We always knew the Pentagon had no sense of humor, but this really proves it. This case, reported in Newsday Oct. 31, is truly Orwellian on multiple levels: it reads like a dark political satire, and it concerns two Afghan intellectuals who appear to have been detained at Guantanamo for three years precisely for writing dark political satire!

The young scholars Badr Zaman Badr (who holds a master's degree in English literature) and his brother Abdurrahim Muslim Dost fled into exile in Pakistan with the Soviet occupation of their country in 1980s and joined a Mujahedeen faction, the Jamiat-i-Dawatul—although they just worked as propagandists, and did not return to Afghanistan to fight. Dost became editor of the faction's magazine. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the brothers split with Jamiat, partly over its embrace of the extremist Wahhabi sect. Dost wrote lampoons against the group's leader, a cleric named Sami Ullah, portraying him as a corrupt pawn of Pakistan's secret police, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). In November 2001, as the US was attacking Afghanistan, party leaders warned the brothers they would be imprisoned if they didn't stop their criticisms. Sure enough, ten days later they were arrested by the ISI and dragged off to grimy prison cells. Although it was never clear what charge they were being held on, one midnight in February 2002 they were taken to Peshawar airport and turned over to the US military.

From the Israeli settler news service, Arutz Sheva:

Dichter: Military Action Might Be Necessary to Block Iran Nukes
Sunday, October 30, 2005 / 27 Tishrei 5766

(IsraelNN.com) The former head of the Shin Bet security service told a Los Angeles conference on Sunday that the U.S. might have to attack Iran to prevent further nuclear development.

Avi Dichter told the pro-Israel AIPAC conference attendees that he does not believe Iran will end its nuclear development programs without considerable pressure from the U.S. and other Western nations.

Colombian guerrillas and paramilitary fighters engaged in a bloody gun battle over control of the cocaine trade in western Chocó department, leaving at least 75 fighters dead, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported. Victor Mosquera, a regional human rights observer, said corpses littered the site of the fighting and that many people were missing. Government troops have been rushed to Chocó.

At least random acts of mass murder still make headlines when they happen in Delhi. In Iraq, it's just considered another slow news day at this point. Nothing about this currently appears on the front page of Google News. Will it be mentioned on the front page of tommorrow's New York Times? From the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Oct 29, 2005 — A bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates exploded Saturday evening in the center of a Shiite farming village northeast of Baghdad, killing 26 people and injuring at least 34. Three American soldiers died in separate bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

Well, India and Pakistan make a courageous and historic decision to open the militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir in order to allow aid through to remote earthquake-stricken villages (Reuters, Oct. 29). What, putting aside sectarian and geo-political concerns in the interests of humanitarianism? We can't have that! Immediately before the announcement, bombs explode in a crowded market in Delhi... From the BBC:

Delhi on high alert after blasts
India's capital Delhi has been put on high alert after three explosions rocked the city killing at least 55 people and injuring many others. The government has called on people to stay indoors, and armed police have taken up positions outside key buildings and the main public areas.

After centuries of clandestinity, the crypto-Jews or Marranos of the US Southwest are starting to boogie in public, and there are even numerous web pages devoted to them (Marranos, The Secret Jews, Who Are the Crypto-Jews?). You know their moment has really arrived when they get a write-up in the Sunday New York Times. By Simon Romero, Oct. 29:

Jorge Noguera, the head of Colombia's Administrative Security Department (DAS) announced his resignation Oct. 25, inviting authorities to investigate accusations against him in the national press that he had cololaborated with illegal paramilitary groups. Noguera told reporters he was innocent of accusations made by DAS employees he had met with paramilitary leaders and oversaw a department in which charges against accused drug smugglers were mysteriously erased. "I ask the authorities to investigate these accusations. My conscience is clean," Noguera said. Also Oct. 254, Uribe fired DAS subdirector José Miguel Narvaez. (Reuters, Oct. 25)

On the morning of Oct. 27, authorities certified that the body of an Afro-Colombian found washed up on the banks of the Rio Leon at Bocas de Zabalo, Chocó department, dead of gunshot wounds, was that of Orlando Valencia, a peasant leader from Curvaradó who was abducted by paramilitaries Oct. 16. Valencia's wife and seven children, accompanied by rights observers, are now travelling to Chigorodó municipality, to demand his remains from the local morgue. The local Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, an independent human rights association, is demanding that the Colombian government take measures to guarantee the safety of Valencia's family and the community of Curvaradó, charging that paramilitaries have effective control of the region in collaboration with the National Police and the army's 17th Brigade. New verbal threats from local paras against Curvaradó community leaders have been reported in recent days.