[onedoug]

These characters seem to be getting kinda bossy.

[American Soldier]

I'm not sure this is really a veiled threat. Any Afghan would know how volatile the response of the average armed Afghan could be when presented with a white-looking foreign soldier. And the N. Alliance government knows that they don't have anything like full control over that country, even the areas that are marked in their color on the map. Any pissed off warlord could start lynching some of these foreigners and they'd have a hard time stopping it.

On the propaganda front, we have to concentrate on doing everything possible to make it clear to these people that we don't want to occupy their country and that is going to be a VERY hard thing to convince them of - especially since we are now vigorously courting the Russians and the Afghans have memories of fighting off men from the British Empire. People ought not forget that we are dealing with Asians; we don't value face like they do, so it's a good deal for us to let them save as much of it as possible.

[janus]

Mr Massoud said that if they were there to clear mines and reopen the airport for humanitarian flights, then the Alliance would have no objections

Obviously Mr Masssoud is a clymer who thinks that the Northern Alliance actually beat the Taliban forces by themselves.

[DoughtyOne]

Ahem. Look, if these boys want to mix it up fine, we'll just drop a few down their stove-pipe. I'd put them on the same notice the Taliban got. There's not going to be another represive junk-yard government in Ashcanistan. If you make one move towards not playing ball we'll finish the job. "Get it?"

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Pretty stupid of them. We do know their positions more so than the Taliban forces. We can conduct air strikes and ground assaults with more precision against them.