Why isn't this in the headlines? From the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Feb. 12:

The Taleban have taken control of their second Helmand district in less than two weeks, say district officials.

The Taleban captured the police chief of Washir district and 30 of his officers when they were out on patrol Sunday, February 11, according to a high-ranking district official, who wanted his identity withheld. “They then went to the district centre, where they took control, disarming the rest of the police,” said the official.

Afghanistan's eastern Zabul province is in the news at the moment because a US Chinook helicopter just crashed there, killing eight soldiers and wounding 14. The Taliban, as usual, claimed it was brought down by one of their missiles, and the US, as usual, denies it. (IHT, Feb. 18) But this Feb. 19 story from Pakistan's The News shows the kind of courage needed by Zabul's women to stand up for simple dignity against a local regime of Islamist tyranny five years and counting after "Operation Enduring Freedom":

Oh boy. Remember all the jokes about how Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom was originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL). Now life imitates humor as another Orwellian sobriquet is unleashed in Baghdad: Operation Imposing Law. You'd think the Pentagon PR people would've nixed that one. Or are they trying to tell us something? From the UAE's GulfNews, Feb. 19:

A hapless economic conscript who was in way over his head is sent up the river—while the architects of the war won't even face impeachment. From San Diego's North County Times, Feb. 17:

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine lance corporal was sentenced Saturday to eight years in jail and a dishonorable discharge for his part in the abduction and shooting death of a retired policeman last year in Hamdania, Iraq.

You'd think if the global warming skeptics were so secure in their position, they wouldn't have to resort to such subterfuges. Ian Sample writes for The Guardian, Feb. 2:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

The Guardian reported Feb. 16 that the WHO has logged a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province after the parents of 24,000 children refused to allow health workers to administer the "infidel vaccine," which local clerics using mosque loudspeakers and underground radio stations said was a US plot to sterilize Muslim children. Then it got worse. From India's Zee News, Feb. 18:

Days after bomb blasts and insurgent attacks in Iranian Baluchistan, more terror in Pakistani Baluchistan. To what extent is this a Baluch ethnic insurgency, and to what extent a Sunni fundamentalist jihad? Or is it both? One shudders to think how complex the intrigues behind this are. The Baluch militants in Pakistan are said to be backed by Iran, while Pakistan's intelligence apparatus has long quietly backed the Sunni jihadists to further Islamabad's ambitions in Kashmir and (with CIA connivance) Afghanistan. Are the Baluch being pitted against each other as have the Kurds? Maybe the Baluch are starting to shake off all such manipulators and struggle for a unified independent Baluchistan—just as there is more talk of a unified Pashtunistan straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan, after centuries of the Pashtuns serving as pawns in the Great Game. From Reuters, via the UAE's Khaleej Times, Feb. 18:

The rad left (e.g. the ever-predictable Counterpunch) loves to hate Elie Wiesel, and actually makes some strong arguments about his double standards on human suffering. But we would trust their intentions a lot more if they weren't so intent on dismissing the reality of anti-Semitism. After his attack, Wiesel told Italy's Corriere della Sera that Jew-haters and Holocaust deniers are increasing worldwide and getting bolder: "Until today they used words; now they have switched to violence. Their numbers are growing by the day." (AP, Feb. 13). The evidence for this has been mounting for some time, whatever the morally equivocal position of Wiesel and however much Jew-haters are abetted by Israel's atrocious actions. When are supposedly "progressive" anti-Semitism-deniers going to start eating crow? From the Melbourne Herald-Sun, Feb. 18: