The Taliban are seeking to re-establish their hardline Islamist regime, after they were toppled by US-led military intervention in 2001.
At the very least, NATO hopes, some bad things will stop happening in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have grown in strength and deadliness by the year since they were toppled in 2001.
The Taliban shunned television and even photography when they ruled Afghanistan, but in the years since they were toppled from power they have embraced the power of video propaganda.
Moreover, they suggest that the Taliban have no interest in letting Al Qaeda back into Afghanistan because that was what cost them power when they were toppled by American-backed Afghan rebels in 2001.
The brief capture of the Kunduz provincial capital was arguably the biggest victory for the Taliban militants in the 15-year war since they were toppled by US-led forces in late 2001.
It makes the reader feel like they're toppling a mountain.
Today they're toppling Stands of tamarack and pine and firs, And eighty-year-old oak, Maple, apple, ash, removing them From fields behind our house, Sturdy birch, cedar with a crooked shoulder The cows would rub their necks on, And deer, woodchuck, turkey, Pheasant, hawk, mourning dove, owls, Mature trees removed thoughtlessly, unnecessarily – To build a clutch of progress.
They're toppling some of the biggest obstacles to a Wireless Everywhere world: the Babel of standards; frustratingly short-lived batteries; and antiquated federal regulations that squander airspace and inhibit new uses.
Some, when they are toppled, stay mostly intact, or break into a couple of pieces that one hopes could be put back together.
Because technology such as software requires huge fixed investment up-front, but involves trivial marginal costs, it is highly likely that competition will result in "fragile monopolies" being created, with single companies dominating segments for a time, until they are toppled by rivals.
