Conditions are such in Afghanistan that the only basis for unity is the army and
religion. These two forces  constitute the cohesive unity that unifies this
society.They are the only institutions that have a universal character that spreads
itself across the length and breadth of Afghanistan.  Conditions are so primitive in
Afghanistan that there is an absence of the value relations, as a universal social
form, necessary to establish a social cohesion that can lead to the historical
development of Afghanistan into a modern capitalist economy. Instead there exists a
patchwork quilt of diverse relations many of which are based on tribal conditions.
Consequently there is a tendency for individual tribal and village communities to
exist  independently of each other. These social features are laced over with barter
and exchange relations. There are also pockets of small industrial and merchant
capital together with landowners. However there is a conspicuous absence of any
overriding social relation of production that establishes a social unity among the
people that populate Afghanistan. Consequently the only forces capable of unifying
Afghanistan is the Taliban army and Islam. In many ways there is no Afghan society.
Indeed in  so far as Afghan society exists it is constituted by the Taliban state
which chiefly consists of the Islamic fundamentalist army of the Taliban.

The objective conditions that prevail in Afghanistan are the causes of the political
and religious conditions that prevail there. It is not, as Yankee imperialism would
have us believe, a mere subjective question. It is not a matter of these bad guys,
the Taliban, creating a theocratic state with despotic  features. The Taliban's
theocracy is the political expression of  a combination of the specific domestic and
international  conditions that prevail in Afghanistan. The political and ideological
character of Afghanistan is a product of both the internal relations obtaining and
the specific way in which imperialist capital has related to Afghanistan.

In many ways then the Taliban's success in establishing a state in the extraordinary
way that it has is the only way possible given the tremendously contradictory nature
of Afghanistan. In many ways it constitutes an extraordinary achievement on the part
of the Taliban. In so far as the Taliban is despotic and ruthless it is not because
this is its wilfully subjective predilection. It is because objectively this is the
only way, under the narrow constraints that prevail, in which a state can exist in
Afghanistan. This is the only way, given the extraordinary circumstances, in which
the Afghani state can exist. The Taliban state is not a capitalist state.
Consequently it inevitably bears an entirely different character to the bourgeois
state. This being so it is pure idealism to compare the model of the bourgeois state
with the Taliban. They are qualitatively different political forms. If the Taliban
were capable of adopting a liberal democratic secular programme they would never have
established state power. The conditions for a liberal democratic secular state just
don't exist. This is why it is farcical to hear the West discuss the need to
establish in Afghanistan a liberal democratic state in the aftermath of the fall of
the Taliban. This amounts crass subjective utopianism. Such suggestions amounts to a
form of subjective idealism which is equivalent to religion. The objective conditions
don't exist for the establishment of bourgeois democratic state are conspicuously
absent in Afghanistan. The objective conditions must be first created. Yet
imperialism has been busying itself with the destruction through air strikes of the
those very objective conditions that can contribute to the development of those
conditions. The destruction by US bombs of whatever infrastructure and key buildings
that exist there is actively furthering the objective conditions necessary for the
existence of the Taliban state together with its fundamentalist ideology.

One of the chief reasons as to why the Northern Confederation has been no match for
the Taliban is because the Taliban has organised itself into a state. In contrast the
Northern Confederation is disorganised and does not exist as a coherent unified
force. Among other things it lacks an ideology that unites them. The extreme
character of the Taliban's Islamic doctrine is the specific and unique glue that,
ideologically and culturally, holds the Taliban together. A more liberal less extreme
form of Islam could not have served this purpose. Islamic fundamentalism forms an
integral part of the Taliban army. It is the unification of the Taliban army and
fundamentalist Islam that constitute the unique conditions that render the Taliban
more effective as a force than the Northern Confederation. It is this inseparable
unity that constitutes the state. The organisation of the Taliban is superior to that
of the Northern Confederation. The peculiar character of its Islamic fundamentalism
is not just an ideology but a social form specifically adapted to the conditions in
Afghanistan. With its mosques and other social institutions it constitutes Afghani
society in a way that is beyond the capacity of the Northern Confederation.
Consequently the imperialist bourgeoisie's attempt to destroy this unique state is
tantamount to the destruction of the very conditions necessary if Afghanistan is to
emerge from its medieval like conditions. The imperialist bourgeoisie's massive
attack on the Taliban is evidence of the limitations and obsolescence of that class
and the need to replace it. It demonstrates the imperialist bourgeoisie's crass
stupidity. Instead of seeking to build on the conditions constructed by the Taliban
to create the objective conditions required for a democratic secular society it
feverishly strives to destroy such conditions.

The Taliban army's Islamic fundamentalist character invests its soldiers with a
passionate drive that renders them fearless in the face of the enemy. In many ways
the Taliban is analogous to  Cromwell's Roundheads.

Regards
Karl Carlile (Communist Global Group)
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