Category Archives: Crime

THE ROAD TO KABUL by Peter Nolan Smith

August 23, 2021 – 5:12 pm

Afghanistan was a two-day drive from Italy in the summer of 1972. At the end of the school year my future friend Gianni bought a school bus in Milano and told his parents that he was going on vacation. Kabul was his destination. His parents offered to pay the gas, viewing the venture as a […]

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Osama Down

August 6, 2021 – 6:26 pm

The USA has been fighting a decades-old war against Al-Quada. At one time its founder, Osama Bin Ladin had been our ally in the insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan. His family had ties to power brokers in Washington. Bin Laden’s schism with the West began in 1990 with the stationing of foreign troops on […]

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On The Saudi Cross

April 2, 2021 – 10:19 am

In 2013 Saudi Arabia hit the headlines after a young Saudi prisoner announced that he had been sentenced to crucifixion for three days. The condemned man had been convicted of theft in 2009 and Sharia law in the southern province demanded capital punishment, even though main defendant, Sarhan al-Mashayeh, was 15 at the time of […]

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Silence On Cellblock # 9

December 29, 2020 – 7:49 pm

When I left the USA for Africa in February 2020 over 80,000 prisoners were incarcerated in solitary confinement in US prisons, which equals the entire penal population of the UK. The practice was first introduced in the Eastern State Penitentiary in 1830. The punitive toll on inmates had been touted by prison officials as the […]

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5th Commandment in Pattaya

September 6, 2020 – 11:05 pm

Last night a major player was assasinated in Pattaya. The city official from a neighboring town was driving his Isuzu pick-up. The killers a cheap bike. Two bullets broke the window and stole the man’s life. Two clicks of the fingers. I heard about the murder from two off-duty cops. They murmured the urban official was involved in […]

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