Word: combatant
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That it most certainly is. In October it will have been eight years since U.S. forces first went into combat in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and its local supporters in the Taliban. That makes the war there the second longest (after Vietnam) in U.S. history. More than 1,200 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan; some 730 of the dead were American, but other nations have suffered too. Britain has lost 175 soldiers in the conflict, and Canada 124. And the deaths in uniform are the easy ones to count: they do not encompass the thousands of Afghan villagers...
...Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan, McChrystal says, are "unique situations that are linked inextricably." Islamabad's fitful offensive against the Taliban in Pakistan has successfully drained resources from the Taliban in Afghanistan. "Money is drying up," Colonel John Spiszer, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, along the border, said on June 23. Over the past year, the going prices for guns and ammo "have almost doubled," he noted. "That's a great sign." Such pressure on safe havens in Pakistan will reduce hit-and-run attacks across the border...
...there you have it. Southerners have little access to healthy food and limited means with which to purchase it. It's hard for them to exercise outdoors, and even when they do have the opportunity, it's so hot, they don't want to. To combat this affliction, some Southern states have adopted programs to fight rising obesity. In 2003, Arkansas passed a school body mass index-screening program that assesses weight and sends the results home to parents. Tennessee encourages its schools to buy fresh ingredients from local growers. And in 2007, Mississippi adopted nutritional standards for school lunches...
...tough could she really be, having learned about politics in a state with almost as many square miles as people? Alaskan feuds are straightforward and personal, against a backdrop of "live and let live." Washington combat has an impersonal cruelty to it, reflected in a maxim of the strategist Lee Atwater: "Never kick a man when he's up." As Barnes and Kristol began feeding Palin's name into the swirl of Washington gossip known as the Great Mentioner, they might have overestimated how ready she was for battle in the big time...
...prices for the commodities it mines had hit rock bottom as the global recession took hold. Since then, prices for iron ore and other commodities have rebounded, in no small part because of demand from China, which is in the midst of a huge, government-led investment spree to combat the recession. Rio spurned Chinalco, did a joint venture with international competitor BHP Billiton, and announced a rights issue to raise capital. (See pictures of China's infrastructure boom...