Everyone dismissing the Taliban as unsophisticated is in for a rude awakening. It's easy and self-affirming to say they're backwards mountain men. The hubris of the west is maybe its greatest weakness.
Granted, the system and culture does make a massive difference in terms of the trajectory and compounding effects of a populace. But these remarks come off as thinly veiled racism, rather than a critique of the political systems involved— and I’m not someone who sees racism behind every blade of grass.
Somehow when it's people with a different skin shade these accusations of racism come up. Racism is a red herring. 99% of the time it turns out to be the case that racism is a lazy explanation for something more complicated or uncomfortable to explain.
Your definition of "racism" is far too narrow if that doesn't count as a racist statement to you.
The notion of "anti-Irish racism" in the UK or USA, or "anti-Polish racism" in Ireland, is widely accepted enough for me to believe that the definition I'm used to isn't unreasonable.
Let's not confuse nationalism with racism, even if the two are quite often intertwined.
Japan in the 1950s and 1960s was viewed as a copy-cat manufacturer of cheap stuff. A few decades later, and things changed.
There was a joke about this shift in the movie Back to the Future.
I'm sure the Gulf states and Pakistan, even China or Iran would be happy to help.