Frustrated that Taliban fighters were making themselves scarce, cavalry commander Capt. Brian Peterson had his soldiers drive into the mountainous region of southern Afghanistan near Tarin Kowt, a known Taliban stronghold, and blared through Humvee-mounted loudspeakers a simple message:
"Take off your burqas," Afghan interpreters shouted... "Come out and fight us like men."
...Or we will taunt you a second time! Mind you, Apache Troop knows their audience. Team Agonist has the rest of the story, plus a couple of wingnuts in the comments section rooting for the Taliban.
UPDATE: If you think you can recall similar tactics being used in Iraq against the Saddam Fedayeen, you're right.
It's a good thing I wasn't drinking my coffee when I read your post. I would have spit it all over the computer screen. Too funny.
Yep, I've been trying to get rid of the loonies for a year and a half now. They just don't get it. Oh well.
It's a scale thing, Sean-Paul. Calpundit, for instance, has just given up even trying, and many large blogs simply dispense with their comments sections.
For this to change, there will have to be some changes to the underlying technology & process of commenting. MT's recent TypeKey authentication may offer some hope once certain add-ons are developed, and I have insider reports that a hand-coded solution requiring commenter registration (and also banning on that basis) has paid positive dividends over at LGF. But no solution out there is complete - yet.
Meanwhile, the loonies provide vivid examples of a mindset that would be hard for people to grasp or even believe if we just tried to explain it second hand. Which is a valued service, too, in a twisted kind of way.
"They can run, but they'll just die tired."
I'm so using that the next time I have to threaten someone.