How about ‘the Taliban were ineffective at governance not from lack of interest but from lack of skill; improved Taliban governance is an incidental side-effect of recruiting from a broader pool.’
I also think that violence in the 90s tended to focus on the popular, whereas violence this decade has shifted focus to the militarily prominent, or at least focused more on them. This would slightly increase the relative average lifespan of those Taliban with competence outside of military activity, increasing their seniority and influence within the organization.

How can the Taliban “outgovern” the Afghan government? Well, I would say because:

1: the Taliban receive probably $billions in shakedown money from drug dealers and more legitimate businesses; they can pay their fighters more than the Afghan gov’t. pays its soldiers and police

2: the execute anyone who commits obvious graft (Karzai’s gov’t doesn’t have this advantage)

Regarding they journey from Bergen to Mullen’s Taliban: I would generally accept Adm. Mullen’s expertise and reject at face value Bergen’s absurdly hyperbolic statement. That said, much of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in the 1990s more from the horrors of the former governors (warlords) than from the expertise of the Taliban. The Taliban at least did not commit mass rape and murder. Sadly, the urban populations that submitted to their occupation soon learned the misery of Taliban rule. I suspect that in the last 10-15 years, during their recovery in Pakistan, the Taliban have learned more of the arts of governance.

The term “governance” is extremely vague: Mullen speaks on a basic level of local courts and tax collection; perhaps Bergen is condemning the Taliban for failing to properly run hospitals, universities, and opera houses?

Depends what you mean by “governing”. If you mean running courts and alms collection and militia duty, they’re good at it. If you mean modern roads or schools or agriculture or whatever, they’re terrible.

Bingo.

Yeah, some of your commenters already picked up on it. 99% of the “shadow government” the Taliban get credit for is justice issues, which is a critical weakness of the Karzai regime. In the 1990s, the only “effective” (I’m using term loosely, for obvious reasons) Taliban institution was the court system. Their military wasn’t that great, police non-existent or capricious, education was terrible, and infrastructure crumbled.

What they’re doing to “outgovern” the Kabul government is what they did in the 1990s — portray themselves as uncorrupt and uncorruptible, mete out quick judgments when people approach them with disputes, and so on. They terrify criminals into not behaving criminally, and because the Karzai regime is so terribly corrupt from top to bottom their minimal brand of governance seems downright miraculous in comparison.

So Bergen isn’t quite right here, but he’s also not quite wrong. I think he’s just unintentionally using different standards to describe the same thing at different times.

Thanks everyone, this is great. So we really are talking about dispute-adjudication as the measurement of “governance” with Taliban-vice-Karzai, not the provision of services, if I get everyone here. Interesting: I have to note that provision-of-services as governance is what Holbrooke & co focus on.

Yes. Perhaps a more broad way to look at it might be, if you expand your working definition of the “rule of law” to include trust that your community leadership will be fair within whatever terms they base their governance upon, will make the community safe from crime, from regular criminals, legal officials, unscrupulous merchants and community leaders, and will provide a level playing field for dispute resolution, then what they are providing is not comprehensive governance, but rather the necessary underlying structure for it, which the Afghan national and regional leadership has been both unable and unwilling to provide…

mikey

Really instructive. We in the U.S. tend to underestimate the importance of (something passing for) justice.

This is the same thing that the Pakistani Taliban used to give itself a claim to being legit in the Swat Valley.

Why does Lebanon and Hezbollah come to mind?

I think of that as part of the role of a government (AKA “establish justice”), but not all of it. There’s also the “promote the general welfare” aspect, which the Taliban have been really bad at in the past. In fact, I suppose it would be an interesting exercise for someone who knows the region to compare the various governments’ abilities to perform the various tasks discussed in the preamble to the Constitution. While methods might differ, I think that most, if not all of those tasks are important for a national government to do.

Very, very good point, and much broader than appears at first glance.

It seems to me that history shows setting up a system of effective justice, usually local at first, then expanding, going back at least to feudal systems where the lord’s first, most regular duty was to hold some type of court or audience (actually “audiencia” in Spanish, very telling; someone listens to the peon’s grievances) to hear people’s disputes, and makes decisions. A lord or prince perceived to make fair, just decisions, without favoring one party or accepting bribes, was often enough to create a perception of the feudal lord as a “good” one.

