The Taliban’s Western Defenders Have a Consistency Problem

A video recently circulated of an Afghan mullah expressing frustration with the Taliban. His complaint was not about foreign policy or ideology. It was about poverty and hunger. While millions of Afghans struggle to survive, he said, some Taliban officials appear more concerned with personal privileges — including taking additional wives — than with easing the suffering of ordinary people.

It was a small but revealing moment. A religious figure from within the Taliban’s own environment was saying what many Afghans quietly say: those who promised to restore justice have failed to address the daily struggles of the people they rule.

This raises an uncomfortable question: if the Taliban cannot protect their own citizens from poverty and despair, how can their system of rule — especially its restrictions on women and girls — be defended abroad?

To be fair, sympathy for the Taliban among some Western writers and analysts does not usually come from cruelty or indifference. Many have focused on the failures of the U.S. and NATO intervention in Afghanistan, and they are right that the war caused enormous suffering. Others argue that the international community must engage with the Taliban because they control the country and because ordinary Afghans need humanitarian assistance.

These arguments deserve to be considered. But they do not answer the central question.

Understanding why the Taliban gained power is not the same as accepting how they govern. Explaining the failures of the previous Afghan governments or criticizing Western intervention does not require defending the denial of basic rights to Afghan women and girls.

Writers such as Anand Gopal have highlighted how foreign intervention, corruption, and political failures contributed to Afghanistan’s crisis. That perspective is important. But history can explain the rise of a movement; it cannot excuse the suffering caused by that movement once it takes power.

The contradiction becomes clearer when we look at personal choices. Many people who argue that Afghan society must accept the Taliban’s restrictions live in countries where their own daughters have access to education, careers, and equal rights. They would never accept those same restrictions for their own families.

So the question is simple: would you accept for your daughter what you are willing to tolerate for a girl in Kabul, Herat, or Kandahar — a girl prevented from attending school beyond the sixth grade?

If the answer is no, then we must ask why the same standard does not apply to Afghan girls.

Human rights cannot depend on geography. The value of a principle is tested when defending it becomes inconvenient. It is easy to support freedom when the people suffering are close to us. The real test comes when the victims are far away and when those responsible claim historical grievances.

This does not mean ignoring the failures of the previous Afghan governments or denying the damage caused by foreign intervention. Two things can be true at the same time: Western intervention can be criticized, and Taliban oppression can also be condemned.

There is no contradiction in saying: no to foreign domination, and no to the denial of human dignity.

If the goal is truly to help Afghans, the focus should be on practical solutions: humanitarian assistance that reaches ordinary people, support for Afghan women and civil society activists, and meaningful protection for Afghan refugees. The world can oppose war while still standing against injustice.

As the Persian poet Saadi wrote:

"Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation, of one essence and soul."

Those who feel no pain for the suffering of others, Saadi warned, lose their claim to humanity.

The Afghan mullah in that video, whatever his other beliefs may be, expressed an uncomfortable truth about the people ruling his country. Those who seek to understand the Taliban’s history must also confront the reality of Taliban rule. The suffering of Afghan women and girls cannot become the price paid for someone else’s political argument.