Taliban has last laugh over US sex scandal

File photo: Then-CIA Director-desigate General David Petraeus testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.

File photo: Then-CIA Director-desigate General David Petraeus testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Published Nov 16, 2012

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At least someone got a laugh from the tribulations of the CIA chief David Petraeus - his foes in the Taliban.

Days after Mr Petraeus stood down from his position amid the fall-out of an extramarital affair, a stony-faced Taliban official burst into laughter at the mention of what happened to the man who served as head of US and international forces in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011. “What a bastard! But all Americans are the same, it's nothing new,” the unidentified official told Agence France-Presse.

The moral code of the Pashtuns, the main ethnic group from which the Taliban draw their members, also demands severe punishment for adulterers. “From a Pashtun point of view, Petraeus should be shot by relatives from his mistress's family,” the Taliban official continued. “From a sharia point of view, he should be stoned to death.”

The Taliban official said he was not surprised by news of the general's fall from grace.

“It's quite normal for Americans and Western people to behave like this - they live in free sex societies where nobody cares about this sort of thing, so what do you expect?” he said. - The Independent

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