How long does it take to brainwash a human being into becoming a suicide bomber? About a month, apparently. If you want to know how messed up the Taliban is, you need to head over to the Independent and learn more about how they kidnap young boys at gunpoint and indoctrinate the shit out of them in their training camps.

The boys are taught your predictable “Pakistan is a tool of Western Oppression”, and shown videos of atrocities to entice them into a fervor of hatred and disgust. Even though many of these boys were returned home, many parents describe their children as horribly twisted and corrupt, a shadow of their former selves. Part of their brainwashing techniques involved instructing them that their own parents should be killed if they get in the way of their “glorious mission”.

I guess when life is pretty shitty, it’s fairly easy to twist their pain into hatred and eventually murder. Even though the Taliban is getting crushed by the army, many residents fear this victory is short lived, and they will be back in even greater numbers.

I won’t pretend I have the right answer as to the best way to deal with these psychos, but combating indoctrination requires a lengthy process of education and empathy building, something I doubt the Pakistani government is capable of doing. The Taliban is effectively creating a sleeper army to awaken when everyone think they are defeated. They are like a virus; just when you think it’s dead, the bastard mutates and takes out your entire family.