Taliban is regarded as an idea; which means that truly confronting the Taliban means confronting their ideology. The idea behind the Taliban is something like this: America and Israel are evil, and Muslims should destroy America and Israel and take over the world to make the whole world follow sharia. This idea can be highly contagious, and it is important that it be confronted at the idea level and in so doing reduce the need for military action.

One way to do so is as follows: If not for America, then Afghanistan (where the idea of Taliban was put into fullest implementation) - and the rest of the world - would be following Communism. It was America that armed the mujaheddin, and without America's help Afghanistan would have succumbed to the Soviet Union. And had they succumbed to the Soviet Union, they would not be able to practice Islam period; whereas with America as the top-dog country they have the freedom to be as Muslim as they want to be for as long as they aren't killing Westerners in the process.

Another part of confronting the idea of Taliban is the religious argument. If Allah really is omnipotent, and if he wants everyone to follow him, then he would be able to accomplish this himself without requiring the assistance of mortals. It makes no sense to fight for an omnipotent entity, as an omnipotent entity by definition can do whatever he wants to do. There is no possibility of helping an omnipotent being, and no sense of fighting for an omnipotent being, because an omnipotent being does not need your help.

Furthermore, to avert people who stand to be attracted to the idea of Taliban, it merits showing the reality of their rule where they have ruled previously and are now. Afghanistan under the Taliban was the worst place in the world. Young girls were forced to marry old men and had sulfuric acid thrown in their faces if they weren't wearing burqa. Music was forbidden. The people were starving except the ones who made their money selling opium, and the cities and villages of Afghanistan were in ruins. However many problems come with American influence or the global economy, Taliban is much worse.

As far as the Israel argument is concerned, it bears reminding that Israel provides a lot of benefit to the Middle Eastern countries, as it provides them with technologies, food and manufactures while also being a market for their products. The land that is Israel was bought from the Middle Eastern countries, and the Muslim people who lived there were compensated monetarily. Meanwhile the people from there who were displaced into neighboring Muslim countries were never accepted and never assimilated, and these people continue to undergo discrimination from their Muslim brothers. And while Israel has - irrigated deserts, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, and high levels of technological innovation - its Muslim neighbors (the half-Christian Lebanon excepted) remain ne'er-do-wells whose people continue to live in poverty and brutality. Poverty and brutality that they blame on Israel and America, but that are a direct consequences of their own choices, Allah or no Allah.

Intellectual solutions cost much less in money and bloodshed than military solutions; which is why they should be applied wherever possible. Mental effort must be extended to finding ways to counteract the Taliban idea and in so doing to warn people vulnerable to Taliban indoctrination away from it. The more this is done, the greater the savings in lives and money. This is one effort to that effect.