The Taliban Seeks Relevance

Maulawi Haiatullah Akhundzada

(c)2016 AFP

Long overshadowed by first Al Qaeda, and now the Daesh Death Cult (aka ISIS), the Taliban is trying to make headlines once again. While their efforts to spread chaos, death, terror, and intimidation in Afghanistan and Pakistan have continued, mentions of them in the world news media has been spotty, back page coverage at best.

Now the new leader of the Taliban is trying to make a name and reputation for himself by threatening the United States and demanding that the US end its “occupation” of Afghanistan. According to a story by the AFP today, Maulawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s new supreme leader, demanded that America and her allies end their military occupation of Afghanistan and stop the subjugation of the Afghan people. He claims the whole nation of Afghanistan stands against the “invaders.”

I would pose this question to my students. If a small radical religious minority full of murderous zealots and suicidal would-be martyrs claims to speak for an entire nation, and that same group has a history of oppressing women, outlawing the education of girls, persecuting and killing those who do not share its narrow religious views, destroying ancient archeological treasures from other cultures, and a host of other crimes against humanity, should that group be given any credibility whatsoever?

Admittedly, it is a loaded and leading question. Perhaps I need to rephrase it. I’ll try to remove some of the bias.

Based on what you have learned about the Taliban; do you believe the pronouncements of its leadership should be listened to and taken seriously?

As a follow up, I might ask, what would be the consequences of ignoring such pronouncements by the Taliban leader?

With the continuing worldwide threat from the Daesh Death Cult, and the constant attention the DDC receives from the world media, it seems the Taliban has become jealous and is seeking to regain some of the spotlight.  The sad thing is the reason any of these groups get any attention at all is because they spread terror and death.

I suppose the news has always been about reporting on the worst of human nature. If only such reporting didn’t seem to encourage certain people and groups around the world to seek to show they can be the absolute worst possible examples of humanity they can be. As long as the results of terror help sell the news, the news coverage will always encourage, albeit not purposely, ever more horrific acts of terror. A conundrum, to be sure. Let us hope the new leader of the Taliban is mature enough to realize the group’s best chance of making its points in the media is through political and rhetorical means, and not with bombs and bloodshed.

We try to teach our students that if you must resort to violence to make your point, then your point probably has no merit to begin with or you wouldn’t have lost the battle of ideas. If only the terrorist groups could learn and accept this lesson.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator