Taliban - Rashid

Taliban by Ahmed Rashid - 5/5

Ahmed Rashid’s “Taliban” is a carefully constructed account of what was once one of the world’s most mysterious terror organizations. Although nearly 10 years old, “Taliban” is still essential reading for anyone interested in the current conflict in Afghanistan, the growing Taliban insurgency in Pakistan and to understand the origin of the current forces that may one day destabilize the whole central Asian region. Rashid’s remarkable book is a clear account of all aspects of the Taliban including their rise, their theological underpinnings, their drug finance, the interplay between the different tribal groups and the wider regional implications in Central Asia caused by the conflict between the Taliban and the other groups in Afghanistan.

The initial chapters of “Taliban” provide a comprehensive overview of the tribal structures present in Afghanistan and the historical context in which the Taliban became a powerfully militarized political force is thoroughly explored. “Taliban” also notes the involvement of the Pakistan intelligence agency in the rise of the Taliban and notes that the rise of an organization such as the Taliban could have been avoided if Afghanistan was not forgotten after the Soviet retreat. Rashid looks at all the main protagonists in the post-Soviet civil war and gives clear and horrifying accounts of the struggle for Kabul and numerous massacres that occurred during the ascendancy of the Taliban. He also provides enough color to understand the different ethnic groups that make up the population of Afghanistan (Pashtuns/non-Pashtuns) and carefully outlines their wider strategic influences and systems of support. He shows how the Pakistan intelligence services supported the Taliban to enable Pakistan to develop strategic depth in the region to protect them from their old enemy India.

One of the most powerful aspects of Rashid’s account is the compassion he has for the Afghan people. His concern for the Afghan people and their circumstance is clear throughout the book. For example he argues that many of the Taliban fighters were dispossessed orphans raised in refugee camps in Pakistan and educated in Madrassa run by semi-literate teachers. Rashid writes: “Children were caught up in the war on a greater scale than in any other civil conflict in the world. All the warlords had used boy soldiers, some as young as 12 year old, and many were orphans with no hope of having a family, an education or a job except soldiering. The Taliban with their linkages to the Pakistan madrassas encouraged thousands of children to enlist and fight.” This is not to say that Rashid agrees with the path chosen, merely that he understands what has driven these orphans into the arms of the Taliban and other militarized warlords.

Rashid also writes compassionately about the women of Afghanistan calling them the vanished gender. He has a deep sympathy for the women who worked hard to build a life with scarce resources in post-Soviet Afghanistan only to have it taken all away from them with the rise of the Taliban. Rashid writes that many women are widows and the sole breadwinners in their family. Not being able to work when the Taliban came to power meant that they were unable to provide for their families. He also documents anecdotal stories of women he knew in Afghanistan that had left to find work and opportunity elsewhere.

Overall Rashid’s account is a very balanced view of the Taliban and the environment out of which they grew and should be recommended reading. Rashid has long covered Afghanistan long before the 911 attacks on the twin towers (indeed the first edition of this book was published before that fateful day) and has lived and walked among the Afghan people for a long time. Many others have since written accounts of the Taliban but I doubt they are as intimate or as knowledgeable as Rashid who clearly has a deep, intimate understanding of Afghanistan and the region at large.

I do agree with Rashid: the U.S. and western powers should not have abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. I agree that the resultant leadership vacuum led to the rise of the Taliban and that this could have been prevented by helping to redevelop the infrastructure and not leave Afghanistan to its own devices. However, I do believe that this is looking at global politics and international affairs in isolation and that at the time the Russians left Afghanistan Eastern Europe was falling apart and Yugoslavia was being divided, China was emerging from its “long march into the night” and massacred students in Tiananmen square, Africa had huge political changes (for example South Africa’s war with Angola was coming to an end). There is no doubt that America could have done more in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal, and it is easy, with hindsight, for people to argue that this was the most critical foreign policy issue facing the US at the time, but did it really appear that way at the time? Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t but yes, the fact remains, the failure to aid the development of Afghanistan by developing infrastructure and an economy lead to the rise of the Taliban and the horrors that have been visited on that country and the world at large since then.

All in all an excellent and important read for anyone interested in Afghanistan, central Asia or the United States’ decade long war in the region.

By from Amazon @ Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Second Edition