Responding to this story about French and Belgian Muslims* wanting to fight in Afghanistan, Naeem notes:

It bears repeating that reports on Taliban atrocities must be taken with a grain of salt, especially when it’s been reported that US forces are aggressively employing “strategic communications” (read disinformation) to counterweigh their losing military strategy in Afghanistan [...] So unless you are reporting from the battlefield, please spare me the blanket denunciations against the Taliban (or any other resistance for that matter).

I do not doubt the US spreads disinformation (from mild forms of propaganda to outright lies). But the actions of groups like the Taliban** have been noted long before the US ever invaded Afghanistan, and long before such people were portrayed as a ‘grave threat’ to ‘the international community’ (i.e. the narrow interests of a few rich and powerful countries) by disingenuous politicians.

It is wrong to try to divorce the discussion of ‘resistance’ movements from their actual actions and political ambitions. This is like discussing liberal interventionism, which seems nice on paper, without paying attention to the evidence which helps us form a judgement as to whether such a policy is good or not, especially for those who we are told are being ‘liberated’.

So, yes, there is a general principle that people have a perfectly legitimate right to use violence and overthrow an occupation, but unless you want to tread the path of ’supporting the Taliban’***, you can’t be blind to what such groups actually do:

Of the 2,118 civilians killed in 2008, 1,160 [~55%] were killed by insurgents, the UN said, of those, 725 were killed by suicide and roadside bombs, and 271 died in targeted assassinations.

(And people who openly support such groups are at least more honest than those who hide behind phrases like ‘alternative narratives’… heh.)

*It is worth asking the question why the French or Belgian Muslims who are said to be offering ‘alternative narratives’ in Afghanistan did not consider offering ‘alternative narratives’ to the poor and downtrodden in their own countries, especially given many such people are also likely to be their own brothers and sisters in faith. Was it fighting oppression or the glamour of violence (and killing Americans) that was the attraction for these men?

**Granted a lot of the media stuff on this is likely to be simplistic.

***I am not sure what Naeem means by ’support’. Singing their praises on the streets of Birmingham or London, or via email lists? ‘Material support’? Or constructing ‘alternative narratives’ such as those above?