The history of the Taleban and its relationship(s) to the US

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Educate me.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(I have far more new questions that new answers)

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

fairly comprehensive history here.

― fred solinger, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Taliban is one of the US's frankenstein monsters.

― rezna, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Frankenstein's monster style groups are always fascinating.

Apparently Hamas are partially a creation of the Israelis - during the 1980s they started funding Islamist Palestinian groups in occupied Palestine as a way of pulling support from the (secular) PLO.

― DV, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

from my info, telban were cia funded rebels of choice in us-backed war against USSR in afghanistan during eighties; once war was over, civil war broke out, us, in similar situation to iraq, pulled out, though weapons sales continued

― Geoff, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fred: can't get access to that link.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 13 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've noticed that any government anywhere who does something unpleasant is justified as a 'US creation', do these people have no powers of free will? Are they children?

― dave q, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"I've noticed that any government anywhere who does something unpleasant is justified as a 'US creation'" Don't be a fool, Q-boy. Care to give evidence to back up that statement, rather than just trot out your usual snide rubbish?

― DG, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

DG - look at your own country, for one. Headlong rush into shareholder capitalism and 'modernization' in the 80s, then complaining about Gap stores on all the high streets. Oh, you didn't vote for them either? I guess nobody did then.

If you're going to accuse people of being snidey, don't be an asshole about it.

― dave q, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, and if it weren't for the Marshall Plan...

Then again, looking at the state of this country, one would be forgiven for believing Britain never benefitted from it.

― dave q, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

S eveal regimes have reasons to be grateful for US largesse.

― Tom, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kneejerk UK anti-Americanism annoys me too, but the UK's embrace of shareholder capitalism generally blamed on Thatcher, not the US.

― Tom, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm not kneejerk anti-US, and hardly pro-UK, I'm just tired of Q's ridiculous generalisations. The US doesn't get the blame for what happened in this country in the 80s, Thatcher and the Tories do. And - ha ha - I didn't vote for the Tories in the 80s, as when the decade finished I was 9 years old.
"Then again, looking at the state of this country, one would be forgiven for believing Britain never benefitted from it. [The Marshall Plan]"
Ah, yet more patented Dave Q bollocks. I'm sorry, but to allude to this country still being in a fairly rubbish post-war state is so ridiculous as to be laughable. I don't know what it's like where you live, but I have no problem with transport, food and fuel supplies, healthcare etc. What next, hi-hi-hilarious jibes about bad dentistry?

― DG, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Look, here's how it works in the real world. There are countless organisations, each with their own agendas. Due to the complicated nature of the world, some of these orgs must make deals with each other, even if their goals are at variance with each other or even diametrically opposed. Because this makes life too complicated to understand for most, it's easier just to imagine everything directed by a vast, shadowy puppet-master, on which everything can be attributed. (I imagine some of you reading this are using Windows, so it follows you're all pawns of Bill Gates, and if you send out a virus using his software then obviously 'Gates had what was coming to him', if the logic I saw on 'Question Time' would be applied.) And you're right, the Marshall Plan comment was a bit low. What I meant to say was, it doesn't even look like London has recovered from the Blitz yet.

― dave q, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dave, suggest you look at some pictures of London after the blitz, then look at London.

― Tim, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's only one place that Dave Q is correct about, and that's somewhere in Newham, the place where they filmed Full Metal Jacket and the D'You Know What I Mean vid. And that's only really cos it's great for filming on.
I might be only 20 but I do appreciate how complex the world is, thank you Dave. As for Question Time - well there might have been rampant stupidity displayed, but is that unique to the UK?

― DG, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Incidentally what shocked me about the Taleban funding story I linked to wasnt the existence of the funding but the idiotic reason for it - the Taleban announce that Allah hates opium and get a forty-million dollar handout for it from the War on Drugs.

I wasn't posting it as an intervention in this particular debate, just as a contribution to the thread and because my mind was boggling so much that I felt I had to pass it on.

Understanding the complexity of global affairs - yes this is exactly the point Dave Q. This is why crowing over the US 'deserving' it is stupid as well as distasteful but also why the public attitude in the US of 'this is unique and horrible and bombs will solve it' is also misguided. The frightening truth is that in most ways the world is exactly the same unsafe place it was on Monday.

― Tom, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Stupidity unique to UK'? of course not.

However, you do have to wonder about a country whose domestic anti-terrorism policy seems to consist of letting psychopathic thugs back onto the street. I don't think the US will take the rest of the world's opinion into account, nor should they. There was no increase in domestic terrorist activity after McVeigh fried, was there?

― dave q, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I admit I have recently been too harsh on the US. It must be accepted that the UK has its past in imperialism. So we suck too.

― rezna, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thanks for that perceptive insight into the complexities of the Northern Irish troubles, Mr. Perceiving Complexity in the Real World.

― Tim, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Rezna - yes, I don't want to appear as some crazed UK patriot, this nation is far from perfect, but it isn't still in the Dark Ages as much as DQ would appear to think.

― DG, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think the US will take the rest of the world's opinion into account, nor should they.

They should if only because other countries have lost lives too, some in large numbers. Also practically they should because any effective measures against international terrorism are going to require huge amounts of international co-operation.

― Tom, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also, as deplorable as this weeks events have been, they don't give the US the right to take unilateral military action outside the US.

― Tim, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This thread seems to be going off on a weird angle, esp. since in general I agree with both DQ and DG and don't see why they're managing to maintain an argument. The fact is, I don't know the history of the Taliban and its relationship to the U.S. (and the top link didn't work last time I tried it) and like Mitch could use some education. And the significance to me of the U.S. once having funded and supported Taliban and bin Laden isn't that that makes them U.S. creations or the U.S. responsible for everything these guys do, or deserving somehow of the pain that bin Laden may be causing the U.S., but that in the last 24 hours the Bush administration seems to have committed itself to sending ground troops into central Asia with the objective of bringing down governments that support and harbor terrorists. And the fact that the U.S. sometimes - for reasons that can be understood and maybe in a few cases justified - supports terror and terrorists, e.g. some of the people we are now planning to attack, is not even a blip in the public discussion I'm hearing on the radio here. And the U.S. seems to be committing itself to bombs and violence and to a policy that could be disastrous both pragmatically and morally.

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My sentences got too long and tangled. "...deserving somehow of the pain that bin Laden may be causing the U.S." means that the U.S. is not deserving of this pain - though of course no one is.

― Frank Kogan, Friday, 14 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

six years pass...

I am about 1/4 into Charlie Wilson's War (borderline nutzo Tex congressman who orchestrated funding of mujahadeen), but the T-word doesn't seem to appear in it.

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 29 November 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

I was under the impression that they weren't actually called the Taliban until later, but maybe I'm wrong.

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 29 November 2007 14:51 (eighteen years ago)

you are liveblogging from a cinema?

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 29 November 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

taliban just means 'student' i think? i don't think 'the taliban' got off the ground till about '91.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 29 November 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

well, the book is from 2003, and author eventually goes into blowback, 9/11 etc.

The imminent Mike Nichols/Tom Hanks version of CWW apparently excises all darkness and consequence and turns it into a patriotic comedy. Ta da!

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 29 November 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

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