Denial of recognition of the Taliban & the US message for Muslims

Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

The new US strategy

Enemies’ war never ends, it only changes its strategy. The same is true with the US’s war on the Taliban. The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, but so far not a single country has recognised the Taliban rule. The reason for non-recognition is simple. The US and its allies don’t want the Islamist enemies who inflicted a humiliating defeat on them should be rewarded with the recognition. The recognition of the Taliban means doing business with them. And the business means strengthening the Taliban. The US and its allies never want that.

The denial of recognition has an explicit message not only for the Taliban but also for all Muslims all over the world. There are ideological, political and strategic reasons for such a denial. This is not due to the USA’s love for democracy or human rights for Afghan people. There are many well documented genocidal regimes in the world. They caused huge deaths, destruction and mayhem on the earth. The US is the worst genocidal regime in modern history. It is the only state that used nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities. The US also used chemical bombs, barrel bombs, cluster bombs, mother of all bombs, predator drones against the civilian population. No country has gone to that scale of crime against humanity in history. Only a country like the USA with an embedded culture of ethnic cleansing of Red Indians, policy of enslavement of the Africans, occupation of foreign countries, destruction of cities to rubbles, killings of millions in the occupied lands as they did in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and insulting cum torturing the prisoners –as done in Abu Gharib in Iraq, and putting people in cages for decades without a trial -as practiced in Guantanamo Bay could go to that extreme of inhumanity. But no country ever denied the recognition of the USA, rather most countries want to be friendly with the perpetrators of the crimes. Thus the US has been rewarded in the global stage and recognised as the leader by the west. But the current behaviour with the Taliban is opposite to that.

After a humiliating defeat in 20 years’ war, the US and its allies have now launched a severe economic as well as a propaganda war. The people in Afghanistan are facing the worst economic hardships. More than 70 per cent people now face extreme hunger. This is the outcome of 40 years’ war by the foreign invaders –firstly by the Soviet Union and then by the USA. But the western media are running a vile propaganda to blame the Taliban for all these miseries. Such propaganda proved useful to hide the crimes of the US and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Now, the objective of the US and its allies is to bring a quick failure to the Taliban. And to expedite the failure, the US has robbed seven billion US dollars of Afghan treasure that were kept in the US banks.

It is claimed that the Taliban are denied the recognition on the ground that they are denying the human rights to Afghan people. It is another propaganda lie to hide their crime. Why is the issue of human rights so important when it relates to the Taliban? What about the human rights in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and other gulf states?  In those countries run by authoritarian regimes, people are denied minimal democratic rights for making any public protest rally or making criticism in public. Those who organise or attend protest rallies face massacre or long imprisonment. But the US and its allies maintain friendly relations with these brutal rulers.

Whereas the human rights stories in Afghanistan are different. The US Army entered Kabul with carpet bombardment and blood bath. But the Taliban took over the city without a gunshot. In the context of a long war, it is highly commendable. Those Afghans who worked as collaborators to the American occupiers and killed thousands of Taliban were forgiven and no revenge was taken. Protest rallies by men and women are allowed to happen in any Afghan city. The people are usually seen on the street to tell their grievances to the foreign reporters which are freely shown on foreign TVs. Can an Egyptian or a Saudi ever think of such a privilege? Can any foreign reporter move so freely in any of the gulf countries? So the issue is not human rights. It is indeed the political strategy of the US and its allies to use the issues of human rights as a ploy to deny the legitimacy of the Taliban rule. It is a calculated strategy to take the revenge of the defeat. Other countries –even most of the Muslim countries are following the US line only to avoid the US wrath and sanction.

Inclusivity: a farcical demand

It is blamed that the Taliban government is not inclusive, hence can’t deserve recognition. It is a baseless argument framed for pressurising the Taliban to keep them away from the Islamic path. Taliban has potential foes in Afghanistan. They always wish death for the Taliban. They fought war alongside the US to defeat them. After the defeat, the US-led western countries want these enemies of the Taliban to have a role in the policy making. Did such a thing happen anywhere in the world? Since Afghanistan now faces an economic crisis, the enemies want to exploit the situation for political leverage. In fact, inclusion of such enemies can be instrumental to dismantle the Islamic agenda of the Taliban. These insiders could be easily used by the enemies as Trojan horses.

The question arises, which country on the earth is inclusive? Is the US government inclusive? President Joe Biden narrowly won the last election only with 52 percent votes. So 48 percent of people are not represented in his government’s policy making. In India, Prime Minister Mr. Norendro Modi’s party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got only 40 percent of votes in the last election in 2019. So, 60 percent of the Indians remain unrepresented in his government. More than 200 million Indian Muslim have no say in the policy making body. Did the US and its allies raise any question of inclusivity against Modi? The same is true with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government in Pakistan. Imran Khan’s party didn’t get even 40 percent of the votes. Therefore most people of Pakistan remain unpresented in his government. It is an irony as well utterly shameful that those who failed themselves to be inclusive are demanding from the Taliban that they must be inclusive. And it is made a precondition for getting the recognition. This is indeed a wicked pretext to deny recognition to the Taliban. The US and its allies know that Taliban -like any other ideologues can never be inclusive. Communists can never be inclusive to accommodate capitalists, the same is true with the capitalists. Therefore, how can Islamists be inclusive to accommodate non-Islamists? Such inclusivity will bring their own political demise. One can’t expect that the Taliban should be so foolish. For the Taliban, the implementation of the Islamic prescription is the raison d’etre in a long bloody war. If they compromise on that, there exists no reason for them to be there.       

