The Canadian Army Journal

obvious abilities is to make a grave error; exposes coalition forces and creates a
vulnerability that can be ill-afforded. However, they are not invincible; the seeds of their
destruction are, in many ways, already in place.
Combating the Taliban
It needs to be stated from the outset that the focus of the following thoughts on
combating the Taliban is more on the operational and strategic, vice the tactical, levels
of land warfare. My reasons for this approach are primarily because it is at these levels
that I believe our efforts are lacking the clear vision and intent that is required to beat our
enemy. At the tactical level our operators are generally solving the problems that they
encounter when dealing with the Taliban, but victory will not be as much the product of
their actions as one might hope. If we are to succeed against the Taliban, it will be the
result of strategic and operational level decisions to specifically target the inherent
weaknesses within the Taliban as an entity, and not stem from our low-level successes
(as important as these most certainly are). Possessing an understanding of what serves
to motivate these warriors will expose potential avenues of attack that can serve to
undermine the power of the Taliban at the source, rather than attempting to resolve the
issue on the battlefield.
However, the potential solutions which follow should not be misconstrued as being
conducted in isolation (i.e. without a concurrent application of military force); to do so
would expose us to the underside of Kathy Gannon’s “truism” in Afghanistan: “strength
equals respect, weakness equals fear.” 69 We must therefore continue to demonstrate
military strength in parallel with the ideas proposed below if we are to maintain credibility
with the Afghan people, while minimizing the influence and abilities of the Taliban.
Our first step should be the mitigation of the theological influences which are the
underlying motivation for the current generation, and perhaps the future generation, of
Taliban warriors. To be certain, this is by no means an easy process and the likelihood
of influencing current members of the Taliban is probably limited. However, if we are to
remove them from the battlefield, we need to first remove the strict tenets of Deobandism
and Wahhabism, which provide the motivation for them to continue fighting. This could
be done by injecting moderate imams from the western world into the mix within the
mosques of Afghanistan, and into the Kandahar province in particular; by undertaking
diplomatic initiatives with both the Pakistanis and the Saudis to have them cease funding
extremist madrassas which continue to churn out the next generation of fighters.
This could be coupled with a western effort to fund either secular or moderate-
Islamic based educational facilities within both Afghanistan and Pakistan itself. It should
be noted that the construction of schoolhouses is not enough to make this work; efforts
need to be made to identify teachers and staff who will then be able to impart either a
secular curriculum or a much more tempered version of Islam than that to which students
in this region are currently being exposed. Again, there is no doubt as to the difficulty
and cost of this course of action; however, in the end it is equally certain that unless we
change the way that people think when they come out of the madrassas, there is little
likelihood of success.
The element of education is also something that must be considered by relief
agencies, including the United Nations. Much of the current problem stems from the fact
that the only educational opportunities available to refugees from the Afghan-Soviet War
were resident in extremist madrassas. Education, as an integral part of relief efforts,
coordinated and controlled by those funding the construction and sustainment of the
camps, must become the norm. To do otherwise is to simply allow for another version
of extremism to crop up.
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spring 2008
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