Taliban Opens New Branch Offices in Depressed American Cities; Democrats Call it “Necessary Step” to Reduce Unemployment
The Taliban has hired the BGR Group, the well-known Lobbying Firm started by current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, to represent its interests in Washington, D.C.
By Brandon J. Weichert
WAZIRISTAN—Taliban leader Mullah Omar announced from his cave today that with American and NATO forces drawing down in Afghanistan, his organization can finally begin to grow again.
After meeting with several of his own advisers and some al Qaeda advisers, it was decided that on top of expanding their branch offices in Iran and Egypt, the Taliban would like to “go global” along with their al Qaeda partners once more. They are looking to build new headquarters and regional offices, specifically in American cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, and Chicago—places that have seen some of the highest unemployment rates since the Great Recession in 2008.
“It’s about branding,” explained the Pakistan-based Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan very matter-of-factly. “When Vice-President Biden claimed, ‘The Taliban—per se—are not our enemies’ last year, that was a vital step toward creating a mutually beneficial relationship with America and the West.”
Expanding abroad has been a Taliban goal for years. However, the European General Court dealt the Taliban their most significant blow yet when they denied them access to the European Economic Zone on the grounds of their “monopoly on violence.”
When asked why the EU would turn away such a potentially lucrative business in such dire economic times, the EU High Representative Baroness Ashton explained, “A monopoly of any kind violates the basic foundations of the European Union; we don’t do business with enterprises that seek to monopolize any trade—whether it be violence or commodities.”
Thus, the Taliban’s expansion into America is desperately needed to compensate for losses. Of course, despite the reassurances of Taliban leaders and our own leaders, many Americans are still quite concerned about seeing new branch offices in their cities.
“I just don’t think it’s good for the country,” said Shelly Terrance, a Chicagoan and mother of two whose husband has been unemployed since 2008. “I mean, I know beggars can’t be choosers, but this seems extremely desperate on the part of our leaders – especially when our city won’t even allow a Chick-Fil-A to be built.
Despite the negative press they have gained over the years, whenever the Taliban move into a new area, they ensure that the population is well-taken-care-of and employed, and the residents they rarely leave once they establish their presence.
According to Abdullah Khan, a Pakistani merchant living in Waziristan, when the Taliban moved into his area after fleeing Afghanistan, they “rounded up all of the men and boys in the town and gave us work as insurgents. It was a good deal and in these tough economic times, the single Afghani [Taliban currency] we were paid supplemented our income very well. And now that President Obama is calling off the Drone Strikes, we no longer have to worry about dying in a gruesome way!”
There are still several hurdles that the Taliban have to go through before opening their branch offices in the States. As if channeling the Republican Party, Ehsan stated that a key issue holding back expansion plans are the “astronomical taxes and burdensome regulatory practices they [the US government] employ. We just don’t know how cost-effective it would be.”
Several leading Democrats have claimed that allowing the Taliban to utilize their unique employment methods in depressed American cities is a “vital” and “necessary step toward repairing the ailing George W. Bush Economy.” Of course, sothers have raised questions as to the legality of those aforementioned “unique employment techniques.”
A spokesperson for the Chicago-based Community Organizing Group, Developing Communities Project, Inc., stated that, “We believe that the Taliban will offer an incredibly unique voice to the vast Diaspora that is Chicago. We hope they decide to open a branch office here, as we feel it will do great good in helping to put Chicagoans back to work.”
Similarly, in a campaign speech earlier this week, President Obama praised the Taliban by stating that “Unlike American corporations and small businesses—which rely on roads and services provided by the taxpayers—the Taliban have long-thrived in regions where no roads, no civil order, and absolutely no laws prevailed. In a way, theirs is the only enterprise that was actually built and prospered because of their private leaders, not because of me.”
Noted University of Chicago economist and former head of the Obama Administration’s National Economic Council, Austan Goolsbee, stated, “While I don’t want approve of the Taliban’s past actions, I do concede that whenever they move into a region, the unemployment rates drop to almost zero. So, do I think it would be good for Chicago and other depressed cities? Yes, absolutely.”
However, it should be noted that murder rates tend to drastically rise and demographic rates—particularly among non-Sunni Muslim minorities—tend to plummet whenever the Taliban move into an area as well.
“My grandmother used to tell me, ‘Take the bitter with the better,’” Ehsanullah Ehsan responded when presented with the figures mentioned above. “Like every enterprise, the Taliban has its negatives. But it also has a lot of positives. Do you value life or jobs more? Security or prosperity? Those are very reasonable tradeoffs. It just doesn’t make sense why our American partners would be so reticent, especially when the Iranians have embraced us with arms wide open.”
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Posted by BWeichert
on Aug 6 2012. Filed under International.
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