Have you noticed that there are two basic types of terrorists? There are the smart, educated ones with engineering and medical degrees, for example. And then there are the Taliban who are essentially monkeys with guns. I think we need different strategies for dealing with them.
Now before you go and accuse me of racial insensitivity, remember that the Taliban are my race (Caucasian). They are simply uneducated. What I’m about to say will seem unkind, but it’s an objective fact that almost everything the Taliban do can be taught to a chimp, e.g. ride motorcycles, shoot rifles, eat, wear pajamas, poop.
If you make a list of all the things monkeys do NOT do, then compare it to the list of things the Taliban likewise do NOT do, you’d find a lot of similarities. Monkeys don’t read and write, don’t use computers, don’t play Scrabble, don’t invent anything, and so forth. To be fair, the Taliban do have language skills whereas monkeys can only use sign language. But the point is that we shouldn’t use the same strategy with the Taliban that we use with the smart terrorists. We’ll have to kill the smart terrorists. We can outsmart the dumb ones.
Here’s my plan. I call it the Grand Talipoobah. As I understand the Islamic system, faithful Muslims such as the Taliban tend to do whatever their higher religious authorities instruct them to do. And in most cases the faithful have never personally seen the highest religious authority in their chain of command. That’s extra true if you are an illiterate Taliban goober with no TV or radio. Everything is based on word of mouth.
So what we should do is hire an actor to assume the role of the highest religious figure in the Taliban religious hierarchy. I call him the Grand Talipoobah. Then you take him on a tour around Afghanistan so everyone can see him and spread the world. You might need to hire a few thousand extras to act as his groupies, just to impress onlookers. We could use all of our Hollywood expertise to make the Grand Talipoobah seem authentic. He’d have an impressive back story about his humble origins and his rise to the highest level of Talipoobahdom. Ideally, he could learn some mind reading tricks from Penn and Teller just to wow the crowd. He might even predict the future, such as tomorrow’s weather, because even that would impress the Taliban.
Once the Grand Talipoobah has established himself as the ultimate religious authority, he can start issuing orders. For example, he can tell the Taliban to go kill the smart terrorists that are hiding in those caves.
You might think it would be hard to convince the Taliban that the Grand Talipoobah is their new religious authority. But consider that the Taliban are perhaps the world’s most gullible people. And you don’t need to win over every single Taliban. All you need is a simple majority because the majority will then kill the minority. Problem solved.
This probably won’t be the plan that wins me the Nobel Peace Prize. But can you think of any reason it wouldn’t work?