You don’t normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles

The WaPo has a new detail about the Afghan secret police’s helpful editorial suggestions to the press: the correct term is not “warlord” but “freedom fighter.”

8 Marines are charged with killing an Iraqi and planting a “throw-down” shovel and an AK-47 on his body to make him look like he was planting an IED (how that works without also planting an IED on him, I don’t know). That Iraqi’s name? “Awad the Lame.”

But remember, 99.9% of American troops are killing people only in approved ways, so why focus on 0.1%? Unless it’s the richest 0.1% of Americans. Those people need a tax cut.

(Update: more details this morning. The Marines, after a fruitless night staking out some holes, waiting for someone to put an IED in them, went looking for someone named Gowad, but figured Awad [the Lame] was close enough. Hat tip to Zeynap, who hasn’t been posting enough lately.)

For 9 months, the Pentagon kept from the families of two dead soldiers that they had been killed, deliberately, by Iraqi soldiers. As they stand up, we stand down, or at least duck.

After threatening to shoot down North Korea’s missile if it is tested and then realizing, Oh yeah, we can’t actually do that, the US is refusing NK’s offer to forego the test if direct talks resume. The US rejects that because it’s just not polite. Sez John Bolton, the poster boy for polite, “You don’t normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.” No, you “refuse to rule out any of our options” – isn’t that what we always say about Iran?