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COIN is Not Small Change – Clifford May, National Review
It’s the Pentagon’s job to prepare for wars of the future. But somewhere between Vietnam and Iraq, military planners confused “future” with “futuristic.” They convinced themselves that combat in the 21st-century would resemble computer games. Satellites would provide intelligence. “Smart bombs” would do much of the killing. The enemy, overcome by “shock and awe,” would lose his will to fight.
But the future, as they say, ain’t what it used to be. Put to the test in Iraq, American military forces succeeded brilliantly in bringing down Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the next phase, however, an insurgency driven by both al Qaeda and Iran’s mad mullahs, post-modern warfare failed spectacularly.
Satellites could not distinguish between enemy combatants and friendly civilians. Nor could they identify weapons caches and car-bomb factories hidden in schools and mosques. Targets that could not be located could not be destroyed. No computer program could resolve sectarian conflicts fueled by foreign terrorists who slaughtered innocents while American troops were cooped up in well-guarded Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). Videos of beheadings posted on the Internet provoked more shock and awe than a Cruise Missile ever could.
But here is one of the marvelous things about the U.S. military: It learns and adapts. Other bureaucracies do not…
War, Peace and Anthropologists – Austin Bay, Washington Times
… Of course, the U.S. Defense Department has turned common sense into stilted jargon. Terms like "human terrain" are cropping up in Pentagon briefings. "Human Terrain Teams" provide social science support for military operations.
It may have cause in this case. Calling team members anthropologists supporting State and Defense (which is what they are) would antagonize the hard-left denizens of university social science schools — the only group whose professional jargon is more stilted and obscure than the Pentagon's.
The driving force behind renewed U.S. interest in "cultural contexts" is obviously the War on Terror, which has taken U.S. soldiers and diplomats into some very culturally complicated corners of the planet. This interest is another indicator that the War on Terror is moving to a stage where it is less of a shooting war and more a vast "peace enforcement" operation, but that's a subject for another column.
Applying cultural common sense isn't new. A SEAL commander I met at CENTCOM in October 2001 told me U.S. special operations teams that had just arrived in Afghanistan were "sipping a lot of tea" — negotiating with Afghan tribal leaders. The greeting and tea ceremonies played a major role in framing the discussions. Cultural awareness is key to U.S. Army Special Forces operations. The U.S. Marine Corps' classic "Small Wars Manual" notes the importance of cultural contexts…
Window of Opportunity – Rich Lowry, National Review
“What do you do when Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson offer to put down their arms?”
That’s the rhetorical question posed by an officer of the 2nd Brigade 1st Infantry Division prior to a morning Humvee patrol here. He is analogizing Sunnis who have abandoned the insurgency to the famous rebels Lee and Jackson, and directing his question to the Shia-led central government.
Inspired tactics by our troops, coupled with a Sunni turn against al-Qaida, have — in a microcosm of what’s happening throughout Iraq — transformed the northwest part of Baghdad controlled by this brigade. “People ask me if we’re at a tipping point,” says the brigade’s leader, Col. J.B. Burton. “I say, ‘No, we have a window of opportunity.’”
The opportunity is knocking at, among other places, an intersection on one of the main roads in the Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliya. Once, Americans couldn’t come here without getting hit. Now, they stop and get out to shake hands with some of the same people who had been shooting at them…
Is U.S. Waging War With Radical Islamists Aggressively Enough? - Mort Kondracke, Real Clear Politics
Is the United States really contesting radical Islam around the world as if it is — as President Bush says — “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century”?
Belatedly, the Bush administration has ratcheted up the effort, but critics contend it’s still not being conducted aggressively enough, coordinated at a sufficiently high level in the government or designed to change behavior as opposed to public opinion.
One positive development is that, under Gen. David Petraeus, word of al-Qaida atrocities and repression in Iraq — and rejection of al-Qaida by Sunni Arabs — is being spread to media around the world...
Friends Like These - Philadelphia Inquirer editorial
This should be one of the easier problems to fix in Iraq: Blackwater USA must be held accountable for the reckless and sometimes lethal way its employees do their job. So must the U.S. State Department, whose inattention and poor decision-making has helped exacerbate the culture of impunity Blackwater seems to embrace.
