The straight dope on the Taliban

While the Taliban movement rules most of Afghanistan, their control is shaky and threatened by internal divisions as well as regional and ethnic animosities. The Taliban (the organization of Talibs) began as a religious movement. Talib means religious student. Just how Afghan religious students came to rule Afghanistan is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" tales.

Normally the Afghans are not very religious, but they are very attached to their customs and traditions. These include loyalty to family and clan, protecting the women, owning a gun and knowing how to use it, blood feuds and considering outsiders fair game for a little grand larceny, kidnapping or extortion. More than a few Afghans, watching Russian troops roll into the country during 1979, could only think, "look at all that loot."

The Afghans have a well-deserved, and ancient, reputation of resisting invaders no matter what the cost. Fighting the Russians proved to be very expensive. Two million Afghans died and more than three million fled to Iran and (mostly) Pakistan. The Afghan refugees in Pakistan were treated quite well. This had a lot to do with politics. India was an ally of Russia, Pakistan was an enemy of India. Thus there was a lot of Pakistani support for the Afghan struggle against the Russians. Moreover, Pakistan has stayed on good terms with the United States over the last few decades. This made Pakistan a natural base for the billions of dollars of economic and military aid America and the wealthy Persian Gulf states were sending to the Afghan mujahadeen (holy warriors) fighting the Russians. By 1989, the Russians left Afghanistan and everyone thought that was that. It wasn't.

While the Russians were gone, their communist government still existed and continued to fight on until 1992. Then the various mujahadeen factions in Afghanistan began fighting each other. But in 1994, something quite unexpected arrived on the scene, a militia composed of religious students (Talibs). The Taliban had enormous popular appeal because people knew they were pious and honest. Since nearly every Afghan had a gun, the Taliban provided a worthy cause for many Afghans to get behind. By 1996, most warring mujahadeen militias had been destroyed, won over or run out of the country.

But the Taliban only controlled some 80 percent of the country. And five years later they are still unable to conquer the last ten percent. Moreover, the Taliban themselves have made themselves increasingly unpopular. This slide goes back to the origins of the Taliban in the Pakistan refugee camps. Pakistan army intelligence (ISI) got behind the Taliban movement, feeling that it was Pakistan's only chance of getting some control over the chaotic situation in Afghanistan.

The religious schools originally were backed by pious Moslems from Saudi Arabia. Afghan clerics exiled in Pakistan took the money and ran the schools. There were a lot of young men and boys among the refugee population who saw life as a Talib as an attractive alternative to drab and pointless camp life. Parents also approved, feeling that it was a choice between the kid being a Talib, or a drug addict or bandit. When the Russians left and the refugees saw Afghanistan slip into violent anarchy, it didn't take too much encouragement for the Talibs to get behind the idea of a religious government in their homeland. The ISI approved, provided weapons and transport and the Taliban went to war.

Quite by chance, the key leaders of the Taliban were mostly from the southern Kandahar region of Afghanistan. This was no problem at first. But once the Taliban were in control of most of the country, and the fighting continued, resentment began to appear. This was made worse the by insistence of the Kandaharis that their local customs become the accepted interpretation of Islamic law. The majority of Afghans didn't care for the mandatory beards, no entertainment and shutting up the women in the home. But no one wanted another civil war either. And the Taliban wisely called for foreign volunteers (religious students preferred) to fill out their armies. Actually, the fighting in Afghanistan over the last few years has been pretty small stuff. The average fighting unit was a few hundred guys rolling along the few roads in a motley collection of trucks, cars and armored vehicles. Casualties have been low.

But losses among civilians because of a record-breaking drought are much larger than from the fighting. And the Taliban's insistence on providing sanctuary to terrorist kingpin Osama Bin Laden, and harassment of foreign aid agencies has not won any points among the Afghan population. The foreign aid is desperately needed, and the Taliban appear to be getting in the way. And then there is also the ethnic angle. The largely Pushtuns Taliban are not the majority in the country, merely the largest minority (about 40 percent of the population.) The opposition Northern Alliance is mostly Tajik (25 percent of the population), Hazara (19 percent) and Shia Moslem (15 percent, spread among several ethnic groups).

While the Taliban's use of foreigners (Pakistanis and Arabs for the most part) to do the fighting is appreciated, there is also resentment about all those armed foreigners running around and giving orders in the name of the Taliban.

It's an unstable situation and Taliban firepower and fanaticism is not likely to calm things down.

This is the best summary of who the heck the Taliban are and how they came to power..and their many weaknesses. People really need to educate themselves again; I suspect 90% of FReepers think the Iranians and Pakistanis and Afghans are Arabs (they're not), they need to understand the Shia/Sunni rift, that the Islamic World isn't the convenient monolithic block they like to think it is..just as we now know the "Communist Bloc" wasn't the solid edifice it appeared to be..the Soviets and Chinese were in full scale armored warfare on their borders in the 60s, the Chinese attacked Vietnam in the late 70s, etc. These divisions can be exploited. And it's also a reminder that you can't lump every Islamic Middle Eastern nation into the same pot.

