Pakistan Made the Taliban - Not America

Pakistan Made the Taliban
The Taliban were made in 1994, 6 years after the Soviet-Afghanistan war was over during 1980-1988, the war which American forces backed the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen, later known as the "Northern Alliance", were America's first allies when the invasion of Afghanistan began, and have fought against the Taliban during most of it's existence, trying to maintain control over the country after approximately 90% of it was lost to Pakistan. Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, the president of Afghanistan, was assassinated on 9/9, two days before 9/11, in part of a joint effort against the then government of Afghanistan and the U.S. The Mujahideen of Afghanistan and the Taliban have been dichotomous and heavily polarized enemies, with directly opposing viewpoints on Islam and religion in general, considered virtually incompatible with each other. The Mujahideen were generally regarded as possessing a more open and tolerating version of Islam, where as the Taliban were largely considered extremely orthodox and authoritarian. Where as the Mujahideen allowed Christians and Jews to fight along side them and were among the highest ranking members of the Mujahideen, the Taliban openly and violently opposed any religion that wasn't their own. It's unlikely more than a handful of Mujahideen eventually joined the Taliban, and there is generally little evidence to suggest otherwise.

Although it's often been cited that the Taliban were formed from the remnants of the Mujahideen, they came in significantly later, after the Mujahideen lead government had established itself. In 1994, the Pakistan ISI, or intsersvice intelligence agency, the virtual equivalent of America's CIA, created the Taliban in an effort to covertly take over Afghanistan, similar to their veiled tactics in the Indian-Pakistan Kargil war; In this war it was also later revealed that Pakistan had secretly formed a unit designed to mask the overt military activity of Pakistani forces. The Pakistan military has a history of covertly disguising it's military units as "terrorists" or other militia-like irregular soldiers, in an attempt to hide their involvement and prevent retaliation against their country by these countries which possess a history of conflict. Pakistan largely believes it should be in control of both India and Afghanistan territory, seeing themselves as the true owners of the territories, and the wars were an extension of these territorial disputes. Since the creation of the Taliban, the ISI and the Pakistani military have given financial, logistical and military support; they provided everything from food and water, to special forces commandos, to air support to the Taliban forces. According to Pakistani Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid, "between 1994 and 1999, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan" on the side of the Taliban. Peter Tomsen stated that up until 9/11 Pakistani military and ISI officers along with thousands of regular Pakistani armed forces personnel had been involved in the fighting in Afghanistan. On August 1, 1997 the Taliban launched an attack on Sheberghan, the main military base of Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum has said the reason the attack was successful was due to 1500 Pakistani commandos taking part and that the Pakistani air force also gave support. During 2000, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo against military support to the Taliban, with UN officials explicitly singling out Pakistan. The UN secretary-general implicitly criticized Pakistan for its military support and the Security Council stated it was "deeply distress[ed] over reports of involvement in the fighting, on the Taliban side, of thousands of non-Afghan nationals." In July 2001, several countries, including the United States, accused Pakistan of being "in violation of U.N. sanctions because of its military aid to the Taliban." The Taliban also obtained financial resources from Pakistan. In 1997 alone, after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, Pakistan gave $30 million in aid and a further $10 million for government wages.

Pakistan has been accused of continuing to support the Taliban since 9/11, an allegation Pakistan denies. Yet Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qeada, and organization also funded by Pakistan and allied with the Taliban, was found just .8 miles from Pakistan's Military Academy, similar to America's westpoint, in a supposed intelligence failure by the Pakistan military that almost certainly could not have been a coincidence. Furthermore, Osama Bin Laden had seemingly miraculously escaped capture by U.N. forces until they refused to release information to Pakistan, and quite literally the first time information was withheld from Pakistan about the terrorist leader, the U.N. forces managed to capture Osama Bin Laden. It is extremely doubtful that Pakistan does not still play a major role in the Taliban and Al-Qeada forces.


The New government of Afghanistan is currently being lead by members of the Northern Alliance, who were the  Mujahideen before the Taliban invasion. In this manner, it is quite clear that the U.S. had very little if any real involvement making the Taliban. They spoke a different language, came from different parts of the world, had completely different ideologies, and their political agendas in no way aligned. In this manner, the suggestion that the U.S. created the Taliban or that the previous  Mujahideen became the Taliban is not only wrong, but also clearly denies the fault of the Pakistan forces and others involved. In fact, Russia is allied with the Taliban today, and has historically supported them in the past. It is naive if not deliberately misleading to suggest the U.S. created or significantly contributed to the formation and arming of the Taliban, who use predominately Russian and Chinese equipment. Illustrating the history is not only important to understanding how the organization was formed, but also to implicate those truly responsible for the horrendous massacres and human rights violations by these organizations.