Remember what a huge deal it was when George Bush's niece—Noelle—was arrested for sneaking crack cocaine into a rehab center back in 2003? Turns out, Afghani president Hamid Karzai's brother probably does way, way worse things than this.

The ever-thoughtful Andrea Peyser uses her recently acquired New York Post column to accuse New York Times reporter and former Taliban abductee David Rohde of coddling terrorists because he wrote about how they kidnapped, humiliated, and, um, terrorized him.

President Obama can expected some nasty letters from anti-war activists: the Pentagon has sent at least 34,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. These "support troops" are 13,000 more than Obama said would be sent back in March. Riot! [WaPo]

The Pentagon and "patriotic" hawks for years supported a prohibition on publishing pictures of slain soldiers' caskets. Then President Obama lifted the ban, thus giving Matt Drudge an opportunity to create this lovely collage commemorating the Afghanistan war's 8th anniversary.

Messaging has always been important in war time. It can also be deadly. For example, a young Afghanistan girl was killed when a box of Royal Air Force leaflets fell from the sky and struck her. Awful. [Times Online]

Bill Kristol thinks Barack Obama will swing by Afghanistan for a surprise visit on his way back from Copenhagen. Sounds reasonable. But Bill: Why all the detail?

The fatal raid to rescue New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell from his Taliban captors in Afghanistan has sparked a wave of recriminations over whether the operation was necessary, and whether Farrell should have been there in the first place.

The rescue of New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell in Afghanistan comes on the heels of Times reporter David Rohde's similar (though much longer) ordeal. It's at least the fifth kidnapping or arrest of a Timesman in as many years.

It's a joyous night for the New York Times: the Pahjwok news agency, a subscription-only Afghan service, reports that foreign fighters have rescued Stephen Farrell, the paper's second reporter to have been kidnapped by the Taliban in recent months.

The State Department announced today that eight of the security contractors in Kabul who were featured drinking "buttshots" of vodka off one another in photos we published Tuesday have been fired, and two more quit.

On MSNBC today, Mediaite's Glynnis MacNicol and Contessa Brewer speculated that none other than this humble site is responsible for the State Department's investigation into contractor misbehavior in Kabul, Afghanistan. Oh, you crazy kids.

The world's shocked and appalled by news and photos that private security forces guarding the American embassy in Kabul, act like pre-teen cave men. Here's something that won't improve the situation: the government's known all along!

Wonder what it's like to guard State Department facilities in Kabul? In photos first published by Gawker, security contractors get their kicks peeing on one another, simulating anal sex, doing "butt shots," and "eating potato chips out of ass cracks."

The pen indeed is mightier than the sword! After a barrage of bad press, the Pentagon has canceled its contract with the dubious Rendon Group, which was screening reporters wanting to embed in Afghanistan. Rendon had become a "distraction." [Politico]

With 10% of the votes counted, the presidential election race between Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah is too close to call. Karzai leads by about 10,000 votes. But what should you think about it?

Recent reports about "mock executions" and other incendiary interrogation tactics have given the CIA a bad, bad name. Thus, President Obama and his White House are taking things into their own hands. But what does that mean?

Of course, the Taliban have reportedly executed a couple people for voting and rocket attacks have killed a couple more people, but on the whole it is a very proud day for Afghanistan. Though turnout seems, so far, to be incredibly low, in part because of those concerns about being executed but maybe more because of cynicism.

Thomas Friedman is proud of our fighting boys. The fact that our all-volunteer military is involved in two open-ended occupations is bad, but the bright side is, we have finally found a class of kids dumb enough to fight forever.

Fresh after this week's sobering slideshow of our troops in the Middle East, Matchbox toys comes out with an oddball ad campaign to spark kids' war fantasies of returning home draped in the American flag.

There's a war on. You probably knew that, in the sense that you read somewhere about a major offensive in Afghanistan. But if you're like us, you haven't seen many photos. It looks like Vietnam over there.