In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s victory was not due to the the number of its recruits – the Afghan army was four times as large as the Taliban forces; nor to the superiority of its weapons, for the Afghan Army had tens of billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons given to it by the Americans, who also provided air cover for that army, while the Taliban recruits relied mainly on their rifles; nor to its battlefield tactics, but mainly, to the fanatical faith of its members. A report on that “victory of faith” is here: “The Taliban Victory as a Victory of Faith,” by Gershon Hacohen, Algemeiner, August 24, 2021:
To understand the last 40 years of the Islamic struggle in Afghanistan, it is worth looking at the legacy of Abdullah Azzam. Born in a small village near Jenin in 1941, he moved to Jordan after the reclamation of the West Bank during the Six-Day War. While there, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and participated in activities of Palestinian terrorist organizations against Israel.
He eventually went to Afghanistan, where he was a major factor in helping the mujahideen repel the Soviets. An inspirational figure and a mentor of Osama bin Laden, Azzam would come to lead thousands of volunteers from across the Islamic world as they fought in Afghanistan, earning the title the “father of global jihad.” Azzam was assassinated with his two sons in Peshawar in November 1989.
The life of Abdullah Azzam offers one example of the ferocious commitment to Jihad of those determined souls who devote their lives to fighting the Infidels. When Israel won back Judea and Samaria in the Six-Day War, Azzam – unwilling to be governed by the hated Jews –moved from his native Jenin to Jordan, where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, and engaged in planning terrorist attacks on Israel. Eventually, he felt the call to help his fellow Muslims in Afghanistan fight the Russian Infidels who had invaded that Muslim land. Once in Afghanistan, he helped to recruit Muslims from all over the world to fight the Russians, and to prepare themselves to return home to conduct jihad throughout the world. Azzam became known as the “father of global jihad.” Among those he inspired was Osama bin Laden, and Azzam was the reason that Afghanistan became the refuge for Al-Qaeda. Jihad was his life’s work; he lived only to kill the Infidels, and to create a worldwide caliphate. He sacrificed his life, and the lives of his two sons, willingly, to the cause.
Unlike the leaders of the pan-Arab movement, from Gamal Abdul Nasser to Hafez Assad to Saddam Hussein, who all failed to unite the “Arab nation” on behalf of a common struggle, Azzam managed to bring together large numbers of Muslims from different countries, clans, and tribes to participate in a “holy war” — a jihad.
Azzam was a pan-Islamist, who found the pan-Arabist impulse too limited; it was not a united Arab world he sought, whether under its various champions, from Gamal Abdel Nasser to Hafez Assad to Saddam Hussein – to his much more ambitious project, a worldwide caliphate.
Azzam explained his vision in simple terms:
We will fight and defeat our enemies and establish an Islamic state on a piece of land in Afghanistan … Jihad will spread and Islam will fight elsewhere. Islam will fight the Jews in Palestine and establish an Islamic state in Palestine and elsewhere. These countries will then be united into one Islamic State.
Echoing the prophet Muhammad’s key message in his farewell address (“I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah’”), Azzam viewed the fighting in Afghanistan as the starting point for a global jihad, the ultimate goal of which was the establishment of a worldwide “Islamic Nation” (or umma).
When President Joe Biden expressed his confidence in the stability of the regime in Afghanistan by pointing out that “the Afghan army has 300,000 well-equipped soldiers … and they also have an air force. In contrast, the Taliban has only 75,000 soldiers,” he made clear that he has no understanding of this reality. Although those numbers are in dispute, the victory of the Taliban over the US in Afghanistan is a lesson for the world on the tremendous capacity of spiritual strength and faith to win protracted conflicts against far superior enemies.
