From the Sunday Washington Post:

“In squads of roaring dirt bikes and armed to the teeth, Taliban fighters are spreading like brush fire into remote and defenseless villages across northern Afghanistan. The fighters swarm into town, assemble the villagers and announce Taliban control, often at night and without any resistance.”

More important, however, is what they do to anyone who is suspected of cooperating with the U.S. Empire or the Karzai regime: they summarily execute them, without any due process of law or trial.

Consider what happened to a man named Sayid Arif, who was apparently working for the Afghan government. They yanked him from his car and just shot him, leaving him with a note on his chest that said, “This is punishment” for anyone working for the government.

Or consider what happened to Khairullah, a young man kidnapped by the Taliban. Khairullah’s father, Sifullah, went in search for him, knowing that he was risking his life in the process. When he finally found the Taliban unit that had taken his son, they said, “Why did you come here?” He replied, “I want my son.”

After four hours of arguments and the payment of $1,300, he got his son, but with a message: “You must promise that your son will never work for the foreigners again.”

According to the Post, “This is the message the Taliban regularly preaches in mosque speeches and in letters distributed to villagers. One such letter, passed out on Taliban stationery in Faryab, told villagers that ‘you are the nation that defeated the British again and again.’”

No matter how brutal the U.S. occupation of Aghanistan, there will always be a segment of Afghan men and women who will do anything to uphold their nation’s heritage of resistance to imperial interventions by the Great Foreign Powers, including Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

After all, imagine if the United States got into a war with China, one that China ended up winning. Imagine the Chinese military occupying the cities and towns of America, ruling from Washington, D.C., and aided by military units from Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.

Sure, many Americans, including federal workers, would work for and cooperate with the occupation. But certainly there would be a segment of American men and women who would form a violent resistance, one that would target not only the occupiers but also the Quislings who cooperated with the occupiers.

Thus, the Taliban have a psychological advantage over the U.S. Empire. As brutal as the Taliban is, it can appeals to Afghans’ sense of pride, nationality, heritage, and patriotism in the quest to rid their nation of a foreign occupier.

That’s why the U.S. Empire will never conquer Afghanistan: The cause for which Afghans are willing to give their lives — the ouster of a foreign occupier from their land — is greater than the cause for which American soldiers are being ordered to risk their lives — to prop up a corrupt puppet regime in a faraway land that will do the bidding of the U.S. Empire.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.