The Taliban? Didn't we kick their ass about eight years ago? They're still around?
Oh, they're still around and as spring dawns in northern Pakistan the Taliban are emerging from a western-world induced hibernation to continue their sworn mission of establishing a hard line Islamic state which adheres to their view of Islam and leaves no room for a dissenting opinion.
They are, in short, for real.
But who are they? Why are they relevant? What is their view of Islam and why does their name keep rising up from the World View section of the news?
The Taliban, in its absolute most basic form, are a group of Islamic 'students', or 'Talibs', who interpret Islam as law and hold their views with such conviction that they subscribe to a zero tolerance policy for not only any religion other than Islam but for any interpretation of Islam other than their own. They believe so adamantly that they will inflict death, often in very creative and brutal fashion, to any person, culture or government whose views differ from their own. They will not negotiate and they will not compromise. They are committed. They are Believers.
So what is their philosophy? The Taliban want to establish an Islamic state which subscribes to their interpretation of Islam. This interpretation has been popularized by their brutal enforcement of their beliefs and harsh punishments for those who do not apply the same reverence for those beliefs. A whipping for a woman seen in public without the coverings from head to toe, a beating for a man who dares to shave his facial hair and death for sex outside marriage. Their beliefs are primarily founded on a view that shuns modernization and a tolerance for others. These guys are not interested in diversity. It is their way or death and they are sworn to this code because in their eyes it is God's Will. They have declared this a Holy War and as such they have a little more invested in the game than the rest of the world.
The Taliban are locked in a Jihad, or Islamic Holy War. Theirs is slightly different from the one Osama bin-Laden declared on the U.S. in the 1990's and a shade of grey away from the assorted terrorist clans scattered throughout the Middle East but it's a holy war none the less and as such they are not available to meet around the peace table to discuss options other than total victory. And total victory in the Jihad is the expulsion of all infidels from Islamic holy lands. They feel the western world is the devil himself and are focused on its extinction. This is the War on Terror and this is why it matters. The Taliban are just one more front in a game which is played across the globe and this game is not going to end soon and it won't end in negotiated peace. They want you dead and they will die trying.
But who are these guys? How did they get a voice on the world stage? Why do we care what they think? To answer that we must flip through a few pages of history and take a short cruise through the region. The Taliban was born in Afghanistan and nurtured in the Pakistani refugee camps during the 1980's when the former Soviet Union decided to accelerate their demise by invading Afghanistan and locking themselves into a grim and exceptionally difficult ground war. A ground war in which they were soundly defeated by a loose brand of guerrilla warriors, some of whom were fighting for Afghan independence, others who were fighting to expel the infidels from Islamic territory (this is what brought Osama to the region but that is another story for another chapter). The Soviet-Afghan War is a history unto itself and we won't go too deep into it here other than to say it was the catalyst which allowed the tribal leaders of northern Afghanistan to use the war torn landscape as a launch pad for a new Afghanistan. One which paid allegiance to their doctrine. Once the Soviets left, Afghanistan plunged into Civil War as the survivors fought each other to control the country. Afghanistan is fractured into many different tribes and these tribes didn't waste too much time celebrating the removal of the Soviets. One war led to another and in 1996 the Taliban emerged as the new leaders of the ravaged country.
But the Taliban did not want a unified Afghanistan. They didn't want a democracy where each voice was given an equal ear. They came from the Pushtun Tribe and they didn't even want any non-Pustuns to have a voice. Initially celebrated by the Afghans they were soon feared as they instituted Sharia Law, which is an extremely harsh and yes, outdated form of Islamic Law. It's not something that people who have experienced the benefits of modern life are too eager to practice. No music? No DVD's? No cigarettes, alcohol, TV? Huh? And the women must be covered from head to toe and are forbidden to speak to men in public or to be educated? I mean, that's a tough sell to anyone who has been exposed to air conditioning and the conveniences of modern life.
And here is where it gets a little interesting because the Taliban did not convert their followers to forsake western comforts. A sad by product of war are the refugees displaced and orphaned by the violence and the refugee camps across the border in Pakistan were choked with thousands of young, impressionable, orphaned males who were not educated in language, math or social sciences. They had almost no female nurturing of any kind. Refugee food is generally the same every day for years. The ground is hard, cold and dusty and the country you are from can't take you and the country you are in doesn't want you. And into these camps came the warlords. And in these camps they found an audience receptive to their rhetoric. A quick demographic of today's front line Taliban shows a large number of Afghan men in their young twenties to mid thirties. Orphaned by the Soviet War or the Civil War which followed it they have often lived most of their life without any female interaction at all. These are ears which will listen because they know no better and in the same situation you might do the same. The Taliban leaders showed them the life of the Holy War and built an army of some of the most committed soldiers this world has ever known. The U.S. Marine Corps can do some amazing motivational work in twelve weeks, imagine if they had 12 years and could start boot camp at the age of four?
