Taliban...what will they do now?

Great Debates
1

ObL is dead. Even though the Afghanistan Taliban don’t seem to want to admit it (they claim there is ‘insufficient evidence’), unless you think the US is lying, they will eventually have to admit it, even if only to themselves. So…what then? One of the pre-conditions for peace with the US (assuming you believe they are even interested in that) is to renounce any association with AQ. With ObL’s death, will they be more inclined to do that…or will it not matter?

ISTM that the Taliban were never all that interested in attacking the US or really anything outside their borders. By siding with AQ after 9/11 all they have really accomplished is to lose power in Afghanistan and get a hell of a lot of Afghani’s killed to (again, from my perspective) no apparent gain for them or for Afghanistan. What do the Taliban get out of continued association with AQ at this stage? Funding? Yeah, I can see that…but what else? Only continued strife, unless I’m missing something here.

-XT

2

A few days before we took out ObL, the Taliban had already announced their Spring Offensive. (That’s kind of like a Spring Sale, but with more shooting.) They will continue to do what they have been doing. Mullah Omar is their leader, and he’s still out there.

The Taliban were never a threat to us except that they allowed AQ to set up operations in Afghanistan. One has to wonder how keen they would be on repeating that if they ever came back to power (even over some segment of that country).

3

The taliban never had any particular association with al Q and they don’t get any funding from them far as I’m aware.

They only sheltered them after 9/11 because they didn’t want to hand fellow muslims over to the Americans. They have no particular ideological stake in al Q. In fact they follow different strands of islam - they are deobandi while al Q are more of your arabic salafist types.

There was always an uneasy truce between al Q and the taliban prior to 9/11. Neither side liked the other.

4

Mutantmoose could you please expand on your thread, particularly your assertion of an “uneasy truce” between AQ and the Taliban and also could you expand on the differences between deobandi and salafist with respect to jihad.

Yes I know I could google this but am sure that many here have similarly not heard these terms, or if they have would not recognise the difference between sects which hold public executions for morality criminals ( invariably females) and a sect which has executed alleged moral criminals but on an international scale.

I tend to think that the bitch that spawned Al Q is also the same bitch that spawned the taliban ( and Hitler, Mussolini et al)

My fear now is that it will now become a jihadist imperative to assassinate a major western leader. And I think the Taliban or Al Q is equally capable of diverting efforts to this goal.

5

My understanding is that this is dead wrong, and bin Laden did indeed help the Taliban financially in return for some protection. I’m sure there were some doctrinal difference and the Taliban never had the global ambitions bin Laden did. Obviously that’s not the case now, and there are people who hope the Taliban can be trusted to keep to themselves in return for not bothering anyone else or hiding terrorists in the future.

6

How strong do you think their association with AQ has been since we invaded? Not very, I think. The Taliban is fighting for power and against foreign occupation of their country; I don’t think it their motives have anything to do with AQ, so your answer is: nothing changes for the Taliban.

The way I understand it, bin Laden liked the Taliban and had great reverence for the Afghan mujahedeen, and mullah Omar in particular. The Taliban and Afghan mujahedeen, on the other hand, generally thought it was kinda weird for Arabs to take interest in their country, but usually (if reluctantly) accepted them.

7

[QUOTE=mutantmoose]
The taliban never had any particular association with al Q and they don’t get any funding from them far as I’m aware.
[/QUOTE]

There were high ranking members of AQ is the Taliban government before 9/11…in their defense department, or whatever they called it. They allowed AQ to keep and maintain training bases in their country. I don’t see how they didn’t have any particular association with AQ, to be honest…it seems to be a fairly close association from what I recall.

As for funding, that seems to be one of the only things they DO get out of their association these days. I don’t really see anything else they get out of it, to be honest.

:dubious: They sheltered them after 9/11 because they happened to be in Afghanistan when it all went down. Those training bases. Also, Omar had a fairly close, personal relationship with ObL…as well as being fairly close, ideologically to him.

Huh??? Do you have a cite for this incredible statement? I think you are conflating Iraq and Saddam with Afghanistan and the Taliban. SADDAM and the IRAQI’S didn’t have any sort of association, and there was more or less an uneasy truce between them. Afghanistan and the Taliban had a fairly close relationship before 9/11, and seem to have maintained it even to this day, since that Taliban still won’t disassociate themselves from AQ.

[QUOTE=John Mace]
A few days before we took out ObL, the Taliban had already announced their Spring Offensive. (That’s kind of like a Spring Sale, but with more shooting.) They will continue to do what they have been doing. Mullah Omar is their leader, and he’s still out there.
[/QUOTE]

Maybe it will depend on how their spring offensive goes, then? I know it’s the fighting season in Afghanistan now, but my understanding is that the US and our allies are in much stronger positions this year than in previous ones (from those additional US troops if nothing else), so that might blunt their enthusiasm for continued fighting…perhaps.

I’m not sure who you were responding to with this. I never said the Taliban were a threat. It wasn’t about them being a threat…it was about them harboring AQ after 9/11.

