What's with the belief that the anti-Soviet Mujahideen became the Taliban?

[The Mikado]

It has effectively no factual basis whatsoever.  Basically the entirety of the Taliban's leadership were in Pakistani refugee camps throughout the Soviet War in Afghanistan, where they were taught by a low-ranking vet of the war, Mullah Omar, who lost his eye in the mid-80s and left.  The people that actually were in Afghanistan (Dostum, Massoud, Hekmatyar, Rabbani, etc) were not the roots of the Taliban at all, and their power struggle with each other is what gave the Taliban their opening (with Pakistani financial backing) to win over the people as an alternative to chaos.  Even then, Hekmatyar even tried to ally with Massoud(!) against the Taliban.  None of the senior Mujahideen commanders ever ended up in the Taliban government, and, again, most of the Taliban's senior leadership (excepting Omar) were too young to fight the Soviets in the first place and were kicking their heels in refugee camps.

I keep hearing people trot out this myth that the Mujahideen evolved into the Taliban, and it's not really based in fact at all.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Political convenience. Yeah, I find it annoying as well.

[courts]

annoying. but its sort of fascinating to see the evolution of who primarily push foward that particularly inane talking about. a decade ago or so ago it was pretty much entirely the trustafarian crowd. now it seems to be infecting the right wing. not just the paul people either.

[Simfan34]

Idiocy is bipartisan.

And that includes me, I suppose. Mikado, I will admit I actually believed that theory until just now because of my lack of information on that subject. Thank you for informing me. I assume the Mujaheddin was composed of people like Massoud et al? 

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Thank you for this nugget of information Mikado. I too had assumed that what was spouted was true.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Didn't a large amount of Mujahedeen foot soldiers with combat experience and donated weaponry later join the Taliban though?

[The Mikado]

Didn't a large amount of Mujahedeen foot soldiers with combat experience and donated weaponry later join the Taliban though?

Much of Hekmatyar's forces defected to the Taliban after he lost Kabul in 1996, but mostly because by that point Taliban victory was a fait accompli.  The original 1994 Taliban was pretty much all refugees in Pakistan (funded by the Pakistanis after Hekmatyar proved to be a very poor puppet).

Idiocy is bipartisan.

And that includes me, I suppose. Mikado, I will admit I actually believed that theory until just now because of my lack of information on that subject. Thank you for informing me. I assume the Mujaheddin was composed of people like Massoud et al? 

It was more a collection of 70+ different militias without a formal hierarchy who, after the fall of Kabul in 1991, promptly started shooting each other for three years until they lost all credibility and the Taliban swept in.  Massoud was a Tajik, he wouldn't have been able to hold the show together, but Rabbani was the figurehead he was backing.  Massoud/Rabbani vs. Hekmatyar with the (ethnically Mongol, religiously Shia) Hazaras getting shot at by everybody and shooting at everybody.

[minionofmidas]

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It was more a collection of 70+ different militias without a formal hierarchy who, after the fall of Kabul in 1991, promptly started shooting each other for three years.

People like Saint Massoud et al, in other words. His canonization is largely due to being more likeable than all the alternatives, esp. the Taliban of course, and the timing of the final sucessful assassination attempt (to quote wikipedia and then take it from there: "The assassination of Massoud is considered to have a strong connection to the September 11 attacks in 2001 on U.S. soil which killed nearly 3,000 people and which appeared to be the terrorist attack that Massoud had warned against in his speech to the European Parliament several months earlier.
Analysts believe Osama bin Laden ordered the assassination to help his Taliban protectors and ensure he would have their protection and co-operation in Afghanistan." This completely baseless but understandable and widely held belief of Western secretservicemen and other insiders is behind a lot of the wrong decisions that led directly to Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and, arguably, to the Taliban's continued existence to this day.)

[they don't love you like i love you]

It might be tied to the similar myth the US and CIA had significant ties to Osama bin Laden and his network that evolved into al Qaeda and that bin Laden was a major player in Afghanistan in the 80s at all (which was a construction of his own propaganda).

[opebo]

I think the larger point - that the Soviet-installed government was better than anything since - is still valid, regardless of which group of warlords is 'Taliban' and which group is 'Mujahedeen'.

[LastVoter]

I think the larger point - that the Soviet-installed government was better than anything since - is still valid, regardless of which group of warlords is 'Taliban' and which group is 'Mujahedeen'.

[Simfan34]

I think the larger point - that the Soviet-installed government was better than anything since - is still valid, regardless of which group of warlords is 'Taliban' and which group is 'Mujahedeen'.

You are far too intelligent to believe that drivel which opebo does not actually believe himself, right?

[LastVoter]

I think the larger point - that the Soviet-installed government was better than anything since - is still valid, regardless of which group of warlords is 'Taliban' and which group is 'Mujahedeen'.

You are far too intelligent to believe that drivel which opebo does not actually believe himself, right?

Well, there isn't a group of rulers that performed particularly well in the Middle East. But certainly the Soviet ones were the best among a bad bunch. I guess the only exception is Ataturk, but that was before Soviets could install government in the region. But I suspect the point of this post is to defend the King of Saudi Arabia or some other monarch as an example of properly installed government. Either way, the people you admire(British upper-classes) are responsible for making it difficult to have a proper government in the region.

[minionofmidas]

I think the larger point - that the Soviet-installed government was better than anything since - is still valid, regardless of which group of warlords is 'Taliban' and which group is 'Mujahedeen'.

You are far too intelligent to believe that drivel which opebo does not actually believe himself, right?

Uh, there's nothing remotely controversial or questionable in what he actually said. Given all that has followed since (yes, including America's terroristic misrule over the past decade). Whatever he might have implied. It wasn't good in and of itself. Or better than what went immediately before it.