Here is a chunk of William Saletan's analysis from Slate, It is very supportive of Fabio's tipping interpretation.
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2058705 Alex In the north, the Taliban's enemies failed to advance. In the south, they failed to speak up. The American press suggested that the war had "bogged down," that the United States had "underestimated" the Taliban, and that the U.S.-led coalition was "falling apart." Complaints of futility and pointless bloodshed grew into an outcry to halt the bombing. Then, last Friday, Mazar-i-Sharif fell. The Taliban's aura was punctured. In accelerating succession, other cities fell. War can't move that fast. It takes days to move your own tanks and troops, much less to push back the enemy's. But even in Afghanistan, the information age has arrived. What traveled from city to city in minutes wasn't the armies of the Northern Alliance, but the news of the Taliban's defeat. Civilians and Taliban soldiers who had resented the regime lost their fear of it. Those who had supported the regime lost their confidence in it. Taliban armies didn't lose their cities in battle; they defected or fled. Each flight or defection, in turn, provoked others. Sell, sell, sell. Now the rout has turned south. Pashtun warlords who refused to stand up to the Taliban a week ago are rushing to claim pieces of its carcass. Some Taliban troops fleeing cities are being wiped out by U.S. bombers. Others are regrouping in the mountains, forgetting that they lack the supply lines and popular support to win the kind of guerrilla war they waged against the Soviets. The rest, according to today's New York Times and Washington Post, are "fading away," "disappearing," "vanishing," "dissipating," "becoming phantoms," and "returning to their home villages." Morale matters. The army that loses self-confidence and the confidence of its people loses the war. -- Dr. Alexander Tabarrok Vice President and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621-1428 Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
