Democracy In The Balance

Kabul, Afghanistan — EACH morning, the policewoman puts on her uniform, goes to her precinct office, sits behind a bare desk. And waits. She is one of several officers appointed to make it easier for women to report domestic violence. Her job ought to be one of the busiest in the district. Instead, Pushtoon, who goes by one name, has one of the loneliest. "Last week we had one woman. Before that there had not been anyone for several weeks," she said, twisting hands left scarred by her attempt at suicide years ago in a Taliban jail.

Kabul, Afghanistan — EACH morning, the policewoman puts on her uniform, goes to her precinct office, sits behind a bare desk. And waits. She is one of several officers appointed to make it easier for women to report domestic violence. Her job ought to be one of the busiest in the district. Instead, Pushtoon, who goes by one name, has one of the loneliest. "Last week we had one woman. Before that there had not been anyone for several weeks," she said, twisting hands left scarred by her attempt at suicide years ago in a Taliban jail.

Re "How CBS' Big Story Fell Apart," Jan. 16: Your story on the CBS memo mess treads lightly on Dan Rather's role. Certainly he should have been fired for malfeasance. And for those letter writers (Jan. 16) who say what President Bush did, launching a preemptive attack against Iraq, is worse, let's remember one fact: The voters had their say on this issue and elected to renew his option. Paul Knopick Laguna Hills The real tragedy in the CBS News/Dan Rather failing is the more pervasive and destructive problem of pseudo-media pervading cable news, talk radio and Internet blogs.

As an editorial cartoonist, Paul Conrad's political commentary landed him on President Nixon's enemies list, won him three Pulitzer Prizes and fueled the 1960s renaissance that transformed the Los Angeles Times into a newspaper of national distinction.

CHINA'S ANTI-SATELLITE missile test last month is merely the latest in a series of recent events that force us to question where the world's most populous country is heading. What will its political system look like in, say, 25 years? This question will grow in importance as members of the new Democratic congressional majority -- and some presidential candidates -- take up the themes of economic populism.

IN the halls of justice here, almost everything is for sale. It can take one bribe to obtain a blank legal form and another to have a clerk stamp it. Lawyers openly haggle in corridors and parking lots over the size of payoffs. A new refrigerator delivered to the right official might help solve a long-running property dispute. Court dockets don't exist. The Koran, the basis of Islamic law and also the Afghan legal code, is often the only book on the shelves of poorly trained judges.