��Slouching Toward Medina 259sidered democratic only insofar as it reflects its society, if the society is
founded upon a particular set of values, then must not its government
be also?
Admittedly, ever since September 11 it has been impossible to
ask such questions without immediately conjuring up pictures of
Afghanistan under the Taliban. In fact, the image of the Afghan
woman enveloped in the burqah and subjugated to the whims of an
ignorant band of misogynists has become the symbol of everything
that is backward and wicked about the concept of Islamic governance,
and such images are not easily supplanted by political philosophies.
IN THE FALLof 1996, a group of ethnic Pashtun religious students
from the poorest, most conservative, and least literate provinces of
Afghanistan and Pakistan rolled uncontested into Kabul, hoisting
their trademark white flag representing purity. The students stormed
the United Nations compound where Afghanistan’s president was
hiding, dragged him into the streets, pummeled him to death, and, at
dawn, hung his bloated body from a lamppost. In this way the Taliban
made its fearsome presence known to the world.
The Taliban first entered the global stage along with a massive
contingent of Muslim militants—known as the Mujahadin, or “those
who wage jihad”—from the Middle and Far East, Central and South-
east Asia, and North and East Africa, who from 1982 to 1992 were
recruited and armed by the CIA to take part in a jihadist insurrection
against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With Saudi funding, the
Mujahadin were sent to Pakistan where, with the assistance of Zia
al-Haq’s fundamentalist régime, they were trained in terror tactics
and indoctrinated with a militant combination of Shah Wali Allah’s
religio-political ideology and Wahhabism’s radical puritanism, all
under the supervision of then CIA chief William Casey.
The United States had long considered Wahhabism to be an
important ally in the “Great Game” being played out against “godless
Communism.” In fact, to solidify Saudi support, the United States
took the extra step of drafting a wealthy Saudi student with intimate
ties to the royal family, Osama bin Laden, to finance and oversee the
insurrection in Afghanistan. Called “freedom fighters” by the CIA