This week's Taliban attacks on the Afghan capital Kabul (which our Special Air Services were involved in repelling) signal the possible beginning of a Tet-style offensive by the Taliban.

Indeed, there are many similarities between the Taliban attack made on Kabul this week and the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive of 1968. For one thing, in both cases, there were a very small number of guerillas involved but within a short space of time they managed to wreak havoc in the capital city of their main enemy. In the case of the Taliban in Kabul, they managed to detonate a carbomb and battle their way inside several key buildings during a rampage that lasted several hours. This brought Kabul to an almost grinding halt while President Hamid Karzai was swearing in his new cabinet nearby. Similarly, in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), the Viet Cong socialist guerillas managed on January 31st, 1968 to sow a similar amount of chaos by letting off bombs and even briefly capturing the US Embassy in what was then the South Vietnamese capital.

After a while, both the Taliban last week and the Viet Cong in 1968 were roundly defeated. However, the main lesson that the Taliban may have been drawing upon from the Tet Offensive was as to how the Viet Cong turned a stunning defeat into a great victory. This was the case as the Tet Offensive illustrated how vulnerable the US and its South Vietnamese ally were to guerilla attacks from the Viet Cong. Therefore, this raised the morale of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies as they confronted the imperialist foe. Conversely, this attack struck the first blow to American and South Vietnamese morale and helped turn public opinion in the United States against the Vietnam War for the first time. Exactly five years later, in January 1973, the Americans practically admitted defeat when they signed the Paris Peace Accords with North Vietnam and then withdrew. Two years later Saigon fell to the liberation forces of Socialist Vietnam.

An American and allied defeat is also what the Taliban will probably be hoping for as the long-term outcome from last week's attacks. These religious jihadis might well have studied the brilliant guerrilla tactics of the atheist Viet Cong before last week's mission in Kabul in order to attain their goal of re-establishing a repressive Islamic state. In fact, I would argue (as have others) that the American-led invasion of Afghanistan has served to strengthen and not weaken the Taliban. Already, the Taliban are back in control of vast tracts of the country and last week's attack on Kabul was a possible warning that a major Spring offensive on their part is in the wind. Any Taliban offensive might be difficult to repel, even in the wake of the troop surge ordered by US President Barack Obama. Besides, under the Clinton Administration, didn't the United States welcome the Taliban's initial seizure of power in 1996? Only after September 11 did the Americans seek to do anything about the Taliban and only because they had hosted Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda on Afghan soil.  And that was after the Americans had pressured the Sudanese and the Yemenis to expel him and Al Qaeda from their respective countries.That's why I believe that the American's cynical behaviour has come back to bite them.

So what should be done about the Taliban? I agree with left wing American film maker Michael Moore who believes that US and Allied troops should be withdrawn and the Afghans left to decide their own future. Moore believes (as much as I do) that there are far more practical ways to defeat the Taliban beginning with the holding of corruption free democratic national elections. The United Nations should also step in after any full withdrawal and send in peacekeepers from predominantly Muslim nations as part of a truce agreement with the Taliban. Furthermore, a Marshall Plan style economic and social assistance package should be granted to Afghanistan by the UN which favoured genuine reconstruction in terms of setting up new ecologically friendly industries and farms to employ the millions of unemployed and poor Afghans who might otherwise either join or support the Taliban. Besides, building more schools, hospitals and community centres across the country would improve ordinary people's access to social services and enhance their wellbeing.

But for only so long as the aid effort is half-hearted and the Americans and their allies continue to kill and capture innocent Afghan civilians will the Taliban remain a threat. Take the Americans out of the equation and introduce some really genuine economic and social assistance (on the same scale that helped rebuild Germany and Japan after the war) they will not be. Otherwise, there might be more Tet style attacks yet to come in Kabul and other Afghan cities.