A report released Monday and testimony at a congressional hearing Tuesday by Blackwater's chief have added fuel to the furor over that private security firm and others who work for the United States government in Iraq.
If Washington had planned better for the aftermath of its Iraq invasion, perhaps the State Department wouldn't have needed to hire Blackwater to guard its diplomats. Then you wouldn't have the U.S. House Oversight Committee report that found Blackwater personnel in Iraq to be involved in 195 shootings since 2005...
Blackwater’s Backlash – Wall Street Journal editorial
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that military contractor Blackwater's presence in the Iraq region is irreplaceable. General David Petraeus has called the armed support key to defeating the counterinsurgency. So what exactly is the problem that has dominated Washington the last week? With no negative stone about Iraq left unturned, we take it as self-evident that if Blackwater's soldiers were committing widespread abuses, the story would have been on the front page of every newspaper long ago.
After a week, the controversy appears to have settled on the contractor's legal status. In fact, that looks to be the only serious issue at the center of the Blackwater story. Voting yesterday, the House Fed-exed a piece of overnight legislation that would bring the contractors under the jurisdiction of U.S. civilian courts. We hope the Senate will give its version of the legislative fix more than a day's thought…
Reining in Blackwater – New York Post editorial
The FBI has taken control of the official investigation into Blackwater USA, the private security firm re sponsible for protecting State Department personnel in Iraq, which has been accused of culpability in an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians.
Good. That should allay suspicions of an investigative whitewash.
Actually, the feds are bending over backward to avoid even the appearance of any conflict of interest. Normally, Blackwater would guard the agents responsible for investigating it, but the Justice Department has arranged for government security for the FBI probers.
At issue is a Sept. 16 incident in which a drunken Blackwater guard allegedly fired into a crowd of Iraqis, killing 16 of them. In a December 2006 incident, another agent - also drunk - killed the bodyguard of an Iraqi vice president…
Waxman Blackwater Grandstanding – Mark Hemmingway, National Review
When Erik Prince, founder and CEO of BlackwaterUSA, was called to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee Tuesday, it was not surprising he defended his company’s actions.
But Prince also had to work to correct misconceptions about Blackwater and other military contractors in Iraq. Prince again insisted that Blackwater is accountable to many codes, regulations and international treaties, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Publicly, the controversial North Carolina based company has been consistently outspoken about its adherence to these various codes.
Which is not to say that there aren’t legitimate inquiries that need to be made into contractor behavior; however, Blackwater can’t be expected to legally prosecute their own employees…
Tipping Point – Carter Anderson, National Review
The recent Blackwater incident in Nisoor Square, not far from our Baghdad headquarters, gives cause to reflect upon the Iraq war in general. As a result of my recently published book — Contractor Combatants — the TV networks called for my take on the incident that killed a reported eleven Iraqis, and wounded several more, in late morning rush-hour traffic in downtown Baghdad. Why, how, when, where — the questions came fast and furious live on TV, in a couple cases with CNN and CBS. The latest interview on Fox News brought to light my observation that we’re at a tipping point in the war. The threat level is falling off rapidly so those of us involved in security here need to change tactics accordingly.
Gone are the roving suicide car-bombers who, in the dozens, sought out targets in Baghdad, like the State Department convoy that Blackwater was protecting in Eagles Square (the name in English for the traffic rotary where these security contractors got into a firefight with hundreds of civilians caught in the crossfire)…
A Tax Test for the War – E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it?
That is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.
The proposal is a magnificent way to test the seriousness of those who claim that the Iraq war is an essential part of the "global war on terror." If the war's backers believe in it so much, it should be easy for them to ask taxpayers to put up the money for such an important endeavor…
War Clouds: An Attack on Iran Would Benefit No Country - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial
Reports that the Bush administration and Israel continue to prepare for a military attack on Iran persist, in spite of the catastrophic results of such an assault for both countries and the Middle East.
In the Oct. 8 New Yorker, reporter Seymour M. Hersh points up the recent shift in statements by President Bush to place blame for American failures in Iraq on Iran, as opposed to Iraqi resistance to U.S. occupation or al-Qaida influence in Iraq. The new White House argument casts developments in the Middle East in general as a U.S.-Iran confrontation. In other words, the only way the United States can achieve victory in Iraq is by waging war on Iran as well...