And I think, honestly (a “ding!” moment) part of the reason for the inarticulate fury that has been expressed this summer is that so many people perceive our justice system as failing – rich people get off, juries are bought or foolish, people who commit terrible crimes don’t get caught or get “light” sentences.
A few decades ago most folks perceived our legal system as fair. With the high personal crime of the ’70’s and some high-profile celebrity trials, that faith has seriously eroded.

It is time for the American Imperial War Pigs to stop their endless stupid criminal occupation of Afghanistan and leave the people of Afghanistan alone.

(1) The Taliban were never as bad at governing as commonly believed;

(2) The Taliban aren’t actually good at governing, but the Karzai government and its local proxies are worse;

(3) The Taliban realized they had an opportunity to expand its base of support by filling a critical void and meeting a real popular demand, even if the people remembered its harsh and unjust rule.

I would say (4), All of the above.

I suspect that it is some combination of all three of your points, as well as those raised by several of the other commenters, along with the recruitment of new, more skilled leaders. I also agree with the general point that they are not really providing true full governance (roads, infrastructure, etc.), but rather something much more limited. It is, however, still far more than the national and regional governments have been able to do.

This is the same thing that the Pakistani Taliban used to give itself a claim to being legit in the Swat Valley.

IIRC, this is also how Hamas established itself.
Again, my compliments from that earlier thread.

when was it that Karzai tried to make nice with the Taliban, going so far as to give Taliban members government positions?

I wondered about that, too. Quite a bit of time has passed – might it also be that a newer generation is in charge, and more willing to expand on what it has learned since being toppled?

Some of this is simply that the Taliban is operating in their areas of core Pashtun ethnic support, I suspect. They work, and likely always worked, well with the traditional, conservative power structures in those areas. Remember that the Talib were the kids of the traditional leaders sent to religious schools in Pakistan.

One further aspect of this was that the Soviets tried to disrupt these traditional systems of governance…so that it may have seemed chaotic during that period. But the locals saw the Taliban as bringing order back to their society.

But when they advanced beyond their Pashtun sphere they were poor at integrating other local leadership and traditional systems. Thus what appeared to be terrible “National Governance” was simply that they brought the same people and rules that worked in Swat and elsewhere long the border to Kabul, and points North Central and West.

One more point, the things we may think are symbolic of good governance…schools (esp. for girls), hospitals, Courts run on a secular Federal model…may be viewed as “bad governance” by many locals.

It’s an old adage that Afghanistan is the graveyard of foreign armies, but at the same time history shows that it’s also the graveyard of of many internal groups that tried to impose themselves too strongly on the regional clans and tribes. Unfortunately there were lots of other graveyards of secondary parties created in those internecine wars of power, too.

My understanding is that Karzai is also Pashtun. I suspect that makes it a question of the corruption and incompetence of the Karzai government.

At the risk of saying something controversial, the U.S. could do worse than to convince Kabul to study whatever it is that the Taliban is doing right.

Hahaha

I should see if I can find a link, but Patrick Lang has written rather often that thinking of Afghanistan as a country is a mistake. It’s a bunch of smaller societies loosely banded together. In that context, your explanation makes sense to me.

It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country.

Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.”

“Everyone knows this is going on,” said one U.S. Embassy official, speaking privately.

Pat Lang, at Sic Semper Tyrannis.

I understand the Karzai “govt” gets the vast majority of the drug money.

I think that is part of it, they have realized that their incompetence was an important factor in their earlier downfall. I think cinnamonape also has a good point. They have also recruited existing tribal and other leaders who already had better skills.

What the U.S. calls the Taliban bears very little relationship to the Taliban that ruled the country. The current crowd is just a bunch of Pashtun nationalists (or tribalists, depending on how you look at the situation), not the religious nutcases of yore. It would be helpful if the U.S. govt and/or news media would at least apply appropriate names.

Evolution in action.

The US Army acted like a subcritical dose of antibiotic. They killed most of the fools among the Taliban very quickly, but failed to kill them all.

