Its been only a few months since President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. will indeed be pulling out of Afghanistan and in that time the Taliban have re-awakened like millions of zombies coming out of shallow graves to retake control of the country. The fall of Afghanistan’s American-backed government was anticipated to be a slow and defiant battle in which the U.S. hoped that the political ideologies, military expertise, and the taste of social freedom that they implanted in the Afghans would last for decades. Obviously, there is something that U.S. military experts overlooked.

Americas mission in Afghanistan was to punish those responsible for 911 and diminish the threat of Islamic terrorism in the world. With the help of their military alliances they were able to kill Ben-Laden and wipe out his group of terrorists referred to as Al Qaeda. America then embarked on their secondary mission of using their military might, cultural influence, and humanist ideologies to diminish the threat of Islamic radicalism in the region. This put them in direct conflict with the Taliban who they had once supported decades ago when the Taliban were fighting the Russians.

The Taliban as an organization do not consider themselves to be a terrorist group. They refer to themselves as Islamic Fundamentalists who are defending their land, religion, and cultural lifestyles. They came into conflict with American forces because they refused to denounce Al Qaeda, while many among them actually joined Al Qaeda and resorted to terrorism in order to achieve their goals, sort of like Christian fundamentalists who resort to terrorist activities in America. The Taliban’s numbers dwindled over the years but they were never defeated by the U.S. Most of their members and followers simply went dormant or gathered in areas of Afghanistan where they were safe.  

When you watch the news these days, everyone seems to be astonished at the rapid re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is a naive train of thought. It proves that most Americans do not understand the power of cultural Nationalism even though white supremacists in America are trying to exert the same form of cultural Nationalism. The truth about the rapid re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan is that average Afghan citizens are sympathetic to the Taliban’s conservative Islamic way of life.

Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in less time than it took for Taliban forces to drive from one side of the country to the other because the people’s desire for self-preservation under the will of Islam overrode their temporary western Ideals of freedom. That is because without a non-violent option to attain freedom, people will often resort of self-preservation by giving up their freedom. We here in the west will judge them and call them cowards but, in their minds, it’s not a hard decision at all; the will of obedience to Islam supersedes their own desire for personal happiness.