So that's a brief look at who they are. They took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and began pushing that country back to the stone age in relative obscurity while the rest of the world focused their attention on other things. They made a brief appearance in the news in early 2001 when they destroyed some Buddhist statues that had survived a few millenniums carved into a remote desert mountain wall but they cared less about world condemnation than they did about erasing all things non-Islamic and that got buried by other news.
And then the blue Tuesday sky of September 11, 2001 was blackened by the collapse of the Twin Towers and our world was forever changed. The attacks were traced to Osama bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda which had a mailing address deep in the caves of rural Afghanistan. Osama and the Taliban were kindred spirits who shared a hatred of infidels (all non-Muslims) and a desire to prove it. Enter the United States and the fury of the air strike. In short order the Taliban were overthrown (but not defeated) and a feeble democracy was installed. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda slipped over the mountains and regrouped in Pakistan where they were able to rebuild and coordinate their war from the politically protected confines of our ally. The friend of my enemy is my...friend? It is in this world.
It was from this remote region of northern Pakistan that the Taliban were able to to gain some influence as they were eventually given control of the Northern Tribal Areas and allowed to raise a legitimate voice in Pakistani politics. This voice was given almost as a concession in the hopes that once they had control of the region they would be satisfied but like Hitler after the annexation of Austria these guys had bigger plans. They want an Islamic state and a world cleansed of infidels. They will not be diverted from this path. So while they continue to practice their strategy of 'The War of The Flea' which, like a flea on a dog, creates such an endless nuisance that the dog eventually tires and succumbs, the Taliban reasserted itself as a legitimate threat to the region and to the world. As they say, 'The Americans have the watches but we have the time.'
And now the Taliban is back in the news. They are on the move and flexing. One hundred miles from Islamabad and advancing. Why does this matter? This matters because this exposes the true nightmare in the War on Terror. A militant, committed and ruthless Jihadist faction within arm's reach of the big ticket, the nuclear weapon. Pakistan has nukes, it doesn't really matter how many or what flavor, it only takes one to completely ruin your day. The Pakistanis say they have them under control but then they also said they had the Taliban under control and that doesn't seem to be the case. It leaves a very tender topic on the political table because it is difficult to juggle reality, politics and world opinion when your foe only subscribes to the rule book he created.
Can the Taliban get a nuclear weapon? Yes they can. Will they? Maybe. Maybe not. What would they do with one if they did get one? This is up for debate but it is not a far reach to imagine them using one, they have a long list of targets including you. One must always be wary of those who use God's will to justify their desire to blow up the world. They believe in Islam and their interpretation of it leaves no room for anyone who does not fall exactly into line with it. Foreign policy has no effect on their goals, we are not going to see a round table discussion where we will get them to start nodding their heads and saying 'Gee, now that I think about it that does make sense to not throw rocks at somebody until they die just because they happened to have sex outside of marriage.'
Think of it this way. Whatever your view on abortion is, thumbs up or down, you have an opinion that you believe in. Now is there anything that anyone can tell you to sway that opinion? Well, these guys believe in what they are doing more than you believe in your view on abortion. They are willing to strap explosives on their bodies to take out an infidel on their way to the promised land. And they're frugal too. The suicide squads are coached to get close and find a crowd so as to maximize the destruction. A nuclear weapon is a terrorist's pornographic fantasy.
What's the time frame? If they overthrow the Pakistani government and control the nuclear trigger what will they do? It's possible they could use the nukes as a threat to force a western retreat from the region or it's possible they would use it locally to create some havoc and let the world know they've arrived. They could sell it for use in other areas of the world but that would be difficult. What is frightening is if the Taliban do acquire a nuke it may make some nations nervous enough to perform that nefarious 'pre-emptive' strike. India would not be at all comfortable with a nuclear possessed Taliban. Israel would certainly take action and those results would not be conducive to peace in the region. There are too many scenarios with too many variables to make accurate predictions but an educated opinion does not qualify a nuclear weapon in possession of the Taliban as a 'good thing.'
That is why they matter. The Taliban have bad intentions and are closer than any fringe element has ever been to owning a nuke. Will they get one? There is as very good chance that they will. There exists the possibility that they already have one as the Pakistanis are not 100% believable in their claims of nuclear security. If they get one will they use it? I would say that there is a better than 50/50 chance that we will see the angry detonation of a nuclear device within our lifetime but it won't be the Hollywood 'end of the world' nuclear holocaust of mutually assured destruction. It would be regional, singular and devastating but it won't plunge us into the nuclear winter. It would manage to grab our attention though and it might just force us to recognize that this world we live in is not as safe as we'd like to think it is. And despite our best efforts there are still many people out there who are not at all interested in living with peace, love and happiness.
So what do we do? We can't negotiate with the Taliban. We can't use our military in Pakistan and we are not going to outlaw the bikini so the lines have been drawn. The Taliban have shown they are committed to their beliefs.
The question is how committed are we to ours?
