Friday 19 August 2011

Who Are The Taliban?

There are no Taliban distinct from the Pashtun community as a whole. There are ultra-Islamist Pashtun nationalists, and we call them the Taliban. But that is all that they are. They want what they want in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or at any rate in the Pashtun parts of both. But that is all that they want. Objectionable they certainly are. A threat to us they certainly are not. Or, at least, they wouldn't be. If we left them alone. By getting and staying out of their country.

2 comments:

  1. Remember the Buddhist statues destroyed a decade ago? The Taliban would have had the (non-Muslim) British Council compound in their sights all along.

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  2. Funny how it has taken them this long, then.

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