Our military commanders know that the hardware now in the hands of the Taliban can be taken out within a few weeks, if not days, leaving them without means to defend themselves, - conventionally.

But this is asymmetrical warfare, in which the size of the adversary is to his advantage. If we state that the objective is the surrender of the regime, then, even if we achieve a formal surrender of their military and political state apparatus, we will have formed the base for a prolonged guerrilla Jihad for years to come.

Our principal advantage in this struggle in Afghanistan is precisely that we do not have to uphold, or bring down, any particular regime, as the Soviets did in their disastrous Afghan war.

The CIA can covertly support the Northern Alliance, as we have supported other factions in civil wars in the past, but not openly fight along side with them, in what is sure to be a prolonged guerrilla war.

If the Taliban will not agree to let us enter to hunt down bin Ladin and destroy his suicide training camps, we would only have to fight a conventional war against their meager military machinery, with their 10 or so aircraft and hundreds of rusting Soviet-era tanks and artillery.

This short conventional campaign should not present a problem to us. We would destroy the Taliban's military capability, destroy bin Ladin's organization, and then leave. The mistake would only arise if we insist in staying on to the end of all Taliban armed opposition, by fighting the guerrilla remnants in a Jihad.

Let the various Afghani factions fight it out among themselves, in a post bin Ladin guerrilla reverberation war, where we covertly support the Northern Alliance as a proxy, and Islamic Fundamentalist nations support the Taliban. It will turn out that the Taliban does not have any international support, since they have nothing to offer the victor: no oil, no money, only poverty and despair.

Condolessa Rice's statement that "The Afghan people would be better off without [the Taliban]" is read overseas as an invitation to meddle in the internal affairs of other nations. This is precisely the "we know what is best for you" attitude that has gotten us into trouble in the past. In this age of digital information, there are no "domestic consumption" news. Everything that is said at official levels reaches a world wide audience. If we have not learned this lesson by now, we should do so, quickly.

We can however use political means to isolate the Taliban, while at the same time promoting humanitarian efforts which will help feed and clothe the millions of Afghanis refugees, until some light shines into the confused minds of the Taliban leadership.

We should also refrain from economic embargoes on Afghanistan, for humanitarian reasons. In due time, the Taliban's time will come to let their People develop into their own concept of democracy and justice. It is time to stop using the Holy Koran as an instrument of power and mass domination.

Atlanta
September 24, 2001