Taliban fighters stand guard at a checkpoint on the road in Kabul, Aug. 25.

Photo: Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi/Associated Press

I’m sure you’ve seen the photo of a group of Taliban soldiers raising their flag in a mocking facsimile of U.S. Marines famously raising the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. If this Taliban propaganda boils your blood, you are not alone.

The Taliban are gloating, and it hurts to watch. Yet it’s notable that in their moment of triumph, our enemies chose to copy one of America’s most iconic symbols. Taliban goons carry American rifles, wear pieces of American military uniforms, and snap selfies with their smartphones as they parade through the streets of Kabul.

Yes, we lost the war. But what do we make of the Taliban’s apparent imitation of the American military aesthetic? For most of us, especially those who served in Afghanistan, these recent images are a far cry from what we remember of the enemy’s appearance. The Taliban militant most American veterans of Afghanistan would recognize is a lean, bearded foot soldier clad in the robe known as a shalwar kameez and a pakol hat, with sandals on his feet and a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, unencumbered by body armor or a heavy kit. Not these guys.

If our enemies are now willing to ditch their traditional mien in favor of appearing more American, how did the Pentagon brass and the think-tank gurus not use it to our advantage? Surely an enemy so willing to mimic our ways must be vulnerable to questioning his own cause.

Though the Taliban refused to surrender on the battlefield, they seem willing to surrender to the promise of an easier life. Videos have recently emerged of Taliban soldiers working out in a gym in Kabul’s presidential palace. With wide grins our enemies move from machine to machine, amazed by the novelty. Other videos purport to show Taliban soldiers riding around in bumper cars at an amusement park and enjoying a merry-go-round.

These men hardly look like combat-hardened jihadists with hatred for the West in the depths of their souls. The truth is, they look a little pathetic, seemingly naive to some of modernity’s basic pleasures. Given the debacle at the Kabul airport, these videos make our defeat a bitter pill to swallow. We lost to these guys? Really?

Afghanistan’s median age is about 18. More than half of the country’s population—Taliban fighters included—can’t remember life before the 2001 American invasion. Many young Taliban soldiers have spent the entirety of their lives, or close to it, at war. They have led lives of privation and suffering in constant proximity to death. They have never tasted freedom or considered the pursuit of happiness as a possible path.

During my stint in Afghanistan as an Air Force special operations pilot in 2010 and 2011. I read detainee reports that detailed how some younger Taliban militants thought the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were done in retaliation for America’s Afghanistan invasion. They were simply too young, and too cut off from reality, to know the truth.

I don’t think iPhones and amusement park rides are going to shepherd the Taliban into the modern age overnight. It will take more than gadgets and good times to reverse their atavistic trajectory. But there is a lesson here, which the next generation of American leaders should consider: Freedom means more to the oppressed. All people, including our enemies, naturally yearn for their inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

By giving the Afghans a taste of democracy for 20 years, we have sown the expectation of freedom in their minds. Taliban leaders can try to suppress it, but the desire for freedom is an immutable part of the human heart. Freedom is always worth fighting for, and plenty of dark forces like the Soviets have foundered in the end, even after gaining power. The Taliban will be no exception.

Mr. Peterson was a captain in the U.S. Air Force and is author of “Why Soldiers Miss War.”

Wonder Land: Kabul’s conquerors hold the leverage in defining the terms of a postwar status quo. Images: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition