America Has Been in Denial about the Taliban from the Start

Unless your name happens to be Andrew Cuomo, you can’t be happy about the headline-grabbing attention the Taliban have gotten over the last ten days.

Since they emerged a quarter-century ago, the Taliban have commanded the attention of Americans incessantly. They’ve probably never had it quite like they have it now, though. Even after the essential role they played in the 9/11 atrocities, our sights were mainly fixed on al-Qaeda — fixed on the hands-on terrorists, not the knowing and willing terrorist hosts.