David Rohde’s Insights Into What Motivates the Taliban: Held by the Taliban

David Rohde writes about the seven months he was held hostage by a group of extremist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conveys this observation about what motivates them:

My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged. Apparently, when we drop bombs on Muslim countries — or when Israel attacks Palestinians — that fuels anti-American hatred and militarism among Muslims. The same outcomes occur when we imprison Muslims without charges in places like Guantanamo and Bagram.

One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we’ve managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy — and who fight against us because we’re doing that — and call them “Terrorists,” thereby “justifying” continuing to bomb and occupy their country further (“We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay”).


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8 responses to “David Rohde’s Insights Into What Motivates the Taliban: Held by the Taliban”

  1. dr jawwad khan Avatar
    dr jawwad khan

    One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we’ve managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy — and who fight against us because we’re doing that — and call them “Terrorists,” thereby “justifying” continuing to bomb and occupy their country further (”We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay”).

    _______________________________________________________

    this is a dajjali world we are living now.we believe whatever this system believe in. we repeat whatever this system says. this system decide how to talk,what to talk, what is against manners,how to dress,how to eat,what to eat and what to watch.

    see! an american journalist can feel that nonsense which is enthusiatically promoted by our liberal minds.

  2. yaseen ch Avatar

    So ,will Obama be the man to draw Forces from Afghanistan? Keep fingers crossed.

  3. JJ Avatar
    JJ

    The US and Izrael bomb, invade, and occupy a foreign country, and then make ILLEGAL for the locals to fight back. How convenient !!!! It is beyond absurd and almost laughable.

    The saddest part is the world does not recognize this reality and easily buys into the propaganda that these local are mad dogs who need to be killed when in fact the Iraqis and Afghanis and Palestinians and Pakistanis are only functioning in a homeland security role to protect their precious homelands from the invaders. The US can have homeland security, but no one else can.

    hmmmmmmm

  4. farrah shah Avatar
    farrah shah

    Does US realise how much we dispise her without hating its people and films.

    A country which defies it's own institutions,it's own charter of democracy and the institutions of World Bank ,IMF,Human Rights and United Nations are all hostages to USA in the ambition to rule the world.

    Muslims are not to be sub-verted.

    Islam is a religion of submission ,only in front of ALLAH.

    USA cannot understand the faith which believes in here after.

    What gives us consolation when we fail in this world ,Promise of the hereafter.

    I am a woman so I would not get seventy virgins and no I am not contemplating to kill anyone including myself but I do contempalte ,"A suicide bomber maybe an ignorant man but what was his conviction at the time of death"

    We may call it foolish but just because USA is so powerful manipulating the regional politics,twisting our arm,

    tiding our hands behind our back,helping our neighbours,creating caos in Afghanistan and sending people from over the world to get us killed.

    We are still not fooled.Death is ultimate .How we die is important.

    I am proud my Nation is defiant and deying in defending their side of Truth instead of accepting what USA is trying to sell us.

    Democracy ,like a quinaine wraped in sugar candy.

    21st century is a witness how USA tried to steal nuclear weapons from Pakistan and got millions killed.

    A story written in Blood from Palestine to Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan to Pakistan………

  5. AHR Avatar

    Muslims pride in the belief of the afterlife and respect for our current existence. But now it seems we just don’t give a damn about it all. If I were to tell you that a governor was appointed for paying massive amounts of dollars or a minister is making money by selling LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) files, I can guarantee you no less than a thousand emails and text messages would be circulating Pakistan. We are not a nation of drama queens. Enough is enough!

    http://ahraza.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/enough-is-

  6. farrah shah Avatar
    farrah shah

    @AHR …

    Belief system is not a matter of pride,it is more a way to live.

    How the circumstances (government ) dictates us but how we choose to react is our choice…….life is precious and so is every bloody penny we earn the thing is what we collectively do to preserve our future and skin

  7. Eagle Avatar
    Eagle

    Get the real insight who is in dress of Taalibaan…. It is blackwater and all agents of anti-muslim forces. STOP blaming Muslims..

  8. readinglord Avatar
    readinglord

    What an idiotic naaka-bandi, school-bandi, double-bandi is going on in this blighted country in the name of security? They have made any Paki common man suspect subject to personal search at every naaka and made to stand and wait for hours together at a distance from a road subject to a security 'root' for the passage of a V.I.P. in the scorching sun or freezing cold.

    And all this they say is being done to save people from 'terrorists' whom they consider not humans but mad dogs.

    But what actually is the result of all this is the increaze in corruption and extreme inconvenience and humiliation of the public without providing them any sense of security worth the name.

    I am afraid bomb-blast on a bank in Rawalpindi today, a very clever and sinister move by the 'terrorists', may provide our rulers with an idiotic excuse to close all the banks in the name of security as they have done with the schools and that would, God-forbid, be the end of all economic activity.

    The only way out of this predicament, in my view, is to treat the people who are really sacrificing their lives too, may be not for a good cause, as human beings and not mad dogs.