Well, as per usual, the internet is buzzing with information, news, a wide variety of topics. I’ve taken it upon me to find just a few of the most interesting, riveting, and thought-provoking bits.
CNN reported on the arrest of over 500 people allegedly linked to al Qaeda. Liberals in America will be pleased to hear they won’t be going to Gitmo to suffer the atrocities of the American military prison system, but will instead be comfortably housed in Saudi prisons, where undboubtedly they will be treated with good, old-fashioned Wahhabi hospitality.
In a written statement, the ministry said the cell’s leader was found with a letter from al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, “urging him to raise funds and that [al-Zawahiri] will provide him with the personnel, whom they called the mujahedeen.”
The Long War Journal is an excellent source for Mid-East news of the grittier variety. In other words, not the type you’d find on NBC or NPR or any other mainstream news channel/paper/radio show. Today they reported on fighting between warlords and the Taliban in Northwest Pakistan. After several Taliban fighters were killed:
The Taliban then kidnapped 30 members of the Bhittani tribe. Twenty-two were executed in a brutal fashion. “Some of the dead were shot and some had their throats slit,” a district official told AFP. “The men’s hands were tied behind their backs and the corpses left in a drain by a roadside,” AFP reported. The tribesman have also been described as “pro-Karzai,” referring to Afghanistan’s president.
Reading the Long War Journal can really put things in perspective. Pakistan is in worse shape than you might realize listening to mainstream sources–that is, if you ever heard any news at all out of Pakistan on the nightly news.
The article goes on to describe the worsening situation:
As the Taliban march in South Waziristan, Peshawar is under siege. The spread of Taliban influence was seen last weekend, when a Taliban force kidnapped 25 Christians from a home in the heart of Peshawar. Several of the kidnapped Christians were later reported released, but the fate of those still in captivity is still unknown.
Indeed, Pakistani government officials have declared that the city of Peshewar, whcih is home to a US consulate as well as Pakistani military headquarters, is under “threat of takeover.” Truly, the situation in Pakistan is devolving into madness, and the government seems utterly unable to contain it. Perhaps a little shock and awe is due for the Taliban. The tight-rope-walking approach is obviously not working…
On a lighter note, for those of you who have not thought about the Serbians or the Bosnians or the genocide that took place in the Balkans during the 1990’s, you should head over to Michael J. Totten’s Mid-East Journal and read his first installment of “The Road to Kosovo.”
This is a fantastic road-trip tale of his travels through the Balkan countryside; his brushes with the locals; and the weird alternate-reality that is Eastern Europe. Some beautiful photos accompany the piece. As an added bonus, traverse the following comment thread for a reminder of the dangers of Serbian Nationalism, so often underreported in light of the Arab nationalism of groups like Hamas and Hezbolluh.
And off-topic, but worth mentioning, at least some bad guys have been taken out in the ongoing fight against child-porn and sexual predators.
In a series of raids, authorities have arrested more than 300 members of prostitution operations and removed 21 juveniles from sex-selling rings, the FBI announced Wednesday.
Mueller said this week’s sweeps bring to 433 the number of child victims recovered in the five years since the FBI began its Innocence Lost initiative. The program was designed to combat a growing problem of underage prostitution.
This shit makes me sick to my heart, head, stomach, soul. My wife is anti-death-penalty, as am I, but when it comes to sexual offenses against kids, I’m really just not even sure. She’s avidly pro-death-penalty against pedophiles because she says, and she’s right, that they can’t be cured. They’ll do it again if they get a chance, so better to just remove them permanently from society.
And, as usual, tensions are building over Iran’s nuclear program.
Well, there’s always tomorrow….
E.D. is a writer and the editor in chief at NeoConstant. He works and writes in Arizona where he lives with his wife and daughter. He also writes at 
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