Good news from Afghanistan – and there’s a lot of it.
Four young Afghan students did more than merely stun their competitors when they came away with some of the top prizes at an international mathematics competition held recently in Almaty, Kazakhstan. They also changed how students from 22 other countries perceive Afghanistan.
Ahmad Mustafa Naseri and Mustafa Naseri, both 17 (and unrelated), students at the Turkish-run Afghan-Turk School in Kabul, won gold medals while Omid Sadiqyar and Mohammad Rafi Firoz, also 17 and students at a similar school in the northern Shiberghan province, were awarded silver medals following a day-long algebra competition in May.
Ahmad Mustafa said that while he was proud of his gold medal, he was saddened to discover that students from other countries thought of Afghanistan only as the home of terrorism, drugs production and internecine conflict.
“One competitor from Australia told me, ‘I was very surprised that Afghans were taking part in this competition – we always hear that Afghanistan is a major drug producer and a country for terrorists who are always fighting one another,’ ” said Ahmad Mustafa.
Now for the bad news – Arthur Chrenkoff has taken a new job and won’t be continuing the series, though I hope others have been lined up to take over. He’s single-handedly filled a vacuum created by the disgracefully superficial coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq by the mainstream media, with the exception of one. Hats off to the Wall Street Journal for providing Chrenkoff the space and recognition he deserves.
And note the NATO ISAF plans to take over from the US in southern Afghanistan during 2006 (this will the force under which the large number of Canadians going to Kanadhar and evirons over the next year will eventually serve).
And ISAF has a UN Security Council mandate. So how can the lefties then rage against a (non-existent) US “occupation”? Maybe they’ll complain about a UN occupation?
Mark
Ottawa
LOL Mark, that will be the day! Thanks for the link, Kate – WOW, there’s a lot of good news going on!
Clinton Admin. Knew of 9/11 Hijackers
NewsMax ^ | 8/9/05
Posted on 08/09/2005 11:50:47 AM PDT by areafiftyone
More than a year before the 9/11 attacks, Clinton administration intelligence officials had identified four of the 19 9/11 hijackers as a terrorist threat – including al-Qaida team leader Mohamed Atta and his partner Marwan al-Shehhi, whose planes destroyed the World Trade Center and killed over 2,700 people.
But the critical information was not acted on, at least in part, because of prohibitions against intelligence sharing implemented by former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1459968/posts
The Wizard War
Michael Yon’s ongoing account of the battle in Mosul is worth reading. He begins with an extended James Mitchenerish description of the effects of explosive on armor and unprotected human beings as a way of setting the stage about a bomb towards which his Stryker is rolling. You keep reading wondering how it will all turn out.
fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com
The comments about the comments policy are well worth studying/reading, IMO. Spend 15 minutes and you will realize this is great blogging.
Comments Policy
I’ve adopted a hands-off policy towards comments at the Belmont Club because the vast majority bring valuable insight to the discussion. Occasionally I’ll get mail complaining about offensive comments; and fair enough, there are some which are pretty tasteless and a few which are downright offensive. Since I’m ultimately responsible for maintaining the ‘tone’ of this site the choices open to me are:
1. To appeal to everyone to avoid making comments which a reasonable person may consider to be anti-Arab, anti-Semitic etc. or comments of a scatological nature.
2. Confine posts to “safe” subjects which are unlikely to generate controversial comments.
3. Disable comments.
I’ve decided to try #1 for a bit and to see how it goes. Failing that, it’s on to numbers 2 and 3.
>>> Note also that the comments were removed from the following post: Discover why.
Eyeless in Gaza
Israeli finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resigned, citing his opposition to Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from Gaza. According to the Boston Globe:
fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com