The Deal – London Times leader
The negotiations have at times seemed like haggling in a market. Both President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto have been anxious that any political bargain be settled on their terms. The Pakistani President has tried to insist on the right to remain in uniform; the exiled former Prime Minister has demanded that all charges against her be dropped and that she should have a virtual free hand to resume the leadership of her party, the Pakistani People’s Party (PPP). After several false starts, it now seems that the deal is very close. The PPP members of Parliament will support General Musharraf’s reelection for another five-year term and Ms Bhutto will return to seek the office of prime minister; and he will keep his uniform until after the election on Saturday.
The horse-trading has been transparent and, at times, undignified. The amnesty that quashes corruption charges and ends her eight years in exile is as political as it is selective. It remains unclear whether Nawaz Sharif, Ms Bhutto’s rival and the politician still determined to bring down the man who usurped his power, will be allowed to return without fear of deportation. The compromise over General Musharraf’s uniform is also not wholly satisfactory. It has forced him to accept that he cannot continue to underpin his authority with military supremacy; but the legality of even standing for office while head of the Army remains dubious, as the split vote in Pakistan’s Supreme Court made clear…
Pakistan's Political Muddle - Mustafa Malik, Philadelphia Inquirer
A cartoon circulating in Pakistan depicts a scowling Gen. Pervez Musharraf marrying a cowering former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice look on, worried. "Dear God," prays Rice, as the bride's mother, "please make him treat my child kindly."
Tomorrow, Musharraf is expected to be reelected president, unless legal challenges derail the process. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomats Richard Boucher and John Negroponte have forged an undeclared "understanding" between Musharraf and Bhutto to share power in a new government.
The continuation of the Musharraf presidency, with or without Bhutto, is likely to spawn unrest among Pakistanis, most of whom are fed up with Musharraf. Those who would gain internally are the center-right and Islamic opposition parties, all anti-American...
Don't Militarize U.S.-Africa Ties - Frida Berrigan and William Hartung, Baltimore Sun
... But in the minds of U.S. policymakers, Africa has emerged as a "third front" in the war on terrorism. Actions such as U.S. support for an Ethiopian incursion into Somalia to battle Islamists there and recent discussions about labeling Ethiopia's rival Eritrea a terrorist nation give a sense of where Washington's priorities lie. As Rear Adm. Richard W. Hunt, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, explains: "Africa is the new frontier that we need to engage now, or we are going to end up doing it later in a very negative way."
In keeping with this emphasis, Washington has created a U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), charged with minding U.S. interests on the continent. And as a recent report from the Center for Defense Information has documented, the militarization of America's Africa policy predates the creation of the command. U.S. military aid to Djibouti, which hosts a military base with 1,800 U.S. personnel, increased fortyfold in the five years after 9/11 compared with the previous five years. Military assistance to Kenya and Algeria - both viewed as pivotal states for U.S. anti-terror operations in Africa - has also increased drastically.
The United States can help key African states build up peacekeeping capacities without having a major military presence there. Indeed, such a presence threatens to undermine relations with key potential allies, such as South Africa, whose defense minister has refused to meet with the incoming head of AFRICOM, arguing that "Africa has to avoid the presence of foreign forces on her soil." And while governments in Liberia and Ethiopia have expressed a willingness to host the African command, this is unlikely to prove popular with most of their citizens, who are suspicious of U.S. motives in their neighborhoods...
Reporting the (Bad) News - Frida Ghitis, Miami Herald
Who can blame Europeans for hating Israel? In Britain, the University and College Union has just announced it has to cancel plans to boycott all Israeli academics and promote Palestinian views because the boycott, surprise of surprises, would break anti-discrimination laws.
The British government, as well as academics around the world, criticized as immoral, inappropriate and counter-productive the one-sided approach to the complicated Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But who can blame Europeans for trying, really? After all, when you look at the news, it is clear that Israel is a country run by vicious and malevolent thugs.