The survivors were not only the smarter ones, but they emerged from this process in a very thoughtful frame of mind. Major defeats have a way of doing that.

What we’re dealing with now is Taliban Version 2.0.

The evidence strongly suggests that they are still very much dominated by religious fundamentalists, though your basic point is well taken. As I indicated in my comment, they have greatly expanded their base of support and actively recruited among the Pashtun leadership.

While I would not put it quite so crudely, there is some merit to your thesis.

I think both “functional” and “governance” here are a bit of equivocation. Pre invasion the taliban had “functioning” courts. they functioned to terrify villagers into absolute submission. Im sceptical American propaganda and PR stunts, Im not any less sceptical of Taliban propaganda and PR stunts.

Marta Evry’s diary is upstairs!
The Public Option: A Promise Kept or a Promise Broken

The problem I see here is not that the Taliban have taken up the basics of governing. The problem lies in who is the enemy. Is it the Bin Laden troop or the Taliban? Were we not getting news feeds that the US military was dependent on the Taliban when they got there?

The propaganda switcheroo gives cover to keep up the warring. I would simply like a little truth in reporting.

Pashtuns are, as a rule, religious fundamentalists. However, when the current insurgency started, the people who I read who seemed knowledgable (didn’t save any links, sorry) described it as the typical insurgency against an occupying force under a puppet govt that does not represent them. Karzai is Pashtun, or partly so (too lazy to look in his wiki, but seems I remember one of his parents isn’t Pashtun), but the govt is dominated by the Northern Alliance crooks, including folks like Abdullah, who was an incredibly articulate spokesperson on U.S. TV during the early phase of the war. NA are Tajiks. So it’s about the govt, not religion. At least the insurgency phase. What they’d do if the got power, who knows.

Of course, if the U.S. govt correctly identified the Afghan fight as a counterinsurgency against your typical insurgency against an occupier, instead of calling it a war against those dastardly Taliban who blew up the Bamiyan statues and won’t send their girls to school, why then it would lose the propaganda edge with domestic support.

I am a little surprised that no one has pointed out a misconception in your framing of the question:

Answering this will probably go a long way to explaining how the Taliban, with relatively minimal foreign sponsorship, can outgovern government receiving billions from the international community.

One of the biggest problems that the Karzai government has is the foreign aid. Getting all that foreign aid undermines the legitimacy of government in the eyes of its citizens, invites corruption, and creates enormous administrative problems while raising the expectations of everyone involved. The Taliban, on the other hand, benefits from the lowest of expectations and the advantage of being able to pick the types of governance they provide. Look at the list of stuff they are good at. It’s all stuff you do better with no money and lots of principle (or ideological fervor). They were just as good at this stuff when they were power, we just didn’t like the outcomes.

I think in the end provison of services is what people anwhere will demand from, government. I know thats “conventional wisdom” but its probably fairly true. In afghanistan adjudication of disputes is very critical because of the tribal structure of their society there is no real concept of an afghan state.In vietnam, the communists were eventually able to provide both better than the saigon govt. The Karzai govt is the primary problem.

I think that the Taliban/Pashtuns are getting more help from outside the country that we are being told. As I recall the Soviet experience, they basically won the war until Pak-Saudi-US supported the insurgency, and even then the Soviets were hanging in until the U.S. provided the rocket launchers. So how come, if the Taliban/Pashtuns have no outside support, the U.S. can’t crush them like the Soviets did?

For one thing, we’ve only committed about 25% of the troop strength of the USSR in Afghanistan.

I think your question answers itself. Quote: “Part of the Taliban plan to win over the people in Swat was to help the poor or displaced own land.”

That is to say: The Taliban seems to have a plan, and that plan involves goals, and those goals involve benefitting those being governed.

And really, there’s probably a very small set of people who are responsible for this happening. That is, there’s some small set of leaders who see this need, and they are in a position to make it happen.

That’s all assuming that the premise is true.

I do not think that these are mutually exclusive. The original Taliban were also Pashtun nationalists fighting against a foreign occupier and a puppet government. I think that they have simply returned to their roots in many ways. I agree that the power of non-Pashtuns in the national government is also likely an important issue here.

