The US military may have taken a cue from Obama's September speech favouring intervention in Pakistan. In any case they are increasingly seeing it as a necessary step in their war against the Taleban-Al Qaeda-whatever-it-is-really-that-doesn't-like-us. Today on the BBC I heard two members of the Pashtun ethnic group (both parliamentarians) debating the issue. One was an Afghan who said that the material welfare of the population was the important issue. He didn't want to live in the "dark ages" again. The other was a Pakistani who said he'd much rather live in the "dark ages than be overrun by foreigners." Obviously the ethnic bonding between these two wasn't high. Britishness might be a better measure of their common interest - through gritted teeth they referred to each other as 'the Honourable Member'.

Robert (not Bill) Gates has been visiting Kabul "amid fears of an Al Qaeda resurgence" now that they're not so popular in Iraq. Oh! my goodness! Why didn't we concentrate on Afghanistan while we had the chance, instead of sidetracking in Iraq?

I know precious little about Pakistani politics apart from the fact that all the so-called democratic leaders are in reality the descendants of feudal landlords, to whom democracy means shoring up their power base. I find it hard to sympathise with a Supreme Court that has always seemed to do the bidding of its political masters rather than encourage the rule of law. I'm not sure what the real difference between Musharaf's new judges and the old ones is. It seems unlikely that Musharaf, now that he's no longer head of the army, can wield any real power. For the moment, the differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan seem hard to define - tribal warlords, peculiar notions about women, settling differences with violence, a series of non-democratic regimes claiming to embody democracy. Granted Pakistan has The Bomb. But they're both among those failed states set up in the colonial backwash by lines drawn arbitrarily on the ground. Both fertile ground for Islamic fascism, but also, we should not forget, full of remarkable people hoping and trying for something better. It is not clear to me at all how western foreign policies have assisted the latter rather than the former.

I just watched a thing on TV about the death of the CIA agent (Spann?) and the capture of John Walker Lindh at Mazar-i-Sharif. The program maker interviewed a whole stack of war correspondents who were there filming the events, and showed their footage.

It seems that General Dostom did a deal with the Taleban, whereby they would surrender and, after giving up their weapons and information, be allowed to go home. The CIA advisers (there were 2) didn't like this approach, so they began interrogating and basically threatening the prisoners. These two Big Guys were there, by themselves, with a couple of hundred bound prisoners, threatening them.

There was a guy claiming to be a journalist from Al Jazeera. They ignored him. Another guy offered help them, they ignored him too.

They had Lindh. They were telling him they were going to kill him etc. Maybe they didn't know he was American? Maybe they didn't realise he was entitled to a plea bargain? In fact they showed no interest at all in who he was or why he was there. They were acting like school yard bullies.

There was some reaction. Fighting started. Spann got killed. Some 300 Afghans got killed. Dostom was furious that the deal he'd negotiated had been broken. The assembled foreign correspondents pointed the finger at the two CIAs.

The airforce arrived and bombed first the Taleban side and then their allies. A dozen allies were killed.

When things went quiet on the surface there were hundreds of dead bodies and a lot of Taleban holed up underground. The Northern Alliance chucked petrol down there and threw in a few grenades. Then they began to fill it up with water. Eventually 86 Taleban, including Lindh, came out into the light of day.