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• Thursday, June 22, 2006 08:08 AM

  The Perfect Naan

  The Tipton 3 - as they fashion themselves - were perfect gentlemen who just happened to rush over the border into Afghanistan to "help" - or was that in search of the "perfect naan"?

  Lets be honest - there is enough grey in this story to nuance the most casual observer's suspicions. The 3 gents live in the UK - and frequent a bookshop and mosque with somewhat "strident views". Just after 9-11 they decide to go to Pakistan for a wedding - but never make it there. They DO manage to hang around a radical madrassa and then decide to journey into Afghanistan - "not knowing a war was on" - to a) get great naan bread or b) help their brothers. After a few wrong turns in a taxi - they end up on the battlefield and get captured by Northern Alliance personnel thinking they are Taliban.

  Now these guys are either the 3 Stooges or something just doesn't seem right. Shades of Grey here.

  I don't support torture. I do not support murdering people. But somehow - this just seems ..too strange. If these guys most likely went to help the Taliban "defend Islam", then a few years in the clink frankly is what they deserved. They probably did not kill anyone - but they did probably lend their hand to one of the most odious regimes in history.

  These men represent the problem with the "War on Terror" - who is a soldier and who is not. No uniforms, no ID , just "no one here but us tourists". They melt into the population like fish in the sea. I wish I had a better answer for this other than "lock them up" - but frankly, at this point no one seems to be trying to fight the ideas that motivate these people as much as their potential actions.

  But running into a riot and then acting like "what, me?" just seems ....grey.

  —Ironclad Read Ironclad's other letters
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