“Tora Bora,” Geraldo reports, means “black dust.” With “devilish Asian winds” whipping the sand and soot at upwards of 40 knots near the Tora Bora cave-and-tunnel complex, Geraldo has made what he’s calling a “command decision” to break camp. His mustache — dust crusted but still impeccably groomed — seems unfazed by the kind of harsh and sudden climate changes that have proven insurmountable to doomed invading armies over the Afghan centuries.

Telling his crew “that they shouldn’t smoke” (for fear of setting off “booby traps”) Geraldo and co. crawled through some of the mud and rock stinkholes in the Tora Bora complex. By and large, Geraldo tells us, the caves are less accomodating for al Quaeda fighters than we’ve been led to believe, lacking electrical outlets and satellite teevees, as well as other amenities.

Through all this macho posturing (Fox News is featuring video of Cap’n Gerry poking through caves and scuttling around on top of spent munitions canisters), Rivera does manage to make one interesting point: many Taliban (and possible al Qaeda) prisoners won’t remain in custody for long if U.S. forces in the region don’t gather them up soon. In what can best be described as a kind of “informal parole,” opposition fighters have begun freeing some of their “Afghan cousins,” who, while in captivity, have taken to reading the Koran and weeping openly. In short, the Muslim sympathy lever’s been pulled, so “sides” are becoming increasingly unimportant in the camps around Tora Bora…

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