News coverage from Israel in the European press is often little more than a parody of honest journalism. Israelis have complained about this for decades, but more evidence of what you might call atrocities against journalism surface every day in European court rooms and in the work of scholars...
A Flawed North Korea Deal – Washington Times editorial
With many of the details shrouded in mystery, there is plenty of reason for skepticism about the U.S.-North Korean agreement reached Wednesday on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs. At the six-party talks in Beijing, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon by the end of the year in a process that will be overseen by a U.S.-led international team. "North Korea also committed not to transfer nuclear materials, technology, or know-how beyond its borders," President Bush said. "It will provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs, nuclear-weapons programs, materials and any proliferation activity."
In exchange for North Korea's agreement to dismantle these programs, it will receive 900,000 of the 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil from the United States and other countries it was promised in February, when Washington and Pyongyang first announced a deal to dismantle North Korean nuclear facilities. North Korea got the first 100,000 tons when it disabled its nuclear facility at Yongbyon. The concept of "disabling" the facility, Mr. Hill said, is to make it difficult for North Korea to abruptly kick out Americans and other international inspectors and restart the reactor…
Korea Talks Paid Off - Toronto Star editorial
Diplomacy works. That was the heartening news flash from Asia this week as North and South Korea announced agreements to ease tension in one of the world's notorious hot spots.
At a rare and productive summit, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to seek a peace treaty to replace the Korean War's 1953 ceasefire and to end a half-century of hair-trigger hostility. They will step up economic co-operation, with an eye to eventual reunification. And work to make the peninsula a zone free from nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile at separate talks hosted by China, the North Koreans agreed to further ease United Nations concerns about their half-dozen nuclear warheads, their bomb-building program and their bomb-grade plutonium stockpile. They promise to deliver a full inventory by year's end, and to disable their Yongbyon reactor, which has been closed since July. This is a coup for American, Chinese, Russian and Japanese diplomacy...
Burma’s Bloody Silence – Washington Post editorial
The situation in Burma seems to be returning to normal. That is to say, the harsh repression that has prevailed since military rule began in 1962 has been restored, after a brief wave of protests that had offered the first hope for change since the crushing of a similar uprising in 1988 and the subsequent cancellation of a 1990 election won by the democratic opposition. Troops wielding guns, clubs and tear gas have cleared the streets of Rangoon and other cities of the courageous Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens who had taken them over for the past several weeks, chanting a simple, modest demand: "dialogue."
But Burma's generals do not talk with their people. They prefer to subdue them, or occasionally to shout threats, such as the chilling words blasted from sound trucks that circulated in Rangoon on Wednesday night: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests." This Orwellian pronouncement was apparently aimed at people who had tried to block a military raid on a pagoda earlier in the week. At last count, media reports said 2,100 people had been arrested, two-thirds of whom were still in custody, and the government acknowledged 10 deaths -- though both figures are probably considerably understated…
A New Strategy for Burma - Jared Genser, Boston Globe
UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari left Myanmar Wednesday much as he arrived: with the military junta firmly in control, monks in jail, and the Burmese people fearful of more violence. In the words of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commenting on the visit: "You cannot call it a success." Indeed, junta leader Than Shwe's offer of "dialogue" with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is transparently disingenuous because it is the same one he has put forward for years - that she abandon her support for sanctions and her confrontational approach as a precondition of meeting.
As a result, the burden shifts back to the Security Council to see if it will take action. This is no surprise. For decades Myanmar has posed a challenge to the international community torn between a sanction-based approach and constructive engagement. In reality, this is a false dichotomy, and what is likely required now is both more sanctions and more engagement.
The sanction-based approach has been confined to Western democracies. The United States imposed a ban on new investment in 1997 and a ban on the import of many goods in 2003. The European Union, by contrast, imposes limited sanctions on the junta. Rather than concluding economic sanctions have failed, it is more accurate to say they haven't really been tried, except by the United States…
U.N. Should Keep Tyrants Off the Stage - Claudia Rosett, Philadelphia Inquirer
In Burma, an ominous silence has fallen. The ruling military junta has been answering the peaceful protests of dissident monks with beatings, arrests and untold killings. Even United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour, too often reticent about criticizing tyrannies, issued a statement Monday deploring the repression and asserting that in the current crackdown, Burma's protesters "have become invisible."
