The Taliban secret wounded.

Taliban secret wounded.

 
Taliban is trying to hide the number of mental
health cases among their ranks.
Traumatic Stress is epidemic and the Taliban's
ability to deal with this is problematic.

The Taliban have neither the time of resources
to treat these wounded shells of humans.

Their methods range from Heroin, to telling
them to pray, and in cases of the very violent
insurgents they are sent to front lines if they
can walk but in some instances they just shoot
them as they are too dangerous to to their
own troops to release.

In a "Taliban rest compound" duplicated
hundreds of times through out Afghan and N Waziristan. Packs
of former Taliban fighters try to convalesce. Hundreds untreated for depression, schizophrenic episodes, tramatic stress.They walk in never ending circles, or just sit and stare. Handling people rattled by bloodshed who already have mental illnesses is far more challenging. Some they convince to become suicide bombers.

The courtyard is filled, insurgents dulled by heroin sit on a cement floor in rows, quietly staring at each other. Some look lost. Others are suspicious. Buying drugs to calm them or help them sleep at night.

Some of the Taliban are too depressed to function. Others are gripped by anxiety attacks, paranoia and post traumatic stress disorder, uncontrollable shaking, curled up in a fetal position. Flashbacks are common. Awake with screaming night mares, sleeping with their AK47's tightly gripped to their chests.

The insurgents lie bed with a blank stare,looking at ceiling for days, listening for “Ghangai”, still traumatized. Many Taliban suffer from  bipolar disorder, moods often swing from depression to elation.
 
From screaming, " to attack" convinced he is the commander of the Taliban and the army then rolling on the floor whimpering covering his face with his hands.
 
The biggest cause for traumatic stress are the drones.
Children in Waziristan call them “Ghangai” (emitter of constant humming).
The sounds of the ghost Ghangai circling invisibly in the skyis enough
to make the Taliban insurgents run for the woods and seek shelter under
the trees, some even sleep there in the cold rather than risk being blown
up. They have listening posts in the mountains with small walkie talkies,
to warn of any sounds of the ghangais.

Even the Taliban leadership is endowed with paranoia of psychotic 
proportions. They kill "spies" on whims, guesses without real evidence.
Further destroying morale among rank and file and adding to traumatic stress
syndrome among their fighters. After 8 or 9 years of war its not unreasonable 
to expect some of the High Taliban leadership are experiencing post traumatic
stress disorder, and will go into seclusion from time to time to recuperate,
Hope they don't get hooked on heroin also, they have free access to tons
of heroin. The pressures they are under must be crushingly immense.



The Taliban rank and file are suffering huge secret losses from post
traumatic stress. The Taliban leadership work very hard to
keep new recruits separated from steady stream of mentally wounded
fighters. They are a big drain on Taliban morale, currently at its lowest
ebb in years.  

Internet Anthropologist Think Tank: How to join the Taliban

 Any negotiations with the Taliban should include treatment for
these thousands of walking wounded.

Taliban Secret wounded part II

Gerald
Anthropologist
. 
THE SECRET MUJAHDEDDIN


 

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