Re. regretting our ties to the Northern Alliance: read this disturbing article from Newsweek about our allies' atrocities.

The Death Convoy of Afghanistan
The benefit in fighting a proxy-style war in Afghanistan was victory on the cheap—cheap, at any rate, in American blood. The cost, NEWSWEEK’s investigation has established, is that American forces were working intimately with “allies” who committed what could well qualify as war crimes.