Seven-plus years ago, Mazir-i-sharif  became a part of US history when John Michael Spann was killed, the first American combat casualty in Afghanistan. The scene was a Taliban riot at the prison, where, not incidentally, Spann had earlier interrogated John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban.

This month, Mazir-i-sharif again makes headlines--one or two, anyway--as the site of the prison where, Reuters reports, a 23-year-old Afghan journalist named Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh has been detained for three months. Yesterday, some dozens of journalists and actvitists staged a protest seeking his release.

The charge?

Kambakhsh is accused of making "blasphemous comments"--namely, "for distributing an article which said Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women."

Isn't US-liberated Afghanistan grand?

The most recent headline for this story, by the way, was "Afghan journalists seek release of colleague." I would have called it "Your Tax Dollars at Work"; or, "Making the World Safe for Sharia, Installment # 12,017."