 The two options

Now it is clear that Muslims have only two options: either to stay with the enemies of Islam like the US-led coalition or with Islam. There is no third option. Most of the Muslim countries have decided to stay in the US camp. So, they support whatever the US and its allies do against Muslims. This is why the US’s brutal occupation of Afghanistan, the illegal war against Iraq and the indiscriminate bombing in Syria never got condemned by the governments of those Muslim countries. All the destruction of cities and villages in the occupied lands of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were done by the US and its allies. Later on joined by Russia in Syria. Millions of men, women, and children were killed and maimed by the invading armies. But to deflect the blame of such horrendous crimes, they blamed the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). What ISIS did are peanuts in comparison to the crimes of the US and its allies. But most of Muslim countries swallowed the US lie.

Not only the US and its allies, most of the Muslim countries overlooked the horrendous crimes of the brutal fascist regimes in Egypt, Syrian, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and many others. The military dictator General Abul Fatah Al-Sisi killed more than 1500 innocent protestors in Raba al Adabiya square in 2012. They were peacefully protesting against the coup against Egypt’s first elected President Dr. Mohammed Morsi. The US and its allies ignored that crime; and the killer General Al-Sisi gets rewarded with the regular annual aid by the US. The notorious regime of Saudi Arabia killed journalist Jamal al Khashogi in its Istanbul consulate and melted his body down the drain. But the killer regime in Saudi Arabia still remains as the darling of the west. The fascist regime in Bangladesh is known for genocidal murder of hundreds of innocent people on 5 May in 2013 in Dhaka, but such horrendous genocide didn’t bother the US and its allies. So fascist Shaikh Hasina continues her policy of extrajudicial extermination of the opposition leaders.      

The high demand in the west

The US and its allies have no love for democracy or human rights. They search for partners to sustain their global imperialistic dominance. They consider Islamists the only hurdles in their path. Hence, the genocidal massacre of the Islamists and brutal suppression of any Islamic revival in any part of the Muslim World enjoy high strategic value in the circles of the policy makers of US and its allies. So the first elected President of Egypt Dr. Mohammad Morsi was highly detested in the west. And the killers like General Abul Fatah al-Sisi of Egypt, Shaikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the crown prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and others of the same ilk enjoy huge demand in the west. And any adherence to the Islamic revival makes one the target of drone attacks. Even peaceful Islamists are labelled as terrorists.

So, one can be hundred percent sure that even if the whole Taliban turn angel, they will not be accepted by the US and its allies. Rather, such an angel-like character will maximise the hostility of the US and its coalition partners. The option is very limited. Muslims can stand either with Allah Sub’hana Ta’ala or with Satan. There is no middle way or third way. Nor can they take both the ways. Anyone who stands against Islam, he proves his alignment with Satan. The US’s robust enmity against Islam proves that it leads the satanic camp.

 The war on Islam

The US’s enmity against Islam and Muslims got an accurate expression when the former US President Donald Trump told that the US Army will bomb to rubbles any future Islamic state on any part of the world. It needs to be understood that attacking on Islamic state is attacking on Islam and the whole Muslim World. Islamic state has a special importance for a Muslim. How can a Muslim practice full Islam and survive as true Muslim without an Islamic state? Islamic state is the most important institution of Muslims on the earth. Muslims can stand as a civilisation force and defend Muslims only if they possess a powerful Islamic state.

Moreover, it is a prime obligation on every Muslim that he or she must work as the viceroy of Allah Sub’hana Ta’ala and implement His law –called sharia. Otherwise he or she proves to be a kafir, zalem and fasik –as revealed in sura Maida verse 44, 45 and 46. So practicing sharia is crucial to stay as Muslim. But sharia can’t be practiced in mosques or homes; it needs an Islamic state and its judicial institution for that. This is why Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had to establish Islamic state on the first day of his arrival at Medina from Makkah. And he stayed as head of that Islamic state for 10 years. It is indeed the greatest prophetic legacy. Muslims could emerge as the most powerful civilizational state on the earth and could raise the finest civilisation in history only because of adherence to that prophetic legacy.

The US’s war on Islam is real. Satan and his comrades understand the true power of the prophetic legacy of establishing an Islamic state, hence want Muslims to abandon that legacy.They can’t tolerate an Islamic state on the earth. Muslims are allowed to establish socialist, nationalist, fascist or tribal states, but not an Islamic state. They even call establishing such an Islamic state as terrorism. This is why the US and its allies have no problem with worst fascist and terrorist regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Syria, and Bangladesh. But they can’t tolerate Islamic emirate of Afghanistan. If the Taliban were brutal fascists against the Islamists like General al-Sisi of Egypt or Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia or Shaikh Hasina of Bangladesh could have received a lot of help from the US and its allies. Then, the US would have been very pleased and prompt to release the Afghan money of 7 billion US dollar from the US banks.

So the Taliban have no easy option. As long as they pursue establishing an Islamic state, the war will definitely continue. It may have some pauses but will never end. It is also clear that only those who possess the courage to stand against Satan and his viceroys can only stand for Allah Sub’hana Ta’ala and fulfil the mission of establishing an Islamic state. Cowards can’t qualify to be in jihad –the greatest ibada in Islam. They never add any strength to Islam. They only know how to surrender to the enemies. Paradise is not for cowards; only through jihad, one can pay the price. There exists no other alternative way to heaven. The Taliban could stay in the long war against the US and its 50 plus allies only because of their firm faith and valour. The US did 20 years’ military war in the past and may continue for another 20 or more years in the economic war, but they will never win the war on Islam. Because fighting against Islam means fighting against Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. It is the core element of belief in Islam. Can anyone dare defeat the All-Powerful Almighty Allah? 18/02/2022.