Biden, a rational Western man with a limited imagination, thought only in terms of numbers – “the Afghan army has 300,000 well-equipped soldiers…and an air force,” while the Taliban has “only 75,000 soldiers.” He did not recognize the tremendous effect of the Taliban’s “spiritual strength” (which sounds almost admirable), that is, the fanatical desire of its members to fight against Infidels and any Muslims – the Afghan government and army – who were allied with the Infidels. And while the Afghan army consisted of recruits waiting for their next paychecks, the Taliban fanatics were prepared to give their lives. Thus when faced with certain defeat and likely death at the hands of the Taliban, the Afghan army melted away, its soldiers surrendering or fleeing in droves, while the Taliban were never afraid to die. It is this fanaticism of the Taliban that Biden, and so many others in Washington, seemed unable to comprehend. Homo islamicus remains a mystery to them.
In the first years of the war, the Americans had overwhelming superiority over the Taliban and inflicted many severe defeats upon it. But partly by virtue of their religious faith, the Taliban fighters were able to withstand those defeats. They believed in what is known in the Islamic faith as the “stage of weakness” (Rahlat al-Istidaf), which requires patiently biding one’s time in anticipation of opportunities. Their faith thus served as a strategy enabling them to cope with what might be a long wait
The Americans, on the other hand, could not bear the burden of a protracted struggle without a solution in the foreseeable future. On a deeper level, they discounted the religious roots of the conflict, which are expressed, among other things, in the rejection of the message of Western-American prosperity. As Mordechai Kedar put it, “August 15, 2021 will forever be remembered in the Islamic world as the victory of Islam over Christianity, the victory of faith over heresy, and the victory of tradition over permissiveness. … These events are pumping new blood into jihad arteries and the results are being seen around the world, including in Israel.”
The Taliban’s Islamic warriors are patient; for them what happened 1,400 years ago, when Muslims swept out of western Arabia to conquer vast territories from the Atlantic to the Gulf, is just as real as what happens today in Afghanistan. They are willing to wait out the foreign Infidels, Russian or American, taking the long view, and certain that in the end, beginning with Afghanistan, and then, by slow degrees, the entire Islamic world, will unite in a single caliphate and force the world’s Infidels to submit to the true Islam, the Islam of, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Taliban is committed to a struggle over the long haul. The Americans were willing to engage in an anti-Taliban campaign for 20 years – the U.S.’s longest war — but at a certain point, the cost-benefit analysis told them it was time to leave, for they finally realized that no matter when they left Afghanistan, the patient, stubborn, fanatical Taliban would take over.
Indeed, the American defeat will have a direct impact on Israel. Like the pseudo-government foisted by the Americans on Afghanistan, which, despite massive investment, turned out to be useless against the forces of jihad, the Palestinian Authority administration and its security forces will collapse in time against its Islamist adversaries, notably Hamas. Its overwhelming material and technological superiority notwithstanding, the IDF stands no chance of defeating Israel’s Islamist enemies unless its soldiers are driven by a relentless belief in their national cause.
The lesson of the Afghanistan debacle for Israel is twofold. First, the PA, which is full of corrupt time-servers who have no intention of sacrificing their Swiss bank accounts or luxury villas in Ramallah’s “Diplomat’s Compound,” much less their lives, in fighting the Zionists, offers a monitory example. The PA is now besieged from within by Palestinians who have had enough of the despotic and corrupt regime, headed by a man who will not let go. Those Palestinians have been protesting for two months over the killing, by PA barbouzes, of the human rights activist and harsh critic of the PA, Nizar Banat. The PA could collapse at any point, if the protests keep spreading and become too much for the PA to handle; many are predicting t PA’s territory will then be taken over by the Islamic fanatics of Hamas.
