The Gentle Sleep

Thanks for being reasonable about the Taliban thing.

I feel a lot of the confusion stems from calling them the Taliban from 2001-2022, and the Islamic Emirate before and after that. If the Islamic Emirate was treated as a belligerent in a 20 year civil war where they waned and got pushed to the brink, but eventually won, I doubt there’d be any debate. It’s the making confusion that makes people THINK there’s a gap when there isn’t.

Hence I’m on the Taliban page right now trying to rally for a merger. All three eras should be on one page, because it’s the same entity. Islamic Emirate, informally Taliban. -- Unsigned comment from anon

• I try to be as objective as possible about these sorts of things, and there is so much propaganda/ information control regarding them that it's impossible for outsiders to make an informed value judgement.

• In a conflict so steeped in blood and tragedy all we can do is try to record the history from a neutral perspective as best we can.

• The nature of the IEA as an entity is a philosophical question of whether we judge the existence and nature of political entities based on deeds or based on outside recognition. I fundamentally believe in the concept of national sovereignty, so I must also believe that a nation can exist without the approval of the UN or any other outside arbiter.

• The IEA have never referred to themselves as the Taliban, that name was assigned to them by westerners who did not recognize their government which held dominant power in the region from 1996 to 2001. the IEA have always referred to themselves as the emirate from and since 1996, have continued to fly their flag, have continued to hold some territory in the region at all times, and have continued to enforce their laws within the borders of their controlled territory. Although their territory was extremely small at times, it doesn't follow objective logic to view them as anything other than a state which was engaged in and subsequently won a 20 year civil war. They have existed as a continuous entity, and it seems disingenuous to view it any other way unless the person in question doesn't believe in the concept of national sovereignty. --The Gentle Sleep (talk) 06:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Are you a taliban supporter?

Slightly personal question, but it seemed to me that some of your talk page comments, and your userpage comment, seemed rather sympathetic to the Taliban. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 05:31, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• I don't support them in particular, but the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan clearly has the support of the Afghani people, and I fundamentally believe in the right for a people to determine their own destiny. I don't live in Afghanistan, so I would not presume to make value judgments on their choices, but they clearly didn't choose to support the Islamic Republic. This is why foreign interference is such a problem, it isn't the place of westerners to decide how Afghanistan should be ruled or by whom. --The Gentle Sleep (talk) 05:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
  • This is probably a bad place to further the discussion, but keeping in mind WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:DISPUTED, I'd say that clearly has the support of the Afghani people is clearly untrue if meant as a blanket statement - there is overwhelming consensus in reliable sources that large portions of the Afghan population fear and hate the Taliban. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 06:25, 17 August 2021 (UTC) (edit). I should add that I take no position on your opinions on foreign interference or on westerners. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 06:31, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
    • That was a statement of personal opinion based on the speed of the IR's collapse, rather than being a statement of fact. Only time will tell how the people feel once the dust settles, buyer's remorse takes a while to set in after all. Hopefully that answers the question posed. --The Gentle Sleep (talk) 06:53, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Copying within Wikipedia requires attribution

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you copied or moved text from Afghanistan into Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. While you are welcome to re-use Wikipedia's content, here or elsewhere, Wikipedia's licensing does require that you provide attribution to the original contributor(s). When copying within Wikipedia, this is supplied at minimum in an edit summary at the page into which you've copied content, disclosing the copying and linking to the copied page, e.g., copied content from [[page name]]; see that page's history for attribution. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to also place a properly formatted {{copied}} template on the talk pages of the source and destination. Please provide attribution for this duplication if it has not already been supplied by another editor, and if you have copied material between pages before, even if it was a long time ago, you should provide attribution for that also. You can read more about the procedure and the reasons at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Thank you. — Diannaa (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

• Sorry about that, I'll remember to do so moving forward and I've now corrected all the errors I made along those lines. --The Gentle Sleep (talk) 04:17, 20 August 2021 (UTC)