Those exciting Taliban

Just the usual. Throw acid at girls going to school. Threaten to kill any girls who want education. Make the schools close down. The kind of news you can pick up from anywhere, today, as it happens, The Times.

Never mind, just think, as some advise us, of the Taliban as "the present day Sandinistas". They are certainly, as Galloway told us, "not an enemy". Nor should we attack them, according to Simon Jenkins. For surely they banned the opium business, says John Pilger.

These are old old chestnuts. Only the girls with acid in their faces are new. But it's all right. They'll be old news by tomorrow.