http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5327683.ece

12/12/2008 2:10:00 AM

Quote :

"Lieutenant-Commander James Gater, a spokesman for Nato forces in Afghanistan, said that the transport of Nato supplies was contracted to commercial firms and how they got them into the country was their business."

12/12/2008 2:26:23 AM

i thought we got rid of the taliban back in 01/02.

12/12/2008 12:45:27 PM

related:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/08/pakistan.violence.nato/index.html?iref=newssearch

12/12/2008 1:35:18 PM

I'm just amazed that the OP doesn't know how to spell Taliban, after its been pounded into our heads by the media for the last 7 years.

12/12/2008 1:39:17 PM

^That's how it is spelled in the article.

Quote :

"Taleban tax: allied supply convoys pay their enemies for safe passage"

12/12/2008 1:40:37 PM

I have a bad internet connection so I didn't read the article....but when I was posting that thought did occur to me.

12/12/2008 1:54:46 PM

Being that Taliban is not from a language that uses the romantic script, there is a wide varriance on proper spelling.

In America, we tend to write Taliban, in the majority of the world it is Taleban.

12/12/2008 2:03:52 PM

Interesting. And I get it, kinda like Osama/Usama

12/12/2008 2:25:36 PM

Quote :

"Being that Taliban is not from a language that uses the romantic script, there is a wide varriance on proper spelling."

The real issue is that there's no official way to transliterate from Pashto (which, from a very quick overview on Wikipedia, seems to be very close to Arabic) to English. Note that this is why there are many different spellings of Mohommad, Muhammad, Hallid, Khalid, etc.


Either way, "Taleban" or "Taliban" -- neither is close to the actual pronunciation in the native language.

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 2:32 PM. Reason : ]

12/12/2008 2:26:29 PM

Quote :

"Either way, "Taleban" or "Taliban" -- neither is close to the actual pronunciation in the native language."

It's dependent on the way in which you pronounce your vowels.

Quote :

"The real issue is that there's no official way to transliterate from Pashto "

There is no official way to transliterate any alphabet into another alphabet, unless we were to adopt the IPA alphabet throughout the world, which would be an even larger problem

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 2:38 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2008 2:36:59 PM

Quote :

"It's dependent on the way in which you pronounce your vowels."

Correct...I'm used to MSA; at least that's what is taught at NCSU.

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 2:52 PM. Reason : ]

12/12/2008 2:52:36 PM

MSA might help, but Pashto isn't a semitic language.

12/12/2008 2:58:35 PM

Well it sure as hell looks like Arabic.

12/12/2008 3:00:51 PM

^^would it then be an anti-semitic language?

da dun dun ching

12/12/2008 6:44:17 PM

Quote :

"Interesting. And I get it, kinda like Osama/Usama "

Haha, how did you pass high school?

12/12/2008 7:29:05 PM