http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDZi9EyuS3g

this is a 50 second scene from a movie, it shows the taliban punishing a women in public.

do u think this is the real portrayal or just propaganda?

What is this film? Who made it?

I'd say it's accurate.

>Implying the truth cannot be used as propoganda.

For example, some UN soldiers got in trouble for sexually assaulting locals
Australian troops in Afghanistan took photos of them posing with their 'trophies' (ie dead Afghani civilians)

These images could be used for propoganda, but they are true.

There is a natural principle of law that says 'audi altarem partem' means 'no one should go unheard'. When you try someone, you should hear from both the parties. But we only get to hear from Western Media and never hear from what Taliban say. If someone makes a film now with look-alikes and tell you that this is how the Taliban is, and you believe it, I feel sorry for your mis-judgment.

Out of curiousity, have you read Mein Kampf? If not, would you consider Hitler to be evil? And if so, how do you reconcile your hypocracy in advising somethign you don't yourself do?

We have enough evidence to conclude that the Taliban is evil. We have incontrovertible evidence that the Taliban has been responsible for some pretty large scale killings. nothing they could say could excuse these killings, so, just as we can conclude that Hitler is evil without having heard his side of the story, we can conclude that the Taliban is an evil entity.

Note, please don't read more into this post than I said. For instance, just because I said what I said does not mean that I believe:

That those who fought the Taliban are morally clean.

That I believe the video is accurate (I haven't even seen the video)

Anything other than exactly what I said.

Taliban/Muslim fundamentalists probably argue just the same way kind to convince others that USA, Israel and Jews are "evil".

You're kind of implying that reading "Mein Kampf" is the only way to hear a different version of the Hitler story.

Hitler is mainly considered evil because of the Holocaust, and since Mein Kampf was written over a decade before the Holocaust even started, by a time Hitler did not yet even consider actually killing jews, you'll hardly find Hitler's version of the Holocaust in "Mein Kampf".

I personally indeed started reading "Mein Kampf" exactly because I always want to hear both sides of a story and considered reading Mein Kampf essential to understand Hitler, but I soon stopped because it wasn't quite what I expected. I found it quite boring, on the first 50 pages or so that I read the word "jew" hardly appeared at all, I only remember something about a jewish doctor that he seemingly blamed his father's death on.

Like the evidence you had which 'proved' Iraq had weapon of mass destruction? And talking about pretty large mass killing, we saw what USA and their allies did to Iraq and Afghanistan. 

And don't pull out the Hitler's instance, for one at that time media was not that much powerful. Have you ever hear anything from Taliban? Go to Aljazeera.net and hear some of their interviews. Then justify between the two news.

@ Italics "Note, please don't read more into this post than I said. For instance, just because I said what I said does not mean that I believe:" - My previous post. All I said was that we can conclude that the Taliban is evil, I did not say that the USA or Israel as a country are not evil.

@ bolded - Ok, let me rephrase. I have been told by many that I trust that Hitler was responsible for millions of deaths, and I am aware of no serious claim by Hitler or his supporters that these deaths did not occur. I am sure that the NAZIs have excuses they would give, but I beleive there to be no justifyable reason to kill a person. Therefore I judge Hitler to be evil.

Is the above justified in your eyes?

Replace Hitler with 'the taliban' and 'millions' with 'thousands' and the above works in this case too. the Taliban are murderers and they are evil. There is nothing anyone could say that would justify the killing of thousands.