In both cases, useful idiots say "If we just let them win, it will be easier to defeat them by the Spontaneous Uprising Of The People(tm)!"
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And one was created by the other, right?
Edit: it's a question. Please help me learn instead of down voting. Cool, thanks.
Not really? Unless you're counting the sudden agreement for withdrawal of US forces against the wishes of the Afghan government and the release of thousands of Taliban fighters by the Trump administration.
The Taliban has long been the Pakistani ISI's baby.
Happy cake day!
Thanks!
Read about 1979. The US supported the resistance fighters which became the Taliban. Similar to how thr US put Hussein in power, but without a figurehead.
Not even fucking close. The postwar Mujahedeen government in the 1990s was literally invaded by Taliban paramilitaries from Pakistan and overthrown, leading to a civil war that was still-ongoing by 2001, when the USA's Afghanistan War began.
Pakistan had a lot to do with the rise of the Taliban, but "paramilitaries from Pakistan" is really not it. Not to undersell Pakistani support for them, but these people were Afghans who got a movement going and were then supported by Pakistan.
Not to undersell Pakistani support for them, but these people were Afghans who got a movement going and were then supported by Pakistan.
With tens of thousands of recruits from Pakistan in the 1990s, many of the native Afghans who joined the movement having been educated in Pakistani madrasas, and the Pakistani ISI being key in both recruitment and training of Taliban paramilitaries.
Not really sure what else you want to call a movement that got the majority of its recruits from Pakistan, got most of its early successes from Pakistani support, including direct military support and training, was educated in Pakistan, and had a long-standing relationship subordinate to Pakistani interests other than Pakistani paramilitaries.
Got a source for "got the majority of its recruits from Pakistan"? Also while you seem to focus on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia also had a lot to do with their early success, having for example funded the madrassas the Taliban would later recruit from. That aside, they were founded, led and supported by Afghans. At worst I'd call them co-opted Pakistani puppets, which is different from being straight up Pakistani paramilitaries.
Got a source for “got the majority of its recruits from Pakistan”?
Sure.
https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/cscoal/2001/en/52887
According to the United Nations Special Mission in Afghanistan (UNSMA), the Taleban and Northern Alliance have a typical strength of 30-40,000 fighters on each side. Both sides can mobilise approximately 80-100,000 soldiers during crisis periods, but these forces levels are difficult to sustain.1
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pakistan+Taliban+Policy+1994-1999.-a0292423798
Pakistan has had to pay a heavy price for the chimera of strategic depth in Afghanistan. Nearly 60,000 Pakistanis died in Afghanistan.
Also while you seem to focus on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia also had a lot to do with their early success, having for example funded the madrassas the Taliban would later recruit from.
I mean, that's certainly true, but not even close to Pakistan's contribution.
On the other hand, in agreement with the broader point of blame, Saudi Arabia has invested a massive amount of resources in radicalizing impoverished Muslim countries worldwide by funding extremist mosques and schools under the cover of innocuous religious support.
That aside, they were founded, led and supported by Afghans. At worst I’d call them co-opted Pakistani puppets, which is different from being straight up Pakistani paramilitaries.
I guess we're in the realm of semantics here. I would posit the question, though, with a theoretical example:
EDITED FOR A BETTER COMPARISON AND ALSO I JUST REALIZED THIS IS LITERALLY THE CASE IN SYRIAN KURDISTAN
If ethnic Turkmen living in Iraqi Kurdistan formed a paramilitary group, with their leaders having been educated in state schools in Turkiye and trained by Turkish military camps, getting the majority of their recruits from inside Turkiye, not Iraqi Kurdistan, receiving direct support in the form of both materiel supply and seconded troops and commanders from the Turkish military along with independent supporting strikes from the Turkish military, and advocating policy positions which conveniently line up with Turkish desires for Iraqi Kurdistan...
Would you call them Turkish paramilitaries, Kurdish paramilitaries, or Iraqi paramilitaries?
Yeah fair enough.
I thought I heard something about the US "creating" some terrorist organization in the middle east though. Like IS maybe? Or was that just bullshit? Curious to know more, so I'm just asking questions with the hopes of not being down voted for it. I'm not making any claims.
You are thinking of the Taliban, but "the US created the Taliban" is a massive misrepresentation of what actually happened. The Taliban created the Taliban, then during their consolidation of power a good chunk of (but not all) the Mujahedeen joined them.
No worries - asking questions is how we all learn!
The US is very often blamed for various terrorist groups in the Middle East, but generally with tenuous chains linking the US. The US absolutely does a lot of fucked-up shit in foreign policy, but I've heard us blamed for everything from Al-Qaeda to ISIS to the Taliban - none of which hold any serious connection to US support.
Al-Qaeda is sometimes blamed on us because it did get its start during the Soviet-Afghan War - but it was funded by the Saudis and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. For that matter, it didn't become anti-US until the US stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, at invitation of the Saudi government, no less, during the First Gulf War defending Kuwait (again, an objective that the Saudi government supported and was part of the coalition for). 'Infidels' on holy soil was too much for the religious fanatics who made up the group, and turned Al-Qaeda from neutral to hostile to the US. Guess they were craving a new enemy as the 'godless' Soviets declined and fell.
ISIS is, somewhat ironically, one of the stronger links to US action - but formed in opposition to US behavior, rather than by US support. The proto-form of ISIS was in the splintered religious guerillas of the insurgency in Iraq after the US invasion, loosely affiliated with Al-Qaeda. It was a minor faction, however, until the Syrian Civil War, which garnered it more influence across the Iraq border into Syria, which became its base of operations, aligned with other Islamist rebels and mostly free from oversight or suppression in the chaos of the civil war. As the Syrian Civil War turned into a brutal stalemate, ISIS split from Al-Qaeda as being insufficiently radical for their tastes, and launched an offensive back into Iraq, where the unprepared and corrupt Iraqi military leadership abandoned large numbers of fighting men and materiel to the lightning offensive.
The Taliban was formed by Pakistani Pashtuns in opposition to the originally American-supported Mujahedeen (albeit with the caveat that America had lost interest in supporting the Mujahedeen as soon as the Soviets were expelled - not without reason, either, considering that they were largely a disunited group of warlords each with their own motivations). The Pakistani ISI (their equivalent of the CIA, and astoundingly even less moral and cooperative with the civilian and military government than the CIA is with the USA, if such a thing can be imagined) sought a catspaw they could use to extract economic concessions from Afghanistan with and prevent Afghanistan from pursuing a coherent national policy that could challenge Pakistan, or Pakistan's hold on Pashtun tribal lands, which was a recurring call from Afghan nationalists, but not anti-nationalist Afghan Islamists.
Very complex history! 😁