My thought over the past few days has been that the Northern Alliance is probably the best argument to be made for putting a substantial US Alliance ground force in place. We've been fighting a proxy war with the NA, the advantage being very low casualty exposure among US forces. The disadvantage is that we're not in much of a position to determine actual actions and maneuvering on the ground.

At some point, we're going to need muscle to back our objectives -- even among "our" forces.

Dealing with the Taliban fleeing Kandahar will also be interesting. I expect we'll see substantial use of human shields.