Depends on the way they come back into power, I guess. If they cut a deal with the US then it will certainly make them more circumspect. I can’t see any other way they would ever get back into power in Afghanistan, unless the US and our allies just decide to fold our hands and bolt. Even then, I’m not sure if the Taliban are strong enough to put down all local opposition and regain control. They have gotten the shit kicked out of them for years now, and there are other powerful factions in Afghanistan these days, so it would be a tough slog for them even without us in the picture.

-XT

8

manila,

I could elaborate but I think there’s people here who could do a better job of it.

The deobandi school are centred more around India, Pakistan and South Aghanistan. They seem harsh from an outside perspective but they do allow some elements of sufi mysticism. The salafi, on the other hand, reject all mystical elements.

The arab lot originally went to Afghanistan to fight the soviets. They stayed on because it was a conducive atmosphere to base their training camps but also to preach to the Afghans who they thought were in error in their practice of islam. For example, the Afghans used trinkets and believed in spirits - a result of the mix of local culture and islam.

I remember reading a report of a journalist who met osama bin laden in Afghanistan in the 90s. He was taken into the mountains by a taliban guard. They brought him to a tall guy dressed in white who seemed a bit miffed that the journo was there. The tall guy ansered all his questions and then said “If I see you again, I’ll kill you”.

A couple of days later he found out that his Afghan guard had later returned into the mountains and killed 15 of the tall man’s guys. When the journalist asked them why, they replied “This is our country. No one tells us where we can go”

There was a lot of resentment towards the arabs but the Afghan tradition is famous for it’s hospitality. They will never ask a guest to leave.

Also the Taliban doesn’t have the global aims that AQ have. They are more concerned with internal affairs. They may seem cruel and extreme by western standards and they may not like America but they’re not going to start up an international terrorist group. Al Q are the only militant islamic group that think they should attack countries outside the islamic world, all the others are focused on their own local area or, at most, they want to unite the islamic world into a caliphate but don’t think they should attack the west now.

9

[QUOTE=Cisco]
How strong do you think their association with AQ has been since we invaded? Not very, I think.
[/QUOTE]

What do you base this on? There were senior AQ members in their government, and they allowed AQ to build military bases in their country. How is this any indication of a weak association? They went to war with the only major superpower at the time, for the gods sake! You don’t do that just for the hell of it, even if you think you are going to win (which, they can’t have had much expectation of, given the perceived military might of the US at that time).

Again, what do you base this on? Sure, they are fighting to regain the power they lost…no doubt. And I suppose if you think that THEY have any serious expectations of ‘winning’ and reconquering Afghanistan then what you say is true enough. But I know that the Taliban and the US has been in at least informal talks about some sort of a peace (I could probably find a cite if you haven’t been following along), but in order to have any sort of peace one of the conditions would be for the Taliban to renounce all associations with AQ and to completely disassociate themselves from them.

Granted, the Taliban might not want peace…but that this event changes nothing? :dubious: It gives them an option if they want to pursue it, if nothing else.

-XT

10

I’m pretty sure the Taliban are not aligned with al Q in any way shape or form. They were just partners of convenience for a while.

They don’t have any associations with AQ. Notice how OBL wasn’t staying with Taliban members or even in their territory? Does that not seem odd given the huge support structure they have going on? I bet the US never finds Mullah Omar. He is probably being protected in the frontier area. Bin Laden was left to fend for himself or rely on the Pakistani authorities (if they knew about him being there).

The Taliban didn’t wanna touch him and he didn’t trust them.

11

[QUOTE=mutantmoose]
Notice how OBL wasn’t staying with Taliban members or even in their territory? Does that not seem odd given the huge support structure they have going on?
[/QUOTE]

:dubious: It doesn’t seem odd to me at all, considering the fact that Afghanistan is a war zone and a free fire zone for the US and our allies. It seems extremely reasonable to me that ObL wouldn’t want to be in an active combat area, and instead was hiding out in a presumed place of safety.

You have a very skewed view of things. Bin Laden CHOSE to LEAVE Afghanistan. Put it this way…if your theory is correct, why won’t the Taliban simply denounce AQ? Why did they go to war with the US in the first place, if the association was so weak?? Did they do it just for the pleasure of getting the crap bombed out of them, or just for the fun of losing their power in Afghanistan?

Why didn’t they want to touch him?? They could have gotten a lot of capital by denouncing AQ and giving us his body when he was still in Tora Bora. Bush would have been overjoyed to do just about anything to get his hands on ObL’s body…and we probably would have pulled out of Afghanistan at that point, when the Taliban actually had some expectation of being able to hold onto power. Yet the Taliban has stuck with AQ for YEARS after that. It begs the question? Why?

-XT

12

Wait, who went to war with the US? The Taliban hasn’t gone anywhere. I really hate being put in a position where I feel like I have to defend them, but the we’re the ones who invaded. They simply refused to meet our demands, much like we would do if anyone were to make demands of us.

And what definition of “military bases” are you using? I’m not saying AQ didn’t build something there, but military bases? Are there pictures?

They absolutely have expectation of winning, and those expectations aren’t unreasonable. All they have to do is outlast our will to fight. From their perspective, Russia was tougher, and they kicked them out, so victory in this war feels like a foregone conclusion. You think it’s unrealistic for them to have expectations of “winning”?

