Bloomberg does a piece on how the Taliban IS trying to change their act from what we have all seen from them in the past….
Fear is the feeling across the population of the country try and the West….
But as the Bloomberg piece points out….
The victor’s in that country will be responsible for millions of people….
This is what President Biden probably wants to deal with….
Now the Taliban must figure out how to win over a more modern population, including a generation of young people raised to view them as backward terrorists, according to Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies who wrote “The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier.”
“They have their own worldview but that worldview is not in sync with the majority of the world,” Gul said. “They now have to live in the 21st century without hurting fundamental rights.”
Many analysts see those goals as incompatible.
“If the Taliban deviates and does not stay the same, their ideology and appeal will come to an end,” said Rashid Ahmad Khan, a retired international relations professor at several Pakistan universities who has written about the group for decades. “If they dilute their own Islamic system, they will erode their own political authority.”
After seizing Kabul on Sunday, Taliban fighters moved to win over the local population. One official passed around a WhatsApp message offering phone numbers to call in case residents faced threats from “thugs” seeking to take advantage of the leadership vacuum. They also set up checkpoints on key roads, said Mohamood Qaderi, a Kabul University student.
‘Hard Part’
“They have their weapons on their shoulders, behaving well with the people, asking us ‘How are you’ and ‘If there’s any issue let us know,’” he said.
But while the Taliban are likely to find success in the short term, it will be a challenge to unite the country’s diverse ethnic and religious groups over the long haul. The militant group’s leadership is comprised of Sunni Pashtuns, and traditionally they have battled ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks as well as Hazaras, who are Shia Muslims.
Moreover, the Taliban will face internal power struggles along with all the pressures to deliver economic growth to keep the various warlords and the rest of the population happy, according to Kabir Taneja, who wrote “The ISIS Peril: The World’s Most Feared Terror Group and its Shadow on South Asia” and is now a fellow at Observer Research Foundation in Delhi.
“We know that the Taliban are an effective military system — do we know they are an effective political system? We don’t,” he said. “The hard part for them comes now.”…
The RNC has scrubbed any mention of Trump’s peace agreement with the Taliban.
Watch for the pivot from both Trump and the GOP he leads back to supporting endless Midwasstern war.
Mid-East war
Of course they have Scott
If they can scrub Jan. 6 ?
Why not THAT?
And Yes Scott…
Biden HASZ handed GOPer’s a whipping stick to use on him politically
The Geo-Political Issue I worry about, is now focusing on containing the Taliban to Afghanistan…They aren’t going west into Iran, but can they go south and Destabilize an already Fragile Pakistan…That’s the country I worry about getting destabilized…cause if they were to ever fall…that is a scary thought…not just for India and Pakistan, but the potential disruption in global economics, environment, etc…
Imrah Khan, Pakistan’s star cricketer turned prime minister, has taken a consciously Islamic turn in recent years, at least in his public statements and appearances.
The Middle East several ‘different’ muslin sects
THAT is also part of the undercurrent in the Afghanistan chaos…..
One of the posts Z is complaining about goes into the problems Iran and Pakistan WILL HAVE….
Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees they are having descend on them…..
I’m sure the Taliban are happy to shed some of the ‘other’ muslim sect’s
Why some here have a myopic view of this?
The reality is a VERY CHAOTIC and unstable result could be the result on Biden’s hasty get out of dodge order…..
I keep emphasizing……
Biden was Right to want to leave
We and NATO where holding a place Jack rightly described as tribal trying to be a centralized Western type Republic…..
But Biden gets the shit sandwich weither he likes it or not
Bush II and Obama let the thing go on essentially ducking Biden’s plight…..
Ole Joe wasn’t smart enough ‘politically’ on this….
No doubt
He’s paying for it…..
Some Democrats will try to cover him
But the images in the media and Republicans will override those efforts for now
Biden’s chance of salvation is entirely in the hands of the Taliban
If they are smart?
They will seek to stop any revenge violence and turn their focus to political governance
And THAT is Joe Biden’s forte so far absent this fuck up…..
The guy still has my support
We all make mistake’s
But being President comes with good and bad…
Sorry Bdog
It’s the migrants that will ba an issue with the Afghan neighbor’s
The Taliban will have its hands busy internally…..
Hmmm?
It appears the ‘leadership ‘ of the Taliban have begun to worry about their ‘image’ as the country empties out from underneath them…..
Post coming……
More on the post American crutch and governing Afghanistan….
(More and more mentions of those that did NOT get out actually working with the Taliban)
…In Kabul, as in much of the country, most important government departments, apart from street-level security, are not functioning.
The Taliban have urged officials with the former government to stay in their roles, and some have. But in the face of a looming economic crisis, including a worsening cash shortage that has put strains on the availability of fuel, food and other staples, the past two weeks have been a scramble by the Taliban to establish themselves, both in the public eye and in practice, as the country’s new governors. Much of the Afghan public remains deeply distrustful, given the harshness of the Taliban’s last government….
More…