Taliban Rebranded… This Time It’s All About Russia
We all remember the slogans the US and UK used to justify their invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Firstly, the Taliban had to be removed because they were harbouring Islamic terrorists, such as Osama bin Laden who was held responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Secondly, the Taliban was an oppressive, fundamentalist Islamic movement, so unless it went it would harbour people like bin Laden, and threaten the rest of the world, for evermore.
Trying to emphasise the second slogan, they called the invasion Operation Enduring Freedom. The Taliban could not be allowed to stay in power because they would always contradict fundamental human values. Only by removing them, and keeping them out of power for good, would Afghanistan be free. If they came back, that would be the end of Afghanistan and the entire civilized world; it was that simple.
As always, the rest of the world took the West at its word, and agreed with the invasion for the same reasons. It is therefore a sickening insult to all Afghans, and to the troops who have lost their lives there over the last fourteen years, for the US and its allies to be telling the Afghan government they installed that they must now bring the Taliban into that government to secure a lasting peace, and so they can go home.
Westerners’ sons and daughters have been sent to die to achieve any outcome but this. Millions of Afghans have been displaced, having already endured twenty prior years of civil war, to achieve any outcome but this. A destroyed Afghanistan and continual terrorist threat are being inflicted on everyone by those who told us they were there to stop these things.
Why is this happening? Has the Taliban changed its spots? Or has the West had a different target all along?
