Gwynne Dyer's comments on Iraq and Afghanistan. I stumbled across this thanks to Matt at bastard.logic, and I think it bids some repetition during this time of thickening rhetoric on the subject.
I'd like to echo Dyer's comments with a personal anecdote. On a trip to a conference in Norway, I met an Afghani who was once quite close to the Taliban. But far from personifying the cliché image of a raving religious fanatic, he was a reasonable, progressively-minded individual trying scrape up enough of a savings (and enough of an understanding of Norwegian and English) to get into the economics program at the local university.
His family's association with the Taliban was limited to a business arrangement, since the Taliban were willing to fork out a fair bit of money in exchange for harvested crops (compare that to the American practice of destroying them).
This guy was pretty enthusiastic about meeting a Canadian and he had a very clear message for us:
"I know you’re trying to help," he said to me, "and a few Afghans know this too. But you’re not. It’s not your fault. When the Taliban is paying you to live, and then you see white men with guns walking around, who do you think you’re going to believe? Who do you think you’ll support?"
The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan set off a wave of anti-Americanism and sympathy for the Taliban - not only in Afghanistan, but also in neighbouring Pakistan (though the tide seems to be turning there).The Taliban earn the support of average Afghans by buying their crops and fighting off "invaders" the same way Conservatives are trying to earn your support by cutting taxes, and fighting off "the Liberal agenda." The Taliban are favoured in political talk around the Afghan "family dinner table."
Though political "favour" around the dinner table sometimes turns into into dangerously blind ideological enthusiasm.
Blind ideological enthusiasm. Sound familiar?
Labels: Afghanistan, Gwynne Dyer
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