'TALIBAN BITCHES'

Knight Ridder Newspapers highlights one tactic U.S. armed forces have employed to draw out fighters in Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan: Name-calling.

PARLE, Afghanistan - The loudspeakers atop the Humvee crackled to life: "The Taliban are women! They're bitches! If they were real men, they'd stop hiding under their burkas and they'd come out and fight!"

It was high noon in the remote and stony heart of Taliban country, and 34 cavalry scouts from the U.S. Army were looking to pick a fight. Three hours later, they had all the fight they could handle.

The Taliban were driven from power nearly three years ago, but they've staged a ruthless comeback throughout southern Afghanistan. ...

Let's hope no one tells the drug-trafficking, Bush-coddling Taliban of that ever-effective "sticks and stones" rhyme.