Terry
I supported going after the Taliban, Al Quedia and the violent
<snip>
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed --
and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
--
H.L. Mencken, 1920.
Eric Margolis
In 1989, at the end of Soviet occupation, Afghanistan fell into
anarchy, civil war, and crime. Rape was endemic. A village prayer
leader, Mullah Omar, armed a group of religious students (talibs). He
set about fighting banditry, rape and drug dealing, imposing order
based on traditional tribal and religious law.
Taliban were not 9/11-style terrorists, but a religious,
anti-Communist movement drawn from the Pushtun tribe.
Most of the Taliban's energies went to fighting Afghan Communists.
Iran, India and Russia openly backed the Communists rechristened,
Northern Alliance.
Most of the so-called "terrorist camps" in Afghanistan were in fact
bases used by Muslim volunteers who had come to fight Communists
there and in Central Asia.
The Taliban shut down production of opium and heroin. But its
backwards leaders proved themselves to be harsh and incompetent.
Female education was temporarily banned because Communists had
infiltrated the nation in the 1970's through the school system. The
Taliban oppressed minority Hazaras, and blew up Buddhist idols.
But Washington gave millions in aid to the Taliban until four months
before 9/11. The U.S. once considered using them and Osama bin
Laden's 300 al-Qaida followers to stir revolt in China's western
Muslim regions, and in Russian-dominated Central Asia. The U.S. cut
off aid after the Taliban refused to give a key strategic pipeline
deal to a U.S. oil firm.
The Taliban's leaders knew nothing of 9/11, a plot actually hatched
in Germany. When the U.S. demanded bin Laden be handed over, the
Taliban refused: He was a guest and national hero, wounded six times
in the anti-Soviet struggle. The Taliban offered to send bin Laden to
an international tribunal once the U.S. presented evidence of his
involvement. Washington refused and invaded, blaming the Taliban for 9/11.
Unable to withstand U.S. power, Mullah Omar ordered his men to blend
back into the Pushtun population and wage low-grade guerrilla war
against the invaders. Other movements, like Hizbi-Islami, joined in
battling foreign occupation. Canada unwisely chose to pick a fight
with fierce tribesmen whose only desire is to end foreign occupation
and be left alone.
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