Second, Israel’s citizens need not become fanatics to match the fanaticism of their enemies; unlike so many in the demoralized West, Israelis are still “driven by a relentless belief in their national cause.” While Western countries have ended their military draft, Israeli males willingly accept the sacrifice of spending two years and eight months as IDF draftees; in addition, all Israeli males must serve as Reservists, giving 36 days a year to their army service until they reach the age of 40. Israeli females must serve for two years. This military burden – the heaviest one in the Western world – is assumed willingly by the Israelis, who know that their country’s very existence is at stake. They are constantly reminded of the malignant and murderous enemy they face. When Hamas launches rockets from Gaza into Israeli cities or sends incendiary balloons into Israel to set fire to farmland and forests, when Hezbollah adds to its armory of 150,000 rockets, when both Hamas and Hezbollah spend hundreds of millions of dollars on vast tunnel networks that the IDF has managed to unearth, when Iran’s Supreme Leader and IRGC generals vow to destroy the Jewish state, when Palestinian terrorists keep killing Israelis — yeshiva students, hitchhiking soldiers, a female police recruit, a Jewish family murdered while driving in the West Bank – the Israelis are reminded every day of the answer to “Why We Fight.” Despite differences among Israelis in political and religious matters, they are united in understanding that they must fight, unceasingly, for their state’s existence, as they have done in three major wars – in 1948, 1967, and 1973 – as well as in many smaller campaigns, including two wars against the PLO and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and four wars in Gaza against Hamas.
There is no end to this. But the Israelis, more than any other people in the advanced Western world, have repeatedly shown a steely determination to fight, against great odds (in 1948 and 1967), to absorb devastating blows, in 1973, and to fight on, always able to finally wreak havoc on their multifarious enemies. The Mossad has demonstrated endless creativity in acts of derring-do to delay Iran’s nuclear project. What the Israelis possess isn’t the fanaticism of the Taliban. It’s better than that, the esprit de corps of a citizen army, led by brilliant professionals, that knows it has no other choice.
Infidel says
As somebody pointed out, it’s worth noting that for all their Judeophobia, ISIS has to date launched not ONE attack on Israel or Israelis, since they know that they’d be Israel’s target if they did. So they lash out against everyone else around them
Dr Rand Paul had it right when as usual, he dissented from the party line as he noted that while the withdrawal itself was most incompetently executed, the collapse of the Afghan army illustrated that we should have withdrawn from that country a lot sooner, before we sank trillions of dollars there. He pointed out that the Afghan army hardly fought, but they expect us to do the fighting for them! He also pointed out that this illustrated the failure of nation-building and hoped that we never try it again
https://rumble.com/vlmedo-its-hard-to-imagine-a-more-incompetent-withdrawal-dr.-paul-addresses-afghan.html
gravenimage says
Rand Paul is right.
bill says
Superior in arms and numbers the Afghan army could have beaten the Tban just by attrition had they stood their ground. The last time I believe a small army defeated a much larger and better equipped force was the battle of Agincourt!
I am sure also that if it had not been for Obama’s ridiculous ‘rules of engagement’ the USA and their allies could have decimated the Taliban
Elizabeth Lawson says
History is repeating itself – however late, in this Afghanistan skirmish that has tragically left 23 dead marines and countless civilian injuries. In the year 710 (date might be a bit out) Charles Martel, ‘The Hammer’ decimated the Spanish Muslim army sent to destroy France and establish a Caliphate at the price of ending Christianity. It, like that current violence being waged across the world, was a holy war. Charles and his army knew perfectly well what was at stake – not only their own lives, but those of their families and all Christian civilization. The name he was given described how vicious and determined a warrior he was in defence of his faith and his culture. In the past twenty years, the West has played host to millions of young Muslim men of military age who have by their conduct established a disinterest – even dislike, for the European and other Western cultures in which they reside. We believe that we ‘rescued’ them from life threatening and/ or unbearable death – dealing circumstances. Meanwhile, in the West, we see and hear of our ‘grateful’ immigrants ( many, not all) murdering our citizens by knife, bomb, etc., and raping / murdering our young girls, rioting, freely disclosing their hatred for Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, B’hais, building mosques ( we Christians aren’t permitted to build churches in Moslem lands) and generally making a nuisance of themselves – at least, that is one description offered by reportage in recent times. It sounds innocuous that claim of being a bit of a nuisance- but, what if it’s not? What if these young men – indoctrinated to the goal of a worldwide Caliphate and the desire to fight for in in The WEST is really the long term plan? The Jewish citizen and their army know that their ongoing fight is one of survival. They are amazingly skilled, organized, heroic, and endure what they must to survive the onslaught of these mad dogs. Perhaps we might learn something from our Jewish friends?
