I can’t help but devolving into a quivering pool of nerves and skittishness every time the government manufactures a new enemy to terrify me. After a few years of having no reports of foreign instability severe enough to warrant American action, the Federal Government-Mass Media marketing bloc has set its sights on an old foe: the Taliban in Afghanistan. After a failed Afghan election and booming revenues from poppy crops, the Taliban is back, and let me tell you- they are scarier than ever.

I am fully aware that it turned out that Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I also know that Osama bin Laden wasn’t really hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. Nonetheless, I spent months, if not years, in crippling fear that one of those two men would end freedom forever, and I have several dozen leftover Osama urinal cakes to prove it. Even when I was younger, I practiced my duck-and-cover procedure daily just in case the Soviets decided to finally drop the bomb. In the end, I couldn’t trust the Russians until Rocky convinced me that we all could change at the end of Rocky IV. Thankfully, through dedicated training and a relentless dedication to America, Sylvester Stallone convinced the dirty, rotten, commie pinkos not to suck the bone marrow out of dead fetuses for nutrition.



So that brings us to the present day, where the threat of the Taliban has reared its ugly head for the second time in a decade. Sure, last time our army squashed their military made up of Cold War relics. I fully understand that their most dangerous weapon is a bomb disguised as a piece of garbage on the side of the road. But I’m scared of Taliban anyway! It’s always better to be safe than sorry, and you never know- this could be the big one!

During my time at the Pentagon, I wrote a policy paper on the profile of a truly dangerous country. I’m sad and terrified to say that they have all of the makings of a true threat to my own life: lawlessness, political instability, poverty, a funny-sounding language, an alphabet that I cannot read, really crappy music, and clothing resembling that worn by various Bond villains.

I know what you’re thinking: didn’t we destroy the Taliban around 2002? That’s what I thought, too! But apparently, the inability of their government to figure out who won their presidential election combined with a drug industry that generates billions of dollars to non-governmental organizations who shape policy has reinvigorated the reactionary right of the country. Sound familiar? That’s right, it’s the exact same procedure that got us into a war with the Taliban the first time.

The thing that really got me scared about the new Taliban was the report about how their new methods are unspeakably wicked. They have big, spooky spiders hidden all over the country, and when they capture freedom-loving soldiers, they put blindfolds on them and make them feel bowls full of eel eyes and cold monkey brains. Isn’t that gross? What’s worse is that they don’t even have Halloween; they dress up like terrorists every day of the year.

[RIGHT- What the Taliban leaders may well look like, according to my extensive study of anti-Americanism in Bond movies.]

Apparently, the Taliban has also been working on some new military tactics and supplies. Intelligence data suggest that they have been using the brains of children to feed an army of zombies. Now, I don’t need to remind you that conventional war strategies and tactics will be inadequate against the undead. Shoot them with bullets? Run over them with tanks? Drop bombs on them? Child’s play to a zombie. They will eat our soldiers then cross the ocean to eat our leaders. Pretty soon, the entire country will be subservient to the Zombie Taliban, and we will have to pray to whatever zombie Muslims pray to every day at sun up and sun down. I shudder.

The potential for war gets even scarier when you consider the rumors of a weaponized strain of swine flu. My sources have told me that the Taliban has loaded capsules of H1N1 in bazookas and can infect an entire brigade at once. Our soldiers would be suffering from aches and fevers! The horror! And what if the rumors are true that Tom Selleck is half-Taliban on his mother’s side? Magnum’s facial hair always looked Arab, but I had no idea that he would turn on the country that made him a hero. If we lose Tom and his moustache, it’s game over, man. Game over!

Look, as an expert on the subject, I know that there’s only one thing to do. We have to get George Bush, Bruce Willis, and the ghost of Eazy-E to team up to take out the Taliban. I have seen enough movies to know that a vigilante coalition for freedom is America’s only hope. Otherwise, we better hope that we our children don’t grow up speaking Taliban.

How Afghanistan can find a good man- President material

By Dr. Jennifer Pyle, Presidential Relationship Counselor

There’s no denying it, Afghanistan: good men are hard to find these days. And getting one to commit to being president of your anarchic hellhole, ugh, you’d have a better chance of staying on your New Year’s diet through February! But that’s what I’m here for. See, I help countries that are having trouble finding and keeping a good president look inside themselves to discover what it is they really want.

