There are many, many reasons that the war in Afghanistan ended so quickly. Some of them are obvious: B-52s, precision bombs and not so precision Daisy Cutters have made the news. But a more subtle difference is striking: The average Afghan turned out to be a very poor marksman.

In a way it's a sad commentary on how the mighty are fallen. The Afghans used to be noted for their marksmanship. It was said they could hit a goat across a windy valley. Now they fire magazines at the sky.

A person of my acquaintance was commenting on the Afghan method of fire control, that is: None. Given an AK-47, the common Afghan soldier, Taliban or United Front (as I think they're being referred to this week) points it in the general direction of the enemy and rips off the whole magazine.

My friend was listening to a report, no video, of the firing, and heard short, two and three round bursts. As he put it: "clearly professionalSAmerican or British special operations." I couldn't resist adding: "This was not the sand-people, this was the work of Imperial Storm TroopersSonly they are so precise." There is a difference between professional warriors and half-trained barbarians and it became evident all over the Afghan war.

Being willing to choose one aimed round over ripping off a magazine is called fire discipline and fire discipline is hard to teach. There is a visceral thrill to ripping off a whole magazine; if you ever want to get a person over guns, take them to a range where they can let rip with an MP-5.

But the "blast 'em all!" method has two HUGE problems. The first is that there's virtually no chance of actually hitting anything; an assault rifle on full auto is just about the safest "weapon" in the worldSto the other side. The second problem is that ripping off whole magazines requires massive ammunition resupply; there is some indication that much of Tora Bora fell because the idiot Al Quaeda shot themselves dry.

Let's take a look at the first. When firing just about any hand weapon, the muzzle tends to "climb" when you shoot. You've seen this plenty of times on TV even if you've never fired a gun in your life. With an automatic weapon, the problem is accelerated with each shot so that even if the first shot is aimed, the second is generally higher (and to one side) and the third is higher still. Eventually the weapon is pointed in the air and more a danger to your side than theirs. A Turkish friend of mine experienced this with a relatively simple sub-machine gun and fired rounds from one side of a range to the other, missing his own target entirely.

Fully automatic fire is, therefore, almost inherently inaccurate. And you can't kill the enemy by blasting the sky, whatever the Afghans think. So why have it?

In certain circumstances, lots of lead is a good thing. Room clearing is one example. Throw in a grenade and fire off a magazine all over the room, working on keeping the muzzle down. While you're reloading your team-mate enters. This is the "we don't care who is inside" method of taking a building. And under certain circumstances, two and three round burst fire is excellent. In those cases the first goes where you are aiming (presumably) and the second and third go in the general area. If your first hits the chest, for example, the second and third go in the upper chest and bad-guy fall-down-go-boom.

But over use of full-auto burns through massive amounts of ammunition. And water, food and ammo (beans and bullets)are, at base, the only things soldiers have to have supplied. As such, getting the ammo there is a major factor in solving any military problem. But blasting off full-auto just adds to it. Let's do some math.

"If a train leaves AkronS" NO, not that! But closeS

One case of 1000 rounds of 7.62x39 ammunition (the ammo of AK-47s) weighs about 40 lbs. Let us say that one pack-donkey can carry 500 lbs of materials. That means that one donkey can carry about 12,500 rounds. There are thirty rounds in a magazine. Since we've already determined that only the first round in the magazine is going to hit Johnny Taliban, that means 30 rounds expended per Talibanista by Joe NLA.

Now, let us assume that our unnamed Northern Alliance fighter is an Afghan Davey Crockett, and can hit one Taliban for each round he fires, if he fires semi-auto. That means if he fires one bullet at a time, he can kill 12,500 Taliban (which ought to equate to at least a couple of virgins unless we're really on the wrong side.) But if he goes on "rock and roll" and only hits with the first shot, he can only kill 412 Taliban. And that means getting shouted at by a drill sergeant for at least half of eternity.

Sure, in reality, nobody kills one person per round. Even Alvin York missed from time to time. But the "rock and roll" mentality is just one facet of the difference between barbarian tribesmen playing games and real professionals out to do their enemies and do them well. I suspect that those "real professionals" were probably taking out five or six times as many Al Quaeda as any of the NLA "warriors." And at a much lower logistical cost. At least in beans and bullets.

We're going to be facing more tribal barbarians in the near future. And I suspect we're going to be in some situations, like the Rangers were in in Mogadishu , where every shot counts. And I suspect, like the Rangers in Mogadishu , while we may lose a few troopers, they are going to be taking one hell of an honor guard of barbarians to Valhalla .

Because "this is not the work of Sand People."