>That's not what I understand by "puppet," a term I associate with
>control by (typically foreign) forces, in the way that the "Marxist"
>regime in Afghanistan was a puppet of the Soviets, for example. The
>T seem to have run their own show, despite their reliance for
>support on the Pakistanis. jks
And there never was much of an Afghan state. It was pretty easy to "decapitate" something with almost no budget, no bureaucracy, and few roots in the society. Iraq is an entirely different ball of wax.
Doug