Stardate 20011021.1549 (On Screen): This news report describes an interview with a Taliban soldier who was captured by Northern Alliance forces. There are two noteworthy things about it. First, he had only been inside the country for 15 days, having arrived from Pakistan. Raw recruits like that thrown into a front line position are nearly always completely useless in real battle; it takes a long time to acclimate to the rigors of combat. When serious shooting starts, they nearly always either cower or flee or do something stupid and get themselves killed.
More important is that he was lied to by the recruiter. He was told he would be fighting Russians. This leads to interesting speculation: why wasn't he told a different lie that he'd be fighting Americans? Obviously there are negative feelings about the Russians from way back; could it be that the Taliban are not as successful in raising anti-American feelings among their recruits? And as useless as raw recruits ordinarily are, how will they react when they discover they were lied to when recruited? Will they still have any will to fight? (discussion in progress)