Now, I understand that things have been tough lately, Afghanistan. The Taliban is sending suicide bombers into your cities, all your neighboring countries seem to be finding good men to take care of them as their presidents, and your election process has been repeatedly disrupted by sectarian violence. You must feel like you’re doing something wrong, but I’m here to tell you that all you can do is be the best Afghanistan you can be, and you’ll find the right man sooner than you think! Instead of playing the “blame game,” let’s focus on a more constructive approach to finding a man.

[RIGHT- Your presidency is not a game, Afghanistan.]

-Accept that you are worthy of being loved. When you’re down in the dumps, all you can see are your own flaws. But where you see an arid wasteland of a countryside populated only by opium-farming warlords, others may see an oasis of economic opportunity. They key is finding the right man who loves you for being you. If he doesn’t love you, then maybe he was meant to be president of Bhutan or Mongolia, but there’s no reason to lower yourself to electing a man who doesn’t appreciate the beauty that is Afghanistan.

-Be a good communicator. While we may see a man as afraid of presidential commitment, you have to look at things from his perspective, too. He may look at the presidency as a death trap with no possibility of success, much like a bad marriage. In the end, you’re better off being honest with your guy: tell him about the warring religious factions at the outset so he doesn’t feel that you’re withholding information from him. Show him that you’re on good terms with your exes, even if they’re living in mountain caves and alienated from the world community. If your guy is afraid of the commitment that comes with being president of Afghanistan, it’s better to find out about it now than to commit to a serious relationship and have him try to embezzle millions of dollars from the national treasury and seek refuge in Pakistan at the first hint of an assassination attempt.

-Let your friends and family know you’re “on the market.” When you inform everyone around you that you are available, the presidential candidate will be pre-screened- your allies will set you up with guys who they think would be a good match for you. Getting your friends’ input at the start will help the selection process and separate the duds from real presidential material. For instance, try dropping some hints to the NATO-led security force which will begin deploying next week to quash the Taliban-led counter-insurgency in the Uruzgan province. I hear that NATO has some really successful friends who would be a great match for a crippled relic of Cold War conflict like yourself.

-Get involved in the community. If you’re a religious person, be active in your church. That way, you’ll constantly be interacting with people who share a similar value structure. Who knows? Maybe that cute radical Islamic cleric down at the Mosque has more political aspirations than he’s letting on. Also, volunteering at a political campaign is a great way to meet responsible, like-minded guys who might turn out to be worthy candidates. Plus, being open to new experiences will help you grow as a country; you’ll get in touch with yourself as a country while looking for a president.

-Don’t get hung up on old flames. Anybody who you might end up with is going to have to eventually deal with the 600 pound gorilla in the room. But honestly, there’s no point in allowing your past relationship with Osama Bin Laden get in the way of having a new relationship with a better man. Believe me, Afghanistan, there are many more fish in the sea. I know exactly what you’re going through: lots of countries with bad leaders in their past feel inadequate and keep waiting for someone to tell them what to do and make them feel special like the old leader did. Look at Russia, she was one of the most powerful countries in the world under Stalin, but she could never accept a leader who was good to her. Sure, Boris Yeltsin had some problems with his drinking, but he loved her, and she kicked him to the curb to start another abusive relationship with Vladimir Putin. As sexy as Putin may be, he wants to control Russia, and that’s not a healthy relationship. Even though Osama never consummated his relationship with you and became president, you can still learn a valuable lesson from that fling: you can’t spend your life waiting for some superstar to come out of hiding to lead you. You have to be proactive and find the president who is right for you, and believe me, girlfriend, Osama is not the one.

If there’s one thing I can tell you, Afghanistan, it’s that you should be confident in yourself going into next week’s elections. Sure, haters are going to say that the Taliban will kill whoever you elect and that corrupt warlords will prevent any relationship from working like it should, but you have to shake those haters off! The only way that Afghanistan can be happy is by accepting itself and finding a man who will love it, care for it, and commit to it in presidency.