NYPress

C.J. Sullivan That Wild & Wacky Mullah

It’s pretty hard to find any humor in war—especially one that just got under way—but in Monday’s Daily News Russ Buettner manages to unearth some. Under the classic tabloid headline, “Taliban leader is mentally ill, his doc says” (the website’s is even better: “Taliban Chief a Lunatic: Doc”), Buettner relates a story by a doctor who treated Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The doctor thinks Omar is a certifiable kook.

Now any religious zealot, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, can come off as a nut. But we're not talking about a simple Jerry Falwell walk down Irrational Way. No, Mullah Omar takes the cake. The anonymous doctor tells how Omar often sneaks out of his protected quarters to sit in an idle automobile, mimicking engine noises and cranking the steering wheel like a kid. (Maybe when American bombers are flying over his head he spreads his arms out like airplane wings and imitates the sound of machine gun fire.)

The sad part is this barmy lunatic has complete control over the Afghan people. This is how Omar rules: he locks himself away for a few days and has what he claims are religious prophecies that show him the way Allah would want his people to be governed. The doctor quoted in the story says that these are not religious prophecies at all but rather delusions caused by brain seizures from a 1989 war wound to his head. After these visions Omar will, for example, make a law ordering all birds in Afghanistan to be uncaged, or one banning kite flying, or banning women from wearing white socks.

This is the big cheese of the Taliban, the man with all the say. This should be like shooting fish in a barrel.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001