The Taliban: Who are they? Why are they fighting?

[luke]

The Taliban: Who are they? Why are they fighting? What would make them stop?

If you take some time to consider the 22 members of the Taliban who were killed by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan on July 10 according to an Associated Press report, chances are you are probably imagining a group of fanatical, irrational, medieval-minded men hell-bent on destroying the very foundations of Western civilisation.

Or at least that is what Western propaganda would have you believe.

But is this an accurate description of those people violently resisting British forces on the ground in Afghanistan, or merely a simplistic demonisation of the official state enemy?

Indeed, it seems to me the very word "Taliban" has become a reductive, disparaging catch-all that successfully limits debate about exactly who the British army is fighting - and killing - in Helmand province.

Thousands of miles away from the war zone, British politicians are keen on trotting out the line that "our brave boys" are in Afghanistan to protect the population from the Taliban.

However, as Jason Burke, arguably the British journalist with the most expertise in the area, notes: "The tougher truth is that the Taliban, almost exclusively composed of the Pashtun tribes who comprise at least 40 per cent of the country's population, are an integral part of the Afghan people."

This inconvenient fact was well illustrated by Fazel Muhammad, a member of a district council to the west of Kandahar, who told the New York Times in June that about 80 per cent of insurgents were local people.

So what is motivating these people to attack British forces?

Speaking to me last year, James Fergusson, a freelance journalist who has travelled to Afghanistan several times and met members of the Taliban in 2007, explained that those fighting British forces have "a large variety of reasons and motivations and it's a complex patchwork and it's always changing."

However, Fergusson's own discussion with a Taliban lieutenant strongly hints at the main motivation of many of the insurgents.

Deep in Wardak province, the articulate Afghan turned to the British reporter and pointedly asked: "Supposing thousands of foreigners had invaded your country and bombed your villages and killed your wives and children, what would you do?"

Strangely, this analysis is broadly supported by none other than the former defence secretary Des Browne, who argued over three years ago that "the very act of deployment into the south has energised the Taliban."

Complementing Fergusson's and Browne's views is an illuminating poll of Taliban fighters in Kandahar, conducted by the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper in 2007.

Speaking to 42 insurgents, the survey found that the typical Taliban foot soldier battling Canadian troops and their allies "is not a global jihadist who dreams of some day waging war on Canadian soil" but a young man who knows someone "killed by a bomb dropped from the sky" and "fervently believes that expelling the foreigners will set things right in his troubled country."

The Globe and Mail's findings jar uneasily with Gordon Brown's assertion that Britain has to fight in Afghanistan "to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain."

As Rory Stewart, the former coalition deputy governor of Maysan province in Iraq who is currently running an NGO in Kabul, argued in the Guardian this week: "The idea that we are there so we don't have to fight terrorists in Britain is absurd ... the people the Americans and British are fighting in Afghanistan are mostly local tribesman resisting foreign forces."

Perhaps most surprising is the news that the Taliban has been pushing for a negotiated settlement, a course of action supported by 64 per cent of Afghans according to a BBC/ABC poll published earlier this year.

The Taliban and other insurgent groups have been talking to intermediaries about a potential peace agreement, reported the New York Times recently, with their first demand being the withdrawal of all foreign forces in Afghanistan over the next 18 months.

This would be followed by the appointment of a transitional government comprised of a range of Afghan leaders, including Taliban leaders, the introduction of a peace-keeping force drawn predominantly from Muslim nations and, when Western forces have left, nationwide elections.

With the extent of public support for the war currently a matter of intense debate, seeing our "enemy" in Afghanistan as human beings with rational concerns and legitimate grievances can only damage the government's increasingly unpopular case for the continuing occupation.

Only when people begin to ignore the deluge of propaganda, will they see that the escalation of the conflict ordered by President Obama is going to cause more civilian deaths, an increase in the terrorist threat to the West and, finally, act as a successful recruiter for the very people the US and Britain are fighting to defeat.

from http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/features/battling_the_taliban_not_knowing_why

[faceless]

I've always wondered about the word 'insurgent' being used in these cases, so I checked and found these definitions

1: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government ; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent

2: one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party

But can you be an insurgent if the government has been forced upon you?

[major.tom]

[luke]

[luke]

"We're losing and with US casualties rising sharply and the war costing America 4 billion dollars a month, we've got one year to get results before public support evaporates, says General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the US army in Afghanistan. Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal"

i do find it quite surprising really that they ( the american and british and whoever else was roped along ) are loosing in afghanistan. i mean, theres a lot of debate here about are the troops under equipped - under equipped compared to what? the afghan resistance? they're still rocking it with old russian ak47's and home made bombs - along with whatevers left from what britain and america supplied afghanistan when they were fighting the russians. they haven't got any helicopters, armored vehicles, tanks or planes with which to drop bombs! they're fighting the most technically advanced military ever - and seemingly winning.

[faceless]

You can't beat people who aren't scared of you.

[luke]

Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

Research confirms the patently frigging obvious, namely that insurgent attacks in Afghanistan are motivated by NATO violence:

The authors of the report by the Massachusetts-based National Bureau of Economic Research say they analysed 15 months of data on military clashes and incidents totalling more than 4,000 civilian deaths in a number of Afghan regions in the period ending on 1 April.

They say that in areas where two civilians were killed or injured by Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), there were on average an extra six violent incidents between insurgents and US-led troops in the following six weeks.

The report concludes that civilian deaths frequently motivate villagers to join the ranks of insurgents.

"In Afghanistan, when Isaf units kill civilians, this increases the number of willing combatants, leading to an increase in insurgent attacks."

"Local exposure to violence from Isaf appears to be the primary driver of this effect."

This is not an anti-occupation study. Rather, it supports McChrystal's counterinsurgency (COIN) policy of restraining military actions in order not to provoke resistance. (For background on this, see here.) This policy is intended to secure loyalty among the natives and enable the occupiers to build a client state structure, but its logic is to prepare the way for a plausible exit, one in which the US doesn't look like it just had its ass handed to it. The prevailing opinion in the military establishment seems to be that COIN didn't work. The strategy of outright high-octane aggression didn't pacify the insurgency either, however, and it's been guzzling revenue for few discernible rewards at a time when the Pentagon is under increasing pressure to reduce its expenditure - the empire is in no danger of going broke immediately, but its resources are seriously stretched. So Obama is sticking with COIN for the time being, while explicitly endorsing negotiations with segments of the Taliban. This is hitched to an ostensible initial withdrawal date of July 2011. There can, of course, be policy reversals. But the American economy is in a bad way, and the empire's global power is deteriorating. The more strategically-minded elements in the ruling class may consider it advisable to adapt to this situation rather than continue with the adventurist policies of Obama's predecessors.

[faceless]

I would be an 'insurgent' if I were in their shoes, who wouldn't? Anyone who'd stand by and do nothing after close family or friends were murdered by invading forces just isn't normal.