Those guileful Taliban!

A wide-eyed report in the NYT this morning tells us how the Taliban captured a province in Pakistan after their initial failure: 'The Taliban took over Buner through both force and guile — awakening sleeping sympathizers, leveraging political allies, pretending at peace talks and then crushing what was left of their opponents, according to the politicians and the residents interviewed.'

But when has an insurgency operated otherwise? She could be describing the American colonists in 1776 (well, I don't know if Sam Adams ever attended peace talks with his fingers crossed behind his back). Indeed, she could be talking about the North Koreans in 1953--or today!

Taliban, I'm told, means Students, just as al Qaeda means The Base. Why do we accept these people at their own evaluation? What happened to good old pejoratives like commie? Blue skies! -- Dan Ford