By R. Cort Kirkwood
November 30, 2001

(AgapePress) - Having thumped the war drums since Sept. 11, the chattering class is suddenly squeamish about the Northern Alliance, the putative liberators of Afghanistan.

The alliance rubbed out a number of foreign-born Taliban prisoners in Mazar-e Sharif, and they’re giving the foreigners a rough time elsewhere in the country. Such acts have not endeared them to the manicured mandarins of globalism or pious Pecksniffs of the liberal press.

This army on horseback was all the rage before it rode into power over the past weeks, but now that the carnage has begun, so must the scrutiny begin.

But why? What did we expect?

The Purpose of the War
Once giddy with anticipation at using American air power to pulverize the pashas of the Hindu Kush, some observers have forgotten why we went to Afghanistan. Our goal was not the same as that of the Northern Alliance or its allies.

The United States attacked Afghanistan not to conquer the country or bring the Northern Alliance to power. Our objective was twofold: to destroy the Koranic agency that gave Osama bin Laden a base from which launch his murderous military raid of Sept.11, then to destroy bin Laden himself.

Since that time, we’ve blown the Taliban forces to smithereens, killing many of its leaders, although we are still groping about the Afghan moonscape for bin Laden, hoping to find him in one the caves we keep hearing about.

The Northern Alliance used the cover of American power to launch a fatal strike against the Taliban. So in a sense, the killing of nearly 4,000 Americans on Sept.11 was serendipity for these tribes and clans, which just weeks ago were cornered themselves.

They got what they needed, an ally who could guarantee victory. Kandahar, the nucleus of Taliban power, is near collapse.

Why the Surprise?
But having forgotten our objective, the same crowing crowd happy to see the Taliban unhorsed recoils with horror on seeing the inevitable result of our just revenge. They wanted to unleash the dogs of war, but now blanche at the sight of the torn flesh and blood.

Why is anyone surprised the Northern Alliance butchered Taliban prisoners in Mazar-e Sharif? These aren't Madisonian democrats, schooled in Locke and Burke, Plato and Augustine, or Blackstone's common law. They are not the Queen’s Coldstream Guards, who sally into battle with bagpipe and kilt and a canteen full of Earl Grey tea. They do not wring their hands over enemy casualties or war crimes.

They are cult-like, ferocious, even feral human beings given to intense tribal hatreds who don't much care for western notions of “civilized” war. A recent news photo depicted an alliance fighter with triumphal foot upon the throat of a dead Taliban enemy, the latter a beast killed in the hunt.

And consider what the Taliban has done to them. So why should we care? We kept our deadly promise to the black-hatted Taliban; only rough justice for bin Laden remains undone. What the Northern Alliance does is none of our business.

They Aren’t Us
We should not expect primitive people, riven by ancestral strife and ruled by the Koran, to share or understand our regard for civil rights and justice, liberal ideas, or in this case, the rules of war. They don’t, and won’t.

Some day, we might learn the others on whom we pass judgment don’t care if their laws pass the sniff test of the American Civil Liberties Union, or if their martial tactics match the moral hygiene of diplomatic conventioneers in Geneva.

Whatever we say, they’ll do things their way. The best thing we can do is stay out of the way.