Stardate 20011119.1203 (On Screen): Rumsfeld has announced that the US opposes any deal with the Taliban either at Kunduz or at Kandahar to let them walk out safely. Damned straight, too.
The critical issue here is not the native Afghans holding out in those cities, but the "guests", the foreigners, the Arabs and Pakistanis and Chechens and Uzbeks. Those are al Qaeda; they're the guys we went to war to annihilate. They're the ones who are responsible for attacking us, and they're the ones who want to keep attacking us. We aren't fighting to remove them from Afghanistan, we're fighting to remove them from the world.
The US doesn't have the ability to enforce a surrender, but does has the ability to prevent an escape. What this means is that even if the locals make a deal to allow the Taliban to march out of one of those city, the US will bomb them as they retreat. (And there's nothing anyone on the ground there can do to prevent it.) That is exactly right. This is our best chance to take them out; if they get away they can scatter and we'll be fighting them for years, all over the world. Capture is fine; escape is not. They are not going to live to fight another day. (discuss)
