THE ATLANTIC MONTHLYEnlisting Allah Marines in Helmand province,Afghanistan,are teaching locals to read the Koran to thwart the efforts of the Taliban,writes Brian Mockenhaupt. The Taliban had managed to convince the locals that the Afghan soldiers from the northern and eastern parts of the country,who spoke Dari instead of Pashto,were as foreign as the US marines present there. So Lieutenant Commander Nathan Solomon,a Navy chaplain,and his Afghan liaison,Abdul Khabir,a mullah and an army captain,installed loudspeakers at the bases announcing the call to prayer five times a day. The result was almost immediate. Locals told the marines,We didnt know they pray like we do and the joint patrol of marines and Afghan soldiers earned the locals trust. Clearly,counterinsurgency operations can take on unexpected forms. THE INDEPENDENTZero tolerance: Dont listen to that siren song Where does the border between justice and retribution lie,asks a leader in The Independent. Downing Street is in favour of cutting benefits and housing provisions of those involved in the disturbances in London. The manner in which the whole business is being conducted should prompt unease,says the leader. Then,there is the case of a borough council serving an eviction notice on a tenant whose son was found rioting. Is it ethical,even if legal,for a council to punish the mother for the actions of her adult son? Also,is this action practical for the same council which will have another homeless family to house? Not even US zero tolerance policing goes that far. Even if politicians are lured by this American fad,the police are right to be wary. There are vast cultural and social differences between there and here,not least the fact that the US police are armed, says the leader. LOS ANGELES TIMESBerlin Wall: A blessing in disguise On August 13,Germany marked the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest and grimmest construction projects in historythe building of the Berlin Wall. In retrospect,for all its tragedy and hatefulness,the Berlin Wall was something of a geopolitical blessing in disguise,writes Jacob Heilbrunn. Berlin was always a flashpoint that Soviet and Western leaders feared could trigger an atomic war,for the Soviets regarded Berlin as their prize. With West Berlin being a bone in the throat for Nikita Khrushchev and with East Germans voting with their feet and heading for West Berlin,Khrushchev went along with (East German leader) Walter Ulbrichts plan to create a national prison in the form of a wall. But the true lesson of the Berlin Wall is that the wall created the stability between the superpowers that was the precondition for the peaceful demise of communism several decades later. THE WASHINGTON POSTWhat is the stock market telling us? When the stock market zigs and zags its way to a 12 per cent loss in three weeks,wiping out $2.5 trillion in wealth,it is clearly sending a message, writes Liaquat Ahmed. But what is the message? To find out,observe the markets. If that market was truly concerned about the inability of the US to deal with its budget and if bond investors were nervous about not getting their money back,interest rates should have spiked. But rates actually fell by a significant amount. Far from viewing US bonds as risky,markets continue to treat them as a safe haven. If the Dow and other major indices continue to fall,there is a very real danger that politicians will draw the wrong conclusionsand begin to push for policies that would only make things worse. At the moment,the bond market and the stock market are signaling very clearly that the greatest threat to US prosperity is the lacklustre recovery,not the budget deficit. We can only hope that Washington is reading the signals correctly.
