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  groschke@luminousvoid.net wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, andie nachgeborenen wrote: > > > It's one thing to get rid of an opportunistic puppet government like the > Taliban, taking over a country with half-way developed national sentiment is > something else entirely. .usyd.edu.au > A puppet of whom? jks > a hierarchy of puppets is more correct, lots of the warlords switched to the taliban and then switched away once the US came by with money and guns. -gr </BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">Yahoo! Platinum</a> - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">live on your desktop</a>!