Comments on: Questions about the Taliban: Struggle against the USSR; Reagan; how popularity was gained

By: Monday Malloy

Monday Malloy — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:56:03 +0000

[...] also trip down memory lane for a visit with St. Reagan and his support of the Afghan “freedom fighters,” who he [...]

By: Afghanistan and the Emergence of the Taliban: Reviewed Works « OPEN ANTHROPOLOGY

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:27:03 +0000

[...] Qandahar, Saudi Arabia, Taleb, Taleban, Talib, Taliban, Usama Bin Laden, USSR by ghorband56 A previous article on this site quoted sections of Ahmed Rashid’s TALIBAN: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in [...]

By: Maximilian Forte

Maximilian Forte — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:26:25 +0000

Thank you very much for that contribution Darryl, much appreciated, and I am sure not by me alone.

In addition to the useful notes, your conclusion is well put: “there may never be a clear historical answer as to whether the U.S. “caused” the Taliban or not via its support for the mujahidin. But what is clear is that one can easily oppose the U.S. project in Afghanistan without answering this question.”

(The bad news is that every single comment on this blog is now automatically being thrown into the spam queue. Sorry if you thought it had gone astray, and I am glad I saw it without automatically deleting. I mention this just in case other commentators encounter similar problems and wonder why their comments might not appear immediately.)

By: Darryl Li

Darryl Li — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:12:21 +0000

Properly assessing the relationship between the mujahidin (where there’s a consensus of US support) and the Taliban (where there isn’t) requires first disaggregating the category of ‘mujahidin.’ As the work of Gilles Dorronsoro and Barnett Rubin have demonstrated, the label of ‘mujahidin’ was applied to a variety of armed political groups operating under the sign of Islam during that period who nevertheless were very different in terms of their historical roots, ideological/doctrinal outlooks, organizational structures, etc.

While it is true that the Taliban leadership in their younger days belonged to some of these groups, some other factors should also be taken into account:

First, the relationship between the Taliban and the larger mujahidin groups (especially Jami’at-i-Islami and Hizb-i-Islami) was if anything antagonistic. As the excerpts in the second part of the post demonstrate, the Taliban largely built its reputation on setting itself _against_ the mujahidin and the corruption/brutality/chaos they represented. Indeed, the Taliban militarily defeated or marginalized these groups.

Second, the mujahidin group that Mullah Omar and some other key Talibs fought in during their youth was a smaller and relatively marginal one, Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami, though this group did receive US aid (and indeed was labeled as one of the “moderate” groups).

Third, Haqqani is an interesting exception. Among prominent mujahidin commanders, I believe he was the only one who did not get sucked into the post-1992 chaos and was also the only one to be co-opted by the Taliban later on.

For these and other reasons, there may never be a clear historical answer as to whether the U.S. “caused” the Taliban or not via its support for the mujahidin. But what is clear is that one can easily oppose the U.S. project in Afghanistan without answering this question, however important it may be. And as the execrable Christopher Hitchens has demonstrated, acknowledging responsibility for “blowback” can also be an argument for invasion as well.

By: Maximilian Forte

Maximilian Forte — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:30:58 +0000

You know, the other funny thing is that the Israeli pilot who bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor was also on that shuttle when it exploded…above Palestine. One might think the whole thing had been scripted.

By: Rocket

Rocket — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:26:32 +0000

“That is the same space shuttle you can see here, on 01 February 2003 over Palestine (Texas)”

Haha.

For all you know, it might have been shot down by a Stinger missile.