Western military and feminist propaganda from the 90s and after 9-11 was just that — propaganda. You’re falling into the trap of believing your side’s propaganda (assuming you identify with the US side as is typical of Americans). For example the Taliban built a lot of schools prior to the US invasion and especially girls schools (even one female only university I think) but you won’t hear that from your usual sources.

This should be obvious to anyone but when you declare a group of folks to be the big bad enemy then at that point you might as well stop reading your side’s reporting on them because it’s going to be a pack of lies. At the very least try to read some sources from the other side and from neutral accounts. Again — that really should go without saying.

I think the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and Save the Children were two of the NGOs that were helping to build girls schools with the Taliban before 9-11. Used to be you could just go to the web sites and see pictures of the schools but that was ten years ago. At any rate I mention schools because as we all “know” from what we’ve been told the Taliban hate the idea of educating girls and had outlawed it.

Total fiction.

They were very amateurish like you’d expect of any group of right wing religious nut cases. Imagine a government run by Michelle Bachmann and a bunch of militiamen. It was tough on crime though. You know how that goes. They really cracked down on the opium for a while there. They did get better though. They were in power for years and they had help.

Total fiction

Was the only paragraph that wasn’t.

OK, so I just checked the Peter Bergen site. Bingo. He repeats the classic lie about girls’ schools. I’m afraid he is deliberately lying to his audience there. If he really was in Afghanistan in the 90s he knows what he’s saying is false. But if you don’t believe me just write to the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and ask them if they had schools for girls in the 90s under the Taliban and with their co-operation (and obviously with their full knowledge).

http://www.swedishcommittee.org/

The UN dispatches from Afghanistan used to mention the girls’ schools every now and then so there might be some mention of them on-line. I couldn’t find them on the SCA site last I looked but I put that down to it just being such a long time ago now (rather than anything more sinister!)

Obvious his statement, “You were more likely to be murdered in the United States in 1991 than an Afghan civilian is to be killed in the war today.” is fiction too but anyone with an ounce of skepticism can see that.

I cannot tell you how shocked I am to meet someone who believes war time propaganda about an official state enemy.

Tell you what. Show some facts about the glorious education for girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule.
Your link to the swedishcommittee.org doesn’t show anything about girl’s schooling under the Taliban.
Everything I’ve read from Save the Children says that the majority of children in Afghanistan pre-9/11 didn’t attend school at all.
They give nothing indicating the sex of the children that did attend.
Save the Children also says that the schools in Afghanistan were built before the taliban assumed control and, under Taliban control, were crumbling and unheated.

After you do that, we’ll talk about your failure to understand why it was that poppy cultivation declined under Taliban governance.

Do you need help operating Google?

Do you think I give a crap if you believe me or not? Was I talking to you? No. I’ve already given enough of a lead to anyone seriously interested. You are not.

I can operate Google. I did. You are seriously full of —- yourself.

You’re like a birther. Even if I linked to a copy of Obama’s birth certificate it would only prove how right your little fantasies were.

I suggested you could search the 1990’s UN archives of reports from Afghanistan for references to the SCA’s schools. Did you do that you little punk? No. Because that would be like “work” wouldn’t it.

I suggested you write to the SCA and ask them. Did you do that? No. That would require interaction with a human being. Far better to sit on you fat ass and insult someone who obviously knows more than you do.

Well in the words of Barbara Bush, “I’m done with you”.

David, old stick, I did go and read a large bunch of Save the Children documents, as I indicated in comment 44 and then pointed out to you.

I also followed the one link that you actually did provide and then mentioned in the same comment that it did not say anything like what you claimed.
If you won’t or can’t put something on this post to back up all your bullshit, then I must insist that you’re done with me and suggest you take yourself and all your hoard of knowledge to other places, preferable one where it ain’t shining.

Spencer have a think about why the Islamists found a lot of support in Somalia. They weren’t all that great at building roads either.

Spencer, we don’t underestimate anything. It’s just transparent to us. We’re so used to things working that we have a hard time conceiving of a mindset where they don’t.