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Originally Posted by Godless Dave
I did support the invasion, but I had no hopes that we'd see an end to this sort of thing. Afghanistan doesn't have much of a secular power base, and the only time it had anything like secular government was when the Soviets were in charge. Many of the Islamist mujihadeen who kicked out the Soviets were from abroad, but many more were native Afghans.
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Indeed many were, but that doesn't mean they represent the majority attutude. From the little I've read I've gained the impression that Shariah law and fundamentalist Islam doesn't in fact have a long tradition in Afghanistan, instead Sufism has been more influential, which focuses more on mystical and personal aspects of religion rather than establishing a theocratic state with religious punishments. It's an area I don't know nearly enough about, but this
wikipedia article seems to back up my impression of the Taliban as a movement fairly unprecedented in Afghan history.