The Taliban

Come Mr. Taliban

Tally me banana

     --with apologies to Harry Belafonte

The Taliban are the most secretive movement since the dreaded Khmer Rouge of 1970s Cambodia.  They arose from the badlands of southern Afghanistan, from the Pashtuns, a people as tough as the weeds that eke life from the dust here.

They were an army of invalids, bred in vicious insurgency against the Russian invasion of 1979 and the chaos the Russinas left behind.  The Taliban's recluse leader Mullah Omar has but one eye, and, when the Taliban ruled, the government Cabinet was far short of the requisite number of eyes, legs and fingers.

The Pashtuns of the south established the only strong central governments in Afghanistan over the last three hundred years, though even these were not a republic or federations, but more the iron fist of the strongest warlord among many.  The Pashtun share Afghanistan unhappily with the Persian Tajiks and Turkic Uzbeks of the North, and the Mongol-Persian Hazzara. These ethnic groups are further divided along tribal lines and then into clans.  Unless united against a common foe, the tribes and clans tend to fall to fighting each other.

It seems Afghanistan's geographical fate, in the the middle of Asia, is to be pawns of greater powers, such as the Turks, Russia, Britain, Iran, Pakistan and the United States. Small wonder Afghans have a reputation as unreliable allies, given the number of times the area has changed hands over the centuries.  In Pakistan they say "You can rent an Afghan, but not buy him."

The Taliban arose in southern Afghanistan, particularly in Kandahar, their spiritual home, as well as in the wild frontier lands of northern Pakistan.  Talib means "student" in Pashto and the Taliban were students of the many madrassas, or religious schools that acted as Pakistan orphanages and poor houses for the war torn Pashtun youth during the Russian occupation. The mullahs teaching them were not Islamic scholars, and the teachings reflected more the political aspirations of Islamist Pakistan interests, as well as the practices of the extremely old-skool Muslim Pashtun clans.  Also these young men had grown up in Pakistan, and did not have the connection to the Afghan history that the previous generation, the mujahedeen, had.  In short, all they learned was a crude perversion of Islam, their way around a Kalashnikov and an unnatural fear of women.

Originally drawn to southern Afghanistan by the excesses of mujahedeen turned warlords, the Taliban, led by Mullah Omar, created an immediate positive impression by attacking a particularly felonious warlord who had just kidnapped and raped two local girls, and hanging him from the barrel of a tank.  Hard to fault them for that, really.

The Taliban were welcomed in southern Afghanistan, as their influence spread.  Their modus operandi was to move in, clean up the town and then instill a strict form of sharia law.  The movement spread very quickly, partly due to an effective military mobility by the Taliban, and partly because many foes simply switched sides when faced with a perceived superior force.

But while the Taliban were accepted in their Pashtun home base to the south, the more laid back Tajiks and the relatively cosmopolitan residents of the capital of Kabul weren't too crazy about the whole "let's all grow beards and beat women with iron bars" routine.  Or with the downright un-Afghan lack of compromise of the Taliban, who would move into Tajik or Hazzara areas and install Pashtun leaders from out of town.

So a civil war erupted, but soon the Taliban had control of over 90% of the country, including overthrowing (and gruesomely killing) Afghan President Rabbani.  They were (and still are, to some extent) supported by Pakistan's ISI, who saw the Taliban as friendly to Pakistan, and as force strong enough to stabilize trade routes so that Pakistan could move goods north through Afghanistan. 

The US were originally favourable to the Taliban as well, as they overthrew a government beholden to Russia.  But as news got out about the Taliban's civilian massacres and ruthlessness, and their directives virtually enslaving women, they kind of lost their lustre with the Clinton administration and with popular sentiment in the US.  Gleefully blowing up the ancient Bamyan Buddhas didn't do them any PR favours either.

But it should be made clear that the Taliban were not Islamist per se.  They had no aspirations outside Afghanistan and the immediate region, and no inclinations towards a global jihad against infidels in general and American in particular.  That particular spin was added partly by the ever-mischievous Pakistan intelligence service (ISI) and the Arabs who came to fight in Afghanistan against the godless hordes of Russia, in particular an Arab named Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden was a big pain in the ass for Saudi Arabia, who enjoy good relations with the US and could get along just fine without bin Laden's whole "I keeeeil you!  Death to America!" spiel.  They were happy to see him gainfully occupied far away in Afghanistan.  The Taliban didn’t mind him though, especially since Osama was shelling out money by the truckload.  The stone-age puritans and the virulent misanthrope had some ideological divergence, but their interests aligned. 

Following 9/11, the US demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden and were not overly impressed with the Taliban's "up yours" response.  Consequently, three months later, the Taliban were out of power and fleeing to far-flung villages and into Pakistan.  Progress against the Taliban was effective until King George II of the US fumbled the ball and went off to Iraq.  This provided the Taliban with an opportunity to regroup. Taliban resistance continues to be resilient in the Pashtun lands from which they hail.  The hope for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is that the central government will be stable and strong enough to resist a Taliban incursion after ISAF pulls out in 2014.

Who knows? There are so many factors that have the potential to swing events one way or another:  Pakistan's handling of the Taliban on their own northern frontier, deteriorating Iran-US relations, the revolts in other Mideast countries, the US and European economies, among others.  We live in interesting times.

Myself, I think this whole Islamist business is an interesting sideshow to the coming cold war between China and the US.  The Islamists, for all their palpable hatred of the west, are not an existential threat to Canada or the US.  The best they can hope for at this point is to fly a plane into a another building or get really lucky with a suitcase nuke or something.  That's nothing for old farts like me who grew up under the constant threat of instant nuclear annihilation.  On the other hand, I really don't have much of a knack for foreign policy so best not to listen to me.