... or what Taliban apologists ignore or otherwise explain away.
'They Want Us to Be Stupid Things' - New York Times editorial
The war in Afghanistan has been so disastrously mismanaged that some NATO allies - eager to shed their commitment - are arguing that it is too late to salvage. We, too, are deeply worried. Anyone who has questions about why it is so important to try should go back and read the story of 17-year-old Shamsia Husseini that was published in The Times on Wednesday.
Ms. Husseini is a student at the Mirwais School for Girls outside Kandahar. Two months ago, as she was walking to school with her sister, a man on a motorcycle sprayed her with acid, burning her face and eyelids. Fourteen other students and teachers were attacked that day in an attempt to shut down the school. It failed.
As Ms. Husseini told our colleague Dexter Filkins, "The people who did this to me don't want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things." Ms. Husseini's parents told her "to keep coming to school even if I am killed."
More at The New York Times.
Afghan Girls, Scarred by Acid, Defy Terror, Embracing School - Dexter Filkens, New York Times
One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question.
"Are you going to school?"
Then the man pulled Shamsia's burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia's eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read.
But if the acid attack against Shamsia and 14 others - students and teachers - was meant to terrorize the girls into staying home, it appears to have completely failed.
More at The New York Times.
Nir - what say you?