The Rise and Fall of the Taliban

ble cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="160" align="left">

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia" (Yale, 279 pages, $14.95) by Ahmed Rashid
"Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan" (Pluto Press, 283 pages, $27.50) by Michael Griffin)
"The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan" (Zed Books, 162 pages, $19.95) by Peter Marsden

There are a surprising number of Taliban books in stores or available online but many of them read like the authors never really expected them to be read. By far the most readable and comprehensive book is Rashid's "Taliban." He tells the dirty, murky story of the Taliban's rise to power clearly and cleanly, and seems to understand the region intimately (Rashid is a corespondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and lives in Pakistan). His chapter "High on Heroin: Drugs and the Taliban Economy" is a gripping account of the religious regime's dependence on narcotics for its economic viability. Writes Rashid: "The Taliban have provided an Islamic sanction for farmers...to grow even more opium, even though the Koran forbids Muslim from producing or imbibing intoxicants. Abdul Rashid, the head of the Taliban's anti-drugs control force in Kandahar, spelt out the nature of his unique job. He is authorized to impose a strict ban on the growing of hashish, 'because it is consumed by Afghans and Muslims.' But, Rashid tells me without a hint of sarcasm, 'Opium is permissible because it is consumed by kafirs [unbelievers] in the West."

Home: The People of the Book Part 1: Bin Laden: The Man Who Wasn't There "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America" by Yossef Bodansky "Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden" by Peter L. Bergen Part 2: The Rise and Fall of the Taliban Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia" by Ahmed Rashid "Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan" by Michael Griffin "The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan" by Peter Marsden Part 3: Worlds Apart Karen Armstrong, "Islam: A Short History" Armstrong, "Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet" Bernard Lewis, "The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years" Geneive Abdo, "No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam" Part 4: History Repeats Peter Lamborn Wilson, "Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes" Donald Barr Chidsey, "The Wars in Barbary: Arab Piracy and the Birth of the United States Navy" John Lukacs, "Five Days in London May 1940

"Reaping the Whirlwind," for its part, offers some intriguing detail on how the Taliban swept to power in the mid-90s, using force of arms as well as the power of cash. Writes Griffin: "A Taliban advance on a town or stronghold would be preceded by the infiltration by night of a mullah or another notable, laden with offers, seeking out commanders willing to defect." Marsden's "Taliban" also features a useful section of the status of women in Afghanistan. Pre-Taliban, Afghan women had more rights: Marsden writes that in 1957 female singers and presenters were heard on Kabul Radio and then, in the following year, the government sent a female delegate to the United Nations in New York. Under the Taliban, Marsden writes "A significant number have had no choice but to ask their children to sell odd bits of things on the street or to beg for food or money. Many of the 50,000 refugees who have fled to Pakistan have done so because [their families] were suddenly deprived of female earnings."

Still, Rashid's book tells the Taliban tale best. He also does a good job of detailing how U.S. support of the Afghan Mujaheddin (through Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence or ISI) helped lay the foundation for the Taliban. Writes Rashid "[CIA chief William Casey] committed CIA support to a longstanding ISI initiative to recruit Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin...Between 1982 and 1992 some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan Mujaheddin." The U.S., apparently, gave the ISI the funding and let the ISI (which seemed to have the better on-the-ground intelligence) handle the distribution of the cash. Following their own interests, the ISI supported the most radical Muslim groups in the region. Some of those same radicals, no doubt, are opposing the U.S. forces in Afghanistan even as you read this.