I understand what you are driving at by evaluating the comparison to the Taliban as racist, but I don't believe the logic holds up. The Taliban are not an ethnicity but one, radicalised organisation within an ethnicity; to associate them with Texan religious fanatics does not associate all Muslims with Texan religious fanatics. It just equates one form of radicalism with another.

I suspect that moderate Muslims who have felt the lash of the Taliban would not be offended by the association.