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<h1><font size=3><b>The Taliban: Who are they? Why are they fighting? And
what will make them
stop?</b></font></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22295" eudora="autourl">
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22295</a><br><br>
August 13, 2009 By <b>Ian Sinclair</b> <br>
Source:
<a href="http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/features/battling_the_taliban_not_knowing_why">
Morning Star</a><br><br>
</font><font size=2>If you take some time to consider the 22 Taliban that
were killed by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan on 10 July 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.<br><br>
Or at least that is what Western propaganda would have you believe.
But is this an accurate, or useful, 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 are fighting - and killing - in Helmand province. <br><br>
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% 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 percent of insurgents were local people.<br><br>
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." <br><br>
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 Afghans 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 British Secretary of Defence Des Browne, who
argued over three years ago that "the very act of deployment into
the south has energised the Taliban".<br><br>
Complementing Fergusson's and Browne's evidence 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 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
countries."<br><br>
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."<br><br>
Perhaps most surprising - at least for those who receive information
about the war solely from the mainstream media - is the news the Taliban
have been pushing for a negotiated settlement, a course of action
supported by 64% 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 the withdrawal of all foreign
forces in Afghanistan over the next 18 months. This would be followed by
the appointment of 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.<br><br>
With the extent of public support for the war currently a matter of
intense public 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 Government and military
propaganda pouring out of their newspapers, televisions and radios will
they clearly see that the escalation of the conflict ordered by President
Obama can only lead to more civilian deaths and refugees, an increase in
the terrorist threat to the West and, most disturbingly, act as a
successful recruiter for the very people the US and UK are fighting to
defeat.<br><br>
*An edited version of this article recently appeared in the Morning
Star. <br><br>
Ian Sinclair is a freelance writer based in London, UK.
</font><a href="mailto:ian_js@hotmail.com">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=2>ian_js@hotmail.com</a></font>.
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