THE WRONG WAR WAS FOUGHT IN AFGHANISTAN.

ICHEOKU says one thing with ideology is that you can kill the messenger but can never kill the message. Long after you think you have killed the promoters, some people who were already indoctrinated and who had survived the cleansing, will always emerge from their relative obscurity to continue propagating the ideology. They will become the new torch bearers of the message and will pass it on, in continuation of the mission, spreading it from where their inductors had been forced to stop. This is why it is often very difficult to kill an idea by simply killing those who manifestly possess it, because the idea might be incubating in some people who were similarly inculcated and other escapees and survivors of the earlier bloodletting. 

In the battle of ideas, conviction is the key; the reason it is always better to attack the mind than the body of those whose idea you want to supplant with yours. You have to convince them on why your idea is better than theirs, and why they should change their mindset and replace it with what you have brought along. The mindset is a deeply rooted place that once something takes root, it stays and is often difficult to upend it without some serious effort. It is mindset that make  believers and followers do what they do and sometimes even die for their cause. The Taliban is  convinced in the rightness of their position and that what they have is the best and superior to any other and that it is either it or nothing at all. So, no matter how many of them were killed, it would not have made any difference as many more will readily pop up to take the place of the killed. 

It happened in the Bible with early Christians where believers were willingly going to their deaths rather than change their conviction about heaven, Jesus Christ and God. The Bible is filled with such stories where believers were thrown into dens of lions, stakes driven into them, some burnt alive, tortured and beheaded, yet they refused to bulge or renounce their faith. They were simply convinced and they believed; and they would rather die and go to paradise than recant their faith. The Taliban is not an exception as they are equally convinced in the rightness of their cause and that what they believe in is pure; and therefore not amenable to change or subject to any other superior teachings out there. This is their driving force and it helped them stay the course until they retook Afghanistan. 

The policy wonks of America did not do their homework very well as they failed to appreciate  what exactly drives the Taliban that made them so committed and loyal to their cause that they would gladly die than accept what they consider philosophy of "invaders" in their country. They believe in their divine calling and that what they are doing is sanctioned by their Allah and no human being compares to Allah to make them change course. It is so deeply entrenched in them and they are convinced that if they die fighting, it will be an automatic ticket to paradise as martyrs. For them paradise is far much better than earth, hence the incentive to make it quickly over there; the reason they were not afraid nor intimidated by the all powerful American military and eventually drove them out of their Afghanistan.

It takes more than ordinary courage to stay the course and eventually achieve such a feat against what is considered the mightiest military on earth. This is why the Taliban is  over joyed and celebrating, alongside some other countries tacitly; that finally, the almighty America military which nobody has ever dared before now, were finally "defeated" and forced to beat it out of Afghanistan. They had the staying power and tenacity to go the long haul, unfazed by death and unperturbed by the military prowess of America; and it was only their conviction that propelled them to the finish line, securing a victory over America. As far as they were concerned, it did not matter that they lost 60,000 fighters against less than 10,000 "invaders", provided their ideology survived and lives on.

Instead of targeting and killing the physical Taliban, the mental Taliban should have been targeted and killed; and thereafter they can be reprogrammed with the new Western ideology that places women over men. The American people are like the Taliban in some ways, in that they are resolutely passionate about their country and maintains an abiding conviction that the American ideal is superior to every other. Americans also are convinced that their country is the best country on earth and that everything and anything America is better than any other. Americans also believe that homosexuality is good and they will not allow anyone to tell them otherwise and will sometimes go to war to defend their values and what they believe in. Similar drivers move the Taliban, the reason they will not allow anyone to tell or dictate to them otherwise. 

It comes with early indoctrination of so many years where American kids are taught that their country is exceptional, that they can be whatever they want to be and that their country is the greatest country on planet earth. Majority of Americans will rather die than submit to any other country's authority or bow to alien philosophy other than what they grew up enmeshed in. It is this nationalistic commitment in their country and ideals that they share with the Taliban in that the Taliban were also born that way. The Taliban were raised, believing in the superiority of the male over the female; and that women are  here in this world to just incubate babies put in their wombs by men and also to take care of the home. This cast in stone mindset is what was left un-attacked in the wrong war fought in Afghanistan which went for the body of the Taliban and not their mind.

It is embedded in their DNA and no Jupiter would have made them change their ways simply by killing them. This is why America lost the war. America went for their body instead of their mind. America should have aimed the battle at deconstructing the many years of unbroken indoctrination which forged them into battle tested and fearless soldiers of Allah. The Taliban should have been convinced on why their orientation is not the right one. We killed them for oppressing women when we should have convinced them on why it is wrong to oppress women. We killed them for being too harsh on their people when we should have reorientated them on better approach in meting out justice, law and order. Simply put, it was a clash of civilizations and one failed to defeat the other, period.

ICHEOKU says strongly believes that had America fought the right side of Taliban, gone for their minds and not their physical bodies, that the war would have been successful and ended much sooner than it lasted. Like Communism, if America had applied the same kinetic force against it, communism would have still been a thriving force today. But no, America attacked the mind of communism and was able to convince communists that capitalism is a better economic way of life and with it, the added democracy. We battled the wrong demon in Afghanistan by fighting the Taliban with bullets and bombs instead of literatures, kindness and the power of persuasion. 

The Taliban should have been approached like another "ism" (Taliban-ism), conquer their mind and they would have easily succumbed their body in addition. Deeply entrenched beliefs are very difficult to uproot any other way, short of completely erasing the mindset which drives them and repopulating it with a new memory. The early Christian missionaries, after watching Crusaders fail, changed course and adopted the war of the mind approach. Instead of swords, they used their bibles, kindness, gifts and power of persuasion; and once the local population took the bait, they were then able to convince them to drop their beliefs and such other practices that were disagreeable in order for the goodies to keep on coming. This was how many places were won and colonized and it lasted as long as it did; that even after independence, these former colonies are still largely tied to the apron string of their colonial masters. 

Slavery was pulled off in the same way as slave masters convinced African kings and chiefs that instead of going to battles and killing each other, they should capture war prisoners and exchange them for some goodies including gunpowders, which will in turn improve their odds in waging wars as they will be using guns instead of bows and arrows. They also convinced them on the economic viability of trading in slaves as there is much money to be made in the business and persuaded Africans to start kidnapping each other to be sold as commodities for the trans Atlantic human merchandize. They did not bomb Africans into trading slaves and not all the guns in the Western world would have made Africans to do so. They simply went for their minds and such approach would have worked in Afghanistan, although it is doubtful the military industrial complex would have allowed it as such is not as profitable.