Lessons of Afghanistan: Understanding the conditions that give rise to extremism.

• Author: Renner, Michael
• Position: Essay

How did Afghanistan become a "breeding ground" of terrorism and sanctuary for extremists? It is tempting to simply point to the Taliban as the cause. After all, the Taliban were nearly without parallel in their fanaticism, and were a willing host to the Al Qaeda terror network. But while such an answer is appealingly simple, it may also be deeply misleading. And if that explanation leads to reliance on a primarily military solution rather than on badly needed social and economic policies, the long-term costs and consequences may be incalculable.

It is no surprise that a country that has been utterly devastated should be fertile ground for extremism. The maelstrom Afghanistan finds itself in is the result of a range of disruptive factors, including disastrous meddling by outside powers, massive flows of arms, and murderous power struggles among Afghan warlords. The past quarter century saw the country's economy and public infrastructure obliterated, some 1.5 million people killed and an estimated 7 to 8 million people uprooted either inside or outside Afghanistan's borders.

The unraveling of Afghan society permitted the most ruthless and violent elements to emerge victorious. Step by step, successive waves of fighting since the late 1970s have killed, exiled, or otherwise silenced more-moderate forces. The Soviet occupation was immediately followed by factional fighting among Mujahideen warlords who killed and plundered civilian communities at will. The Taliban were the product of this long descent into impunity and societal breakdown. They attracted people who had experienced nothing but war and violence, lacked education and cultural moorings, were hateful toward women, and were bent on imposing their rigid, extreme, and simplistic worldview.

The Taliban had little difficulty replenishing their ranks. When they suffered setbacks in their campaign to conquer Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, Taliban forces were repeatedly reinforced by thousands of volunteers from Pakistan's madrassahs--religious schools that indoctrinated rootless and restless young men, many of them Afghan refugees. Many of these recruits eagerly signed up for what was billed as purifying action and martyrdom. For many, joining up with the Taliban meant gaining a degree of importance and self-respect for the first time in their lives.

The Al Qaeda perpetrators of the September 11 attacks do not fit this description. They were drawn from the middle classes of Saudi Arabia...