Nobody Likes a Loser
If nobody in Afghanistan agreed with the Taleban, how were they able to rule that country so ruthlessly during the last five years? If the opposition to Taleban rule was as widespread as the images of joyous people in the streets of liberated Afghan cities suggest, why were the Taleban not defeated during the first skirmishes of civil war that erupted after their creation?
One answer to these questions is financial: Resources from Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani intelligence service (the brains behind creating the Taleban) provided a seemingly endless supply of soldiers and weapons. The other answer is more basic and derives from attributes that comprise the very essence of human nature: Nobody wants to have it known that he/she supported a losing or defeated group.
Prolific evidence validates this assertion: When Napoleon ruled France, thousands of young men swore allegiance to him and marched to war to enhance his role in Europe. When the course of events forced Napoleon from power, most French people who previously extolled the Emperor quickly gave the new government their full loyalty. That loyalty did not extend to preventing future revolutions, but it did at least deny Napoleon the return to power he dreamed of attaining.
When the rule of the German Kaiser ended after the first world war, the national sentiment (which only one year previous had supported its monarchy) suddenly swung to favor its reinvention as a republic. Declaring oneself to be a monarchist was sure to lead to ridicule if not worse. When the Weimar Republic crumbled and the Nazis gained power, public opinion found ways to justify the policies of the new dictator: "He is creating jobs; he is making this a more modern country; he will correct the wrongs that were done to us at the Versailles conference". All signs of serious political opposition vanished, and not entirely because the would-be leaders of the opposition were serving long sentences in the various extermination camps. The simple fact is that even through most of the second world war, most Germans supported their government because the risks of not supporting it were too great, and the benefits that could be gained from "playing along" with it were equally great. For similar reasons, when it was clear the Nazis were on the losing side of the war, Germans en masse disavowed their support of their government as a way to protect themselves when the inevitable occupation began.
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