Archive » Afghanistan

An advance in border security? Of course there’s a catch.

LBDS.

Sexist British paratroopers back up their claim that the Taliban “fight like women”.

Lone survivor, American hero.

“At least one Taliban compound was hit–pretty much obliterated—by a Cobra gunship…” (Updated)

Righteous punking.

Re-snatching victory from the grubby hands of defeat which snatched it from the jaws of victory.

“It’s the re-Talibanization of Afghan society.”

Help.

Courage. Sacrifice. Valor.

Counterterrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is embedded in Iraq. Read his latest dispatch from outside the wire: Patrolling Yarmouk.
Outside the Wire’s J.D. Johannes, embedded with the Black Lions of Task Force 1-28 in Baghdad, reports on the “cellular battlespace.”
Miblogs reporting…
Desert Flier, a flight/trauma nurse in Anbar province, blogs about Ramadi all-nighters.
Stimp at My Desert Adventure [...]

Score.

Paratroopers from B Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division moves out on patrol into the Ghorak Valley of the Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan during “Operation Achilles March 6. Photo by Spc. Matthew T. Littel, U.S. Army

From time to time, Staff Sergeant D (on the Pakistan-Afghan border) [...]

Terrible news:
A leading Afghan official working on women’s rights has been shot dead in the southern province of Kandahar.
Safia Amajan, head of the province’s women’s department, was leaving her home for work when a gunman on a motorcycle opened fire, police said.
She may have been targeted by Taleban militants because of their opposition to women [...]

Bill Roggio of The Counterterrorism Blog is there, reporting on the riot aftermath:
The violence was not Taliban-inspired, but composed mainly of Hazaris. The Haziris are an ethnic group that fought the Taliban under the banner of the Northern Alliance and followers of Ahmad Shah Masood , who was killed by al-Qaeda two days prior to [...]

Arthur Chrenkoff has the round-up of good news from Afghanistan.
In not-so-good news:
- Ousted Taliban thugs beheaded 10 Afghan policemen.
- Four terror suspects escaped from Bagram, the main U.S. base in Kabul.
- The body of a fourth Navy SEAL–the last member of an ill-fated, four-man Special Forces unit that disappeared last month–was found in Kunar province [...]

From Kabul, Afghanistan via NYT:
United States and Afghan troops today reached the site of a downed military helicopter that crashed in a mountainous area this week, the United States military announced. The military said Wednesday that the aircraft appeared to have been brought down by hostile fire.
Keep the fallen heroes and their families in your [...]

From Kabul:
AFGHANISTAN today named its first female provincial governor, a step forward in the slow political progress of women since the fall of the Taliban more than three years ago.
The appointment of Habiba Sorabi as the new governor of Bamiyan was announced in a brief statement on state-run Kabul Television.
Ms Sorabi, who was picked from [...]

Any way you read it, this is a weird, weird story.
Hat tip: Reader Peter K.

Here’s an uplifting account.

In the wake of the Asian earthquake/tsunami disaster, several commentators have made the astute argument that the best defense against such catastrophic risks is economic growth.

Glenn Reynolds, for example, wrote in a Tech Central Station column:
Over the longer run, of course, the best protection against catastrophes, whether foreseen or unforeseen, is a society that is [...]