Westman says
“…all Israeli males must serve as Reservists, giving 36 days a year to their army service until they reach the age of 40. Israeli females must serve for two years. This military burden – the heaviest one in the Western world – is assumed willingly by the Israelis, who know that their country’s very existence is at stake. ”
If only this was true for all Israeli males. “All” Israeli makes, stated above, does not include Haredi males who make up at least 15% of Israeli males. These are the men in black hats one sees at the wailing wall. They tend to use out-of-proportion public services, welfare, and have very large families; increasing their percentage of the population.
While it is understood and laudable that a group was set aside, during the creation of Israel, to carry the religion, it has slowly grown out of proportion and is now both a financial burden and a military weakness. It is “the elephant in the room”, whose discussion is often suppressed. Few dare to ask the question: “If Israel is in imminent danger of defeat, will they fight?”
Kepha says
It’s the great Israeli dilemma. Israel sought to be a homeland potentially for all Jews; nobody can deny that the Haredim are Jews. Yet the Haredim hold that the Jewish state is illegitimate unless it is restored by Moshiach himself. Moreover, the Haredim are people who are not ashamed of reproducing.
Doomer says
Personally I think the Israelis are not so intelligent.In fact,after decades of religious war on them by Hamas and Hizbullah, they are still,it hurts to say,but it is true,too stupid to see that the only way to have permanent peace is if,at least, minimum,
the 1.5 million Muslims who are Israeli citizens were to become ex-Muslims.That can only be achieved by having TV programs and newspapers and books that show why Islam is false. I have spoken to several Israelis and they are incredibly ignorant about Islam and its doctrines,and why it is all junk. And they didn’t seem very interested in learning,ignorance is bliss.It’s over.
PMK says
“…TV programs and newspapers and books that show why Islam is false. ?
Easier said than done. What gives any of us the right to make that determination? Islam may be a load of malarkey to you or me, but to Muslims, it’s their faith and their culture.
How long have atheists tried to wipe out religion? It hasn’t worked yet. It probably never will.
Unless Muslims are willing to live and let live, the fighting will continue until Islam is wiped out or all the world submits to Allah.
gravenimage says
Doomer, your belief that Muslims will listen to newspapers and TV shows telling them that Islam is bad is mistaken. They will not listen to the “filthy Infidels”–especially Jews.
gravenimage says
In Afghanistan, the Triumph of Fanaticism
In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s victory was not due to the the number of its recruits – the Afghan army was four times as large as the Taliban forces; nor to the superiority of its weapons, for the Afghan Army had tens of billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons given to it by the Americans, who also provided air cover for that army, while the Taliban recruits relied mainly on their rifles; nor to its battlefield tactics, but mainly, to the fanatical faith of its members.
………………..
Few in the Afghan army–almost all Muslims themselves–had any interest at all in actually fighting the Taliban. And why would they? The Taliban is perfectly Islamic.
David says
“They believed in what is known in the Islamic faith as the “stage of weakness” (Rahlat al-Istidaf), which requires patiently Biden one’s time in anticipation of opportunities.”
I would say that there is little chance of an Ummah, because Sunni and Shia hate each other (just slightly less than they hate the Infidel)
Why don’t muslims realise that being a muslim is a mug’s game? They are mere willing pawns. How stupid do you have to be to kill yourself as a suicide bomber?
James Lincoln says
gravenimage,
The only difference that I could see between the Afghan army and the Taliban was the degree of enforcement of sharia law.