US-backed mujahidin enabled the Taliban power that later justified wars

Evidence

When in March 1999 Mavis Leno, wife of talk show host Jay Leno, took up the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban as a cause on behalf of the Feminist Majority, the oppression of Muslim women in Afghanistan overnight became a cause of concern for celebrities, politicians, and public opinion. Highlighting the horrendous conditions imposed on Afghan women allowed for the construction of a discourse that painted them as helpless victims, and Islamic fundamentalists like the Taliban as brutal oppressors in the name of their religion. The resurrection of this trope conveniently ignored the fact that through the mujahidin, the Taliban had indirectly come into power and military might with the support of the US government which had provided such support to develop a counterweight to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 543

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my Sacrifice article’s discussion of how rescue narratives are weaponized politically; also echoes the moral-panic framework where victimization rhetoric justifies punitive action. — connects to: The US trained the mujahideen from which al-Qaeda later emerged — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 396; CIA-trained Afghan militants later turned their violent skills against the United States — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 411; US-trained Afghan militants produced blowback against America as imperial power