In essence, the relationship between bin Laden and the Taliban has always been symbiotic. Bin Laden agreed to bankroll the Taliban and help them fight their internal enemies and, in return, bin Laden had a place to train his armies of Islamic radicals and seek refuge while remaining the target of a worldwide manhunt. During the course of his many legendary all-night sessions discussing theology, bin Laden was able to leverage his financial support to radicalize the Taliban’s form of Islamic fundamentalism and, in exchange, bin Laden assisted the Taliban in its struggle against the last remaining rebel group, the Northern Alliance.

“It’s clear that initially Taliban policies were very different [in the mid-'90s] than what we know today,” said Stephen Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

But now, says M. Hassan Kakar, author of “Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982,” bin Laden has become expendable. Ironically, he says, bin Laden’s relevance has diminished because of the recent assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the most powerful rebel leader in Afghanistan, which many people believe bin Laden helped arrange.

Mukhamadsalekh Reghistani, a military attaché with the Afghan government in exile’s Moscow embassy, told Agence France-Presse the assassination “was ordered by Pakistani secret services, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.” Now that the Taliban’s major internal security threat has been eliminated, they may be able to look at bin Laden as expendable and accede to the diplomatic pressure from the West. It’s very possible that the international community may have more to offer Afghanistan in terms of financial and material aid. Since August of 2000 the United States alone has delivered $105 million in wheat and other supplies to United Nations aid agencies directed at Afghanistan as well as other recent aid packages directed toward the Taliban’s poppy eradication efforts.

The American ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over bin Laden “comes at a point in time when it would be relatively easy for the Taliban to hand him over because their main opposition leader is dead and the Taliban’s dependence on bin Laden has decreased,” says Kakar. “He’s lost his relevance.”

Kakar says that it shouldn’t be very difficult for the Taliban to “get rid of” bin Laden because it’s “the sensible thing for them to do if they want to keep Afghanistan under their power. I talked to a senior member of the Afghanistani government Monday and told him that they should follow this course of action as the only way open to them to deal with Tuesday’s events.” Kakar says that the official was “very receptive and said that at this point his main motivation is to save Afghanistan.”

At this juncture the Taliban may have to make a political choice at the expense of ideology but no one really knows how the Taliban will react. The Western world and Afghanistan have a long history of misunderstandings, and experts who have tried to handicap the Taliban’s reactions in the past have proven wrong, says Kakar.

It’s “a mutual fact that the Taliban don’t understand us and we don’t understand them. They don’t understand the outside world,” he says. “They’re trying to model their state on the early Islamic period, which means that they don’t care very much about the actual realities in Afghanistan today or the rest of the world. They don’t have many ambassadors, the ones they do have are probably not very educated, they probably haven’t studied history or political science or any of the other disciplines that would be useful to them in understanding how today’s world functions. It’s a complex world, so it’s not easy for them.”

After heavy diplomatic pressure from the United States a high-level Pakistani delegation delivered a 72-hour ultimatum to the Taliban Monday for expelling bin Laden from Afghanistan. Late Monday the Taliban announced that it was pulling together a meeting of all its clerics on Tuesday to decide the matter. That group has since met and has yet to deliver a decision, though Taliban officials have reacted defiantly. A senior Taliban official told AFP that “if there is an invasion of an Islamic country, there will be jihad against the invaders.”

Kakar describes this meeting of clerics as “a make or break moment for the Taliban.” Afghanistan is ringed by countries anxious to knock them out of power so that they could exert their own influence over the mineral- and resource-rich region that they view as their own backyard. It’s also occupied by citizens who, though thankful for the order that the Taliban has brought, have begun to chafe under their yoke.

“It’s not difficult for them to get rid of him,” Kakar says. “They have to hand him over.”

“Crazy: The Demo Sessions” includes several short takes that appear to be fragments of songs, but also tracks that Nelson would revisit later in his career, such as “Opportunity to Cry” and “Half a Man.” Throughout, Willie’s youthful voice makes you reach for the adjectives. It’s sweet, haunting and tender but always informed by a nuanced delivery reminiscent of Frank Sinatra’s. Often he accompanies himself with just an acoustic guitar, making his songs shimmer with the honesty and simplicity of the early-’60s country music ethos.

“Crazy: The Demo Sessions” is out now on Sugar Hill Records.

Prime examples of Allyson’s ability to handle the blues are her passionate rendition of Bobby Timmons’ “Moanin’” and the way in which she intuitively embraces the boppy playfulness of Max Roach’s “Long As You’re Living.” Allyson is backed by musicians who know how to cook: Given plenty of space to expand on Allyson’s lyrical vocabulary, the band supports her with a precise, sensual sound that never pushes the voice to the side.

Lest you fear being dragged into an interminable depression by an entire album devoted to the blues, don’t worry; Allyson’s collected tunes strike a good balance between humorous, sassy and heartbreaking.

It’s no surprise then that on “First Album,” which includes “Frank Sinatra,” Miss Kittin and the Hacker are mainly concerned with the world of dance music, the sex industry and indulging in nostalgia for the ’80s. On “Life on MTV” and “1982″ (listen to this track below) the two revel in recycled sounds from the glory days of new wave. Then, on “Stripper,” Miss Kittin intones “my girlfriend is a stripper, in a Swiss peep show, dancing on a carousel, looking like a hologram.” It’s a business she knows from working as an exotic dancer before leaping into Europe’s dance scene. She also delivers an unabashed valentine to that scene with the song “You and Us.”

The tracks on “First Album” add up to a provocative cabaret act, replete with X-rated lyrics and sinister, new-millennium dance beats.

Miss Kittin & the Hacker: “1982″

Audio: Real Audio

Duration: 5:17

Their songs thrive on Valentine’s alluring voice, her muscular guitar and Livergood’s wicked drumming. Occasionally, Valentine roars into Courtney Love territory, with the full backing of a guitar. At other times, her voice is reduced to a raspy whisper pleading “Get it out of my head” and with just a change of beat she’ll slip into the sugary repetition of lines like “Soothe me when I’m down/ Soothe me when I’m up again.”

Jucifer’s lyrics often concern themselves with interior monologues, but are just as likely to veer into drug stories, overblown egos and cutting snapshots of manipulative women. The track featured here, “Amplifier,” has Valentine narrating the demise of a favorite rock singer with the conclusion, “Buried like a hero but/ Remembered as a freak.”

The band’s live shows — a rabid concoction of Livergood’s drum kit placed front and center, drum sticks flying into the audience, and Valentine taking her rage out on the microphone — are highly recommended.