Well the ³Northern Alliance² is in control of much of Afghanistan . Of course, they were getting their tails whipped until the United States taxpayers started bombing the heck out of Taliban positions, a technique that is believed to have cost approximately one billion dollars a week.

Now they are somewhat pointedly telling the West ³Thank you very much for your help. Now get out.²

This is, at a certain level, understandable. As someone pointed out, if in 1780 the French had said ³We¹re going to be leaving occupation forces in the new country to make sure you are good boys,² Georgie Washington and company would have reacted with less than pleasure. Despite the notable help of the French in the way of resources and pinning down portions of the British Navy.

However, there are vast differences. One notable aspect of the American Revolution is that, with very few exceptions, there was not a great killing directed at the Loyalists. Indeed, even Loyalists who had participated in raids against rebel colonists were accepted, if not with open arms. What did not happen is, in retrospect, amazing. There was not widespread looting of Loyalist farms and businesses. There was not widespread raping of Loyalist wives and daughters. And Loyalists were not hanging from every tree until the road from New York to Philadelphia looked like Rome after the Spartacus uprising.

Now, the degree of ³atrocities² thus far perpetrated on the Taliban is arguable. When a group is entrenched in a urban fortress, even one made out of a school, and refuses to surrender, then killing 80% of them is normal and anything but an ³atrocity.² However, the record of the Northern Alliance Forces is well known in Afghanistan . The NLA had once been in control of Afghanistan , many of them are the ³followers of the former elected President Rabbani², and they spent their entire administration raping and looting the majority Pushtun. The Pushtun are notorious for their long memories and this was not all that long ago. There are plenty of Pushtun women who would love to get their hands on a Tajik or Turkic soldier for a while. They¹ve been sharpening their knives for ten years.

Furthermore, despite their pronouncements about a ³pluralistic government,² the leaders of the NLA have already begun consolidating power along their tribal lines. Indeed, the followers of the late Massood have been referred to, with justice, as a ³Panjiri mafia.² What this means is that the entire group might be of one ethnicity, but they are led by a single tribe within this ethnicity. And it is that tribe, one not particularly popular among their own ethnic group, much less among the whole of Afghanistan , which is rushing to take power.

This would be on the order of a small gang from a single street in Brooklyn trying to ³rule² all of New York . It¹s been done before and it wasn¹t pretty. It¹s even less pretty when the gang has a thousand year history of raping the women and killing any men who protest.

We have to keep our eyes on the prize. The point to the entire expensive exercise is to ELIMINATE STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM FOR ALL TIME. But if we allow the Afghans to follow their own head, it leads, inevitably, to another Taliban. Because when the Taliban came to power they were better than the NLA forces. Better for the country, better for the women, better for the children. It¹s better to wear a burqua than to be raped and murdered. When you¹re facing a binary solution set like that, you tend to put on the friggin shawl.

What we have just done is, effectively, turn back the clock. We have wiped out the conditions that developed in Afghanistan over 20 years. But if the present Bush administration now says ³Okay, we¹re done,² it will be as huge a strategic mistake as not going to Bagdad was for his father.

His senior policy advisers know that. But there will be tremendous pressure to declare victory and go home. Especially when our erstwhile ³allies² start resisting our ³suggestions.² Like ³no, you can¹t rape all the women and sell the sheep.² And even moreso when we find ourselves ³bombing the next group of ragheads.²

Pray for President Bush, for Condi Rice and her advisers. The tough part has just started, politically and militarily. And remember, it¹s not when the going is easy that a president needs friends.