All your questions and comments here seem to suggest that you think AQ is something much more formal than what it probably is. Al Qaeda, essentially, is (was?) ObL, Aa-Z, whatever lackeys they could stir up, and anyone else who feels they are waging jihad and wants to borrow the name.

The extent of the Taliban’s relationship with them is probably something like: bin Laden [wanted to] cripple the US economy by provoking us into firing million dollar missiles at thousand dollar trucks, so war in Afghanistan was beneficial to him; the Taliban wants to regain their power, so war in Afghanistan is beneficial to them.

13

Is there timely (let’s say since Obama took office) evidence that they won’t?

14

[QUOTE=Cisco]
Wait, who went to war with the US? The Taliban hasn’t gone anywhere. I really hate being put in a position where I feel like I have to defend them, but the we’re the ones who invaded. They simply refused to meet our demands, much like we would do if anyone were to make demands of us.
[/QUOTE]

By refusing to meet our demands they chose to go to war with the US. It was their choice, since we gave them an out and they refused to take it.

If we had refused to meet another countries demands and this had caused us to go to war, does that mean we wouldn’t have any responsibility about the war??

I guess we could quibble about the definition…‘terrorist training base’ is probably the correct term. They were bases where people learned weapons training, but I guess if those people are terrorists or para-military types then ‘military bases’ might not be accurate.

That’s their objective NOW. However, what did they get out of going to war with the US BEFORE they lost all their power in Afghanistan?? You make it seem like the Taliban were always fighting to regain their power, but the truth is they HAD pretty much absolute power in Afghanistan before they involved themselves in this affair (not absolutely true, as there were factions in Afghanistan opposed to the Taliban, much as there are factions there today who oppose each other).

Seriously…if their association with AQ was so nebulous, why did they GO TO WAR WITH A MAJOR SUPERPOWER?? Why would they allow AQ to build training camps in their country…training camps where people learned weapons skills and how to be better terrorists? Why were several AQ members part of their official government??

-XT

15

I was referring to the Northwest Frontier in Pakistan where there is more sympathy for the Taliban and where all their madrassas are. OBL could have hidden there. I wasn’t talking about him hiding with Taliban in Afghanistan.

Why should they? They may disagree with AQ on certain theological points but they’re not gonna make a big issue of proclaiming that to the world. As long as AQ are diverting resources away from them and pissing off America at the same time, they’re probably happy to let them carry on.

16

[QUOTE=Cisco]
Is there timely (let’s say since Obama took office) evidence that they won’t?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t see any evidence that they have, no. A quick Google search on ‘Taliban denounce Al Qaeda’, however, turns up articles like this:

their ‘alliance with al Qaeda’, and the fact that they MIGHT be divided over whether or not to maintain it doesn’t exactly speak volumes about them having denounced them to date, however.

I don’t know how credible you think H. Clinton is, but SHE seems to think that there might be some chance of negotiation with the Taliban in the wake of ObL’s death, according to that linked article.

-XT

17

[QUOTE=mutantmoose]
I was referring to the Northwest Frontier in Pakistan where there is more sympathy for the Taliban and where all their madrassas are. OBL could have hidden there. I wasn’t talking about him hiding with Taliban in Afghanistan.
[/QUOTE]

That’s where he was thought to be, from what I recall. However, since we thought he was there, that might have been a good reason for him not to be there. And, frankly, where he was at was a bit more comfortable, even if ultimately he was probably foolish to be where he was for so long. Live and learn…or not, in his case.

I truly am stumped by this. Why should the Taliban have denounced AQ? Well, to spare themselves a big honking war, and the lost of power, men, material and all the other stuff they lost. If they get nothing out of their association with AQ (which you stated earlier), then why should they NOT denounce and renounce their association with AQ?? What do the Taliban care if AQ is supposedly distracting us and making us use or divert resources?? We are diverting them ON THEIR COLLECTIVE HEADS FOR THE GODS SAKE! I’d say that would encourage them to care, at least a little bit, don’t you think??

-XT

18

They’d lose face in the muslim world. Kowtowing to American demands wouldn’t look good. And they’re quite an extreme group, face is important to them.

19

Based on what you said earlier (and one of the few parts I agree with) that Taliban don’t CARE about anything outside of their borders. Losing face is better than continuing to get the shit kicked out of them by tangling with the US, no? And if they don’t get anything out of their association (they do, but you claimed they don’t), then I don’t see face alone as being sufficient to keep up the war at this point.

-XT

20

They’re not a political group with readily understandable aims and objectives. They live in a kind of dream world where “God is on our side” or where things “are destined to be”.

Dying in battle whilst defending islam against the infidels is a thing to be desired or, at least, not shrunk away from. Basically there’s a whole religious perspective involved which might make them fight on even when normal logic suggests they should give up.

If you beat the shit out of them then they will probably sit around by the campfire later and tell stories of the time when the infidels tried to kill Mohammed but failed. They’ll get themselves high on tales of religion and bravery. Dealing with a religious group isn’t like dealing with a purely political group who have rational demands.