People really should read stuff at

http://www.strategypage.com

if they want ACTUAL foreign and military analysis by people with a clue instead of the hypemongers at places like newsmax.com, etc. that have virtually everything they publish riddled with obvious errors.

Dunnigan is a military analyst and former simulation designer for the U.S. Military, and also a designer of commerical war games.

You may remember him as an analyst for NBC during the Gulf War; he was virtually invisible BEFORE the Gulf War because he was the only person saying the Iraqi military was badly overrated and the US would likely score a quick victory in a ground war; this opinion was not what the media was looking for and so they didn't bother to listen to him.

Also during the 80s in a number of books he laid out a number of detailed scenarios for a Yugoslav Civil War, and quite a few book reviews mocked him for including such "farfetched" scenarios.

People really should read stuff at http://www.strategypage.com if they want ACTUAL foreign and military analysis by people with a clue instead of the hypemongers at places like newsmax.com, etc. that have virtually everything they publish riddled with obvious errors.

What do you mean, John? Newsmax rates right up(?) there with the Washington Post and New York Times for credibility. Even better because they're conservative!

Well, yeah, they do...much of the military analysis you'll get from the Post and times is crap, too. But they're problem is more of a bias problem than a basic fact problem.

Given the choice between horribly biased left-wing newspapers that actually do get most of their basic facts sort of straight, and an ostensibly conservative source that fabricates or simply doesn't bother to fact-check much of their news...well, it's a tough choice...but I'd go for the former rather than the later.

Heck, Newsmax.com yesterday laughably included Kenya and Ethiopia as part of the "Muslim World." In the case of Kenya that's about like considering Wyoming part of the Muslim world.

Thank you for this post. It is essential that we understand who the enemy is before we can even discuss how to defeat him.

The calls for mass destruction of arabs on this forum are ignorant expressions of outrage. The problem is a radical faction of Islam--not the arabs or the palestinians.

Yesterday's attack had almost nothing to do with our support for Israel. It had everything to do with our relationship with those nations who are not run by Islamic fundamentalists.

The Taliban. I became familiar with them because they indiscriminately kill women for no reason. Normal things like going outside can get a woman killed there. I read an account of a woman riding a bicycle with her husband, she was covered head to toe but have 1 inch of ankle showing and they murdered her for it. The Afghanistan people here in San Francisco have had big protests against the Taliban.

Here are some things I found about the Taliban from the website www.rawa.org/rules

- Banned listening to music, not only for women but men as well.

- Anyone who carries objectionable literature will be executed.

- Non-Muslim minorities must distinct badge or stitch a yellow cloth onto their dress to be differentiated from the majority Muslim population. Just like what did Nazis with Jews.

- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).

- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into religious seminaries).- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.

- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).

More: According to a news article from AP published on the site, they are selling their daughters for debts, girls as young as 7 are being given to men in their 20's and 30's.

Thanks for that "straight dope." It beats the convoluted mess of misinformation that the "Non-straight" dopes here are putting out.

Islam is and has been being used for some time as a pretext to dupe the ignorant, uneducated and otherwise hopeless youth of these god-forsaken places into thinking that, even if there is nothing worth living for, there is certainly something worth DYING for.

It's frightening, and we have to deal with it for real now.

Here are some things I found about the Taliban from the website www.rawa.org/rules

What this is, though, is exactly like what happened in Cambodia during the "Killing Fields" years. They allowed the youth to take over, run everything, and the next thing you know it's like being ruled by street gangs.

Also, note that these "rules" aren't based on ISLAMIC law but on regional or tribal customs. That is nearly always the case everywhere you go in the Islamic world. They use the Qu'ran to justify their petty prejudices and outright neuroses.

Hi John, I've traveled extensively in Kenya, and they do have a significant Muslim population. The coast is almost all Muslim, including cities like Mombassa. I particularly enjoyed my stay in a small coastal town where the evening prayers, chanted from rooftop gazebo-like structures, enriched the beauty of the place.

Inland you find more Christian missionary influence, but it can hardly be called a majority Christian population. The majority Kikuyu practice a sort of hybrid Christianity, but others like the numerous Masai adhered to their traditional beliefs, except for a few that had become "citified" (as American country folk would say).

This information should be qualified by it's age -- it's been well over a decade since I was there. Given that, I'd still say that Islam definitely has a longer history that Christianity in Kenya, and probably holds an edge in numbers among the non-western population.

BTW, up near the Ethiopian border, I was offered an incredibly beautiful girl, about 14. I would have had to marry her, of course. My traveling companions had a lot of fun with that one for a while.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.