Pakistan, the Taliban, other nouns that end in "an"...

So, a couple of days ago, Zane posted about the situation in Swat, in
Pakistan, with the Pakistani government signing a truce with the Taliban.

Zane noted that Mancur Olson's work suggests that, if we perceive the
Taliban as "the bandit," this may be good for things. While the roving
bandit has an incentive to pillage (and frankly, who doesn't love to
pillage), the stationary bandit has an incentive to make things richer
in the territory he/she controls (although, of course, there isn't a lot
of female leadership in the Taliban).

On one hand (sounding like an economist, unfortunately), I think this
might be accurate. There might also be a couple of other beneficial
effects of the Taliban taking over, too. First, they might do what the
neo-Wahabbi (sp?) fundamentalists did in Anbar, in Iraq, and end up
getting rolled over by the locals, who eventually decide that they like
things like non-religious music and alcohol. Second, they might become
more pragmatic through the act of governance--deciding that they might
have to allow things like alcohol in order to stay in control of the
situation.

However. I wonder about three things.

First, can we characterize the Taliban as "bandit-like"? Isn't one of
their appeals to the locals the fact that they _don't_ pillage? Taliban
rule is perceived, by some, as beneficial, because although their rules
are draconian, they're honest, and they really enforce their rules
impartially, so, for example, all women showing their ankles are stoned
to death, not just the poor, politically-unconnected ones.

Second, I wonder about a potentially missing cognitive component.
Olson's theory assumes that the "stationary bandit" _knows_ how to
improve the situation. Does he? Do the poorly-educated, mostly
illiterate people who run the T-ban really know enough about how the
world works to generate economic growth in the region of the world that
they now control? Maybe the answer is yes--I don't know. Maybe all
that's really needed is some good sexual-deviant stoning, and the
occasional loose-woman burning. In all seriousness, though, maybe all
that's needed is some law and order (of the kind that the Taliban will
undoubtedly bring).

Finally, I wonder if it's accurate to describe the "stationary bandit's"
incentives as beneficial to the population at large. There are clearly
some "stationary bandits" in places around the world. A couple in
Africa, for one thing. Robert Mugabe comes to mind. But the reality of
his rule has been very different from the positive spillovers we might
assume would take place from Olson's theory. If the Taliban are, in
fact, bandits (and the only Bandit I'm willing to recognize without
further examination was played by Burt Reynolds) then will they behave
like Robert Mugabe, or like someone more desirable as a ruler, like
(say) Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia? Or, for that matter, Ernesto
Villa?