Hi Selectric II; Re: "They could pollute the strategic road into Kabul for a very long time, and as foreigners themselves, they care little about Afghanistan except as a base of operations. One cannot put anything past the Taliban/Al Qaeda, as recent history already has shown all too clearly."
Not a chance. The Taliban was stupid to try and defend Mazar-i-Sharif from the open countryside away from the city. They were still in the mode of thinking that they were on the attack against the Northern Alliance, so they never pulled back from their forward lines. They should have simply retreated to the city, and forced the US to drop bombs on the suburbs to root them out. Instead, they kept their front lines in the best possible kill zone the US could have set up for them.
When they broke, they broke like every army that was ever completely routed did. No organization, complete fear and it was every man for himself running for the security of being far, far away from the fighting. There is no way that they're prepared to set up guerilla positions in the mountains near there, and there is no way that more than a few percent of them are going to make it to Kabul.
If it was all a "strategic withdrawl" or a "carefully executed retrograde assault", they wouldn't have done it in a way that would force them to abandon their armor, artillery, and supplies (as well all those nifty Toyota pickups) to their enemy, LOL!!!
If they wanted to "pollute the strategic road into Kabul", what would they do? Urinate by the side of the road? After that retreat it's likely their bladders are already quite empty. The worst thing I can think of that they could do would be to have their really sick soldiers use the local wells as latrines.
The Taliban troops retreating out of Mazar-e-Sharif are spending their time wondering if they'll freeze, die of starvation, run out of water, or surrender. Can you imagine what's it's like for an Arab from a hot country like Saudi Arabia to be in the Hindu Kush in winter? Unprepared with warm clothes and only possessing what they could carry in a 30 minute exit of the city? I bet they surrender in droves over the next week. These guys don't have the military logisitics and planning that Napoleon took with himself into Moscow, so they're in a worse position.
Hey, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Either way you'll know it by Monday morning. It appears to me that the Taliban's problem is that they don't enough about tactics to choose the proper terrain to defend.
-- Carl |
