News of the Day for Sunday, December 16, 2012

Afghan Director of Intelligence Asadullah Khalid is admitted to a hospital in the U.S., after being injured in a suicide attack 10 days ago. He had been treated at the ISAF hospital at Bagram. There is no specific information about his condition.

A provincial official says 11 militants are killed  in a battle in Kandahar province. The statement says there were no government casualties. The announcement does not state that ISAF forces were involved.

Iran complains to the Afghan government  about the Dec. 11 mob attack on its consulate in Herat. The attackers were protesting what they claim is the slaying of Afghan economic refugees by Iran.

President Karzai acknowledges the inadequacy of health care regulation in the country. Many private hospitals are operating incompetently.

ISAF forces arrest a man accused of involvement in the Dec. 2 attack on the Jalalabad air base.

 Meanwhile, south of the border, an attack on an airfield in Peshawar, Pakistan appears to largely fail, resulting in the death of 4 or 5 attackers.

Large shipments of gold out of Afghanistan are prompting suspicion of money laundering. (Well duhh.)

Editors note: On March 11 of this year, a U.S. soldier massacred 16 people, including many children, in Kandahar. This event was an item in the news among many others. It provoked no special coverage, no candlelight vigils or church services, or any other out of the ordinary response in the United States. Earlier (I'm not going to track down the date) U.S. forces killed Afghan children who were gathering firewood on a hill side; and innumerable Afghan children have died from bombings and crossfire from all sides in the Afghan conflict. I won't even talk about Iraq. Recently, Israeli bombing killed something like 100 Palestinian civilians, including children, in Gaza. Apart from actions by the U.S. and its allies, children are dying violently by the dozens every day, right now, in Syria, Congo, Sudan, and elsewhere. We barely notice. So, I'm noticing.