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Makes sense, but isn't it an option to simply cut them off? Either voluntarily by Pakistan or by physically cutting off their supply lines? They produce none of their own wepons, none of their own fuel and very little of their own food. I don't know, just upsets me to think we could be cowed by some $hithole with more goats than people. I say we truly bolster the Anti-Taliban forces and let them help us. They know the terrain as well as the Taliban.

Ref your #32: How do you cut them off? Take a look at a map and tell me how. Enact all the sanctions you want, and stuff will get through, especially considering the sympathies of bordering countries. Sanctions never worked anywhere, anyway.

Unfortunately, the opposition forces in Afghanistan are in sad shape: see this FR thread .

It's not a matter of being cowed, no worries. It's a matter of lining up the right intelligence, applying the right pressure in the right places.

The sparse population is easily maintained by their scant domestic production. They get supplies from the south and Pakistan, from the west and Iran, and from the north and the central Asian republics, many of which have their own armed resistence groups in the field. They pay for imports with aid from Pakistan - which can indeed be cut - and by growing poppies, processed into heroin. Also some exports of handcrafts like rugs.

When the Russians fought them, they drove a quarter of the population over the borders to Pakistan and Iran, into refugee camps. They killed or wounded another quarter of the population, including carpeting bombing mere villages, large scale use of heavy armor and artillery, plus literally millions of land mines, many of which are still there. So are the Afghans.