Eagle must land There are only two ways to end the four-week old Afghanistan War. The US could call for a ceasefire, stop its merciless, and often mindless, bombing of civilian and suspected military targets in Afghanistan. Or it could let its ground troops begin the operation they have been waiting for this past one month. The latter option, however is not an easy one to operationalise, as much as the former is a difficult one to choose. The Americans would now be well aware of the futility of bombing caves and tunnels. For the millions of dollars worth smart munitions they have rained on the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, the end result has been negligible. The Taliban are still very much in place and so is Al Qaida. The only choice therefore is to send in the troops. It is a hard choice as Andrei Kazakov, a retired lieutenant-colonel in the Soviet army who spent four years, eight months and 15 days in Afghanistan, makes clear: "I feel sorry for anyone who's there ... The US doesn't have experience fighting in the mountains". The Americans would do well to heed the friendly advice from their Cold War adversaries. The two immediate dangers for the troops would be terrain and weather. Most of the peaks soar over 5000 metres, high enough to blank out radio waves, and make choppers wobble for want of oxygen. Temperatures range between 3 and 5 degrees centigrade in the day and five degree centigrade below zero at night. Dusty winds, often topping speeds of 120 kmph, scream through mountain passes and valleys. If the American troops managed to survive the elements, they would then face the battle-hardy Taliban troops. The latter have been fighting battles all their lives; first it was the mighty Soviet empire that they not only defeated but decimated, and then there were indigenous adversaries, as tough as themselves, who they managed to stave off. At the height of the Soviet Afghan War, the Red Army had in place more than 1,12,000 troops to fight the Mujahideen Army, whose core comprise the Taliban today. At the end of the day when, sometime in February 1989, the mighty Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, the invincible Red Army had lost over 14,000 men. There are other equally daunting obstacles on the path of an alien infantry wishing to capture Kabul. Afghanistan is today the world's most mined country. In the year 2000 alone, 13,542 anti-personnel landmines and 636 anti-tank mines were cleared and destroyed. According to a UN estimate, there are five to ten million active mines in Afghanistan; 11 per cent of the total land area is mined. Roads, farm land, villages and even Kabul city are heavily mined. In 1999, an estimated five to 10 people were killed daily by landmines and unexploded ordnance; it came down to 88 per month last year. No other force would know the horror of mines better than American GIs-one-third of all US casualties in Vietnam and 20 per cent of casualties in the Gulf War were caused by landmines; in Bosnia, at least 50 men were lost to mines. Then there are the problems of unexploded ordnance (a dangerous legacy of the Soviet War), lack of intelligence, an unreliable ally in Pakistan and a mounting wave of protest in the powerful Muslim world against a prolonged operation of this magnitude. Uncle Sam must land on Afghanistan's soil, but can it snatch its prey? By The Pioneer