Curious Aghan tourists were shocked at the opulence in which the Mullah “Cyclops” Omar lived, according to this article from the San Francisco Chronicle.

A series of bedrooms — at one end Omar’s, a smallish room adjoined by a pink-tiled bathroom, a soft-mattressed bed and a neat row of clothes cupboards that filled the only room untouched by the rain of bombs — straggled down a hallway littered with glass and broken cement. A Western kitchen, including a Whirlpool dishwasher, was in one corner of the sprawling two-level house.

“Obviously, he shouldn’t have led this luxury life,” said one man who was touring the house. “He should have lived a simple life.”

Another man interrupted. “What they said was that he was living a simple life and preaching Islam,” he said. “But in reality he was living like this.” The man waved the barrel of his rifle around a second-floor patio, a look of dismay on his lined face.

“He was supposed to be a religious man,” explained Said Abdullah, a young man who said he had lived in Pakistan for most of his life, but wanted to come to Kandahar now that the war seemed over. “I have memorized all 6,666 lines of the Holy Koran, and I think I know what it means to be a good Muslim. But I am not sure Mullah Omar was a good Muslim. Look how he lived here. Look at what he did to our country. Did the Taliban do anything for all the poor people of our country? No, I don’t think so.”

No, I don’t think so either.

But wait–I thought it was only evil western colonialism and capitalism that allowed the ruling classes to live in decadent luxury while the poor starved. How can we explain this?

Chomsky? Sontag? Bueller? Bueller?

Anyone?

Will this story be covered on Al Jazeera?