But not all Burmese have been stifled. At the United Nations' headquarters in New York, all 192 members have just enjoyed their allotted 15 minutes of fame on the General Assembly stage. So it was that on Monday, while troops in Burma were reportedly hunting down dissidents, Burma's minister for foreign affairs, U Nyan Win, a mouthpiece for the junta, mounted the steps to the main stage. There, before the great golden backdrop, facing the grand annual meeting of the world's sovereign states, he delivered a speech in which the core message was that normalcy had now returned in Myanmar...
Cuban Espionage Regaining Pre-Iraq War Strength – Chris Simmons, Miami Herald
In May 2003, the United States expelled 14 Cuban diplomats for espionage. That action was the largest expulsion of Cuban intelligence officers and the third-largest expulsion in U.S. history. Although the expulsions occurred less than eight weeks after the Iraq war started, Washington did not acknowledge that the expulsions retaliated for Cuba's intelligence trafficking with Baghdad during the buildup for the Iraq invasion.
Seven of the spy-diplomats were assigned to the Cuban Mission to the United Nations (CMUN) in New York City, while the remainder served at Havana's Interests Section in Washington.
Previous expulsions of Cuban diplomats had been limited, consisting of only one to four intelligence officers. The FBI stated that the Bush administration and the State Department led the expulsion, rather than as a direct result of U.S. counterintelligence activities. Intended to send a strong message to Havana, President Bush may have personally approved the expulsion…
Collective Action Can Improve Latin America – Oscar Arias, Miami Herald
We live in a world crisscrossed by borders, drawn and redrawn throughout history, chosen by fancy or caprice, and all too often defended by bloodshed. They have always been imperfect, and today their flaws are visible in new ways.
Waves of immigrants, driven from their homes by poverty and desperation, blend one nation's struggles into another's. Climate change caused by environmental destruction in one place can cause floods, storms, drought and famine anyplace. Easy global travel means that diseases travel more quickly. Increasingly, we must recognize that our borders are not fortress walls. They are simply lines that we have sketched in the air.
In short, no nation on this changing, shrinking planet can truly address its own problems in isolation. Nowhere is this more true than in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the uneven blows of history and varied national policies have resulted in a patchwork of fates for our many peoples. Today -- sometimes across borders, sometimes within them -- once-unthinkable wealth exists alongside extreme poverty and all its social ills. Ours is a region of cruel contrasts…Ramadan in Istanbul – Boston Globe editorial
… The Islamist party's success has been a victory for democracy, but it might be a defeat for the pluralism that has aided Turkey's economic growth and made Istanbul such a vibrant magnet for visitors and businesses - a New York of the eastern Mediterranean. Whatever happens to the hard scarf ban, Turkey's secularists want the new constitution to protect individual and minority-group rights. There is a history of it here: The Muslim Ottomans welcomed Jews fleeing persecution in Christian Spain 500 years ago. That is the Istanbul that fosters modern dance and puts on a cutting-edge arts biennial. Economic self-interest alone should convince the Islamist party not to allow democracy to diminish pluralism in a city that flourished under the autocratic Ottoman Empire.
Ramadan Revisionism – Diana West, Washington Times
I wasn't going to write about Ramadan in official Washington this fall season not again. But I just can't resist.
First, there are all the holiday trappings of this by-now annual column such seasonal staples as my all-time favorite "war on terror" quotation from Abu Qatada, the al Qaeda-linked cleric. I just love to trot it out around Ramadan after President Bush has said something utterly ignorant about Islam meaning peace, or, addressing the Muslim pooh-bahs he always has in to the White House for a fast-breaking Iftar dinner, about how the jihadists have "twisted" Islam.
"I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Koran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam," Abu Qatada said about six years ago. "Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Koran?" Ah, me. Good stuff…
Missile Defense Works – James Hackett, Washington Times
The successful intercept of a ballistic missile high over the Pacific Ocean last Friday should quiet the critics who keep saying missile defense doesn't work. But don't count on it. Stubborn opposition dies slowly.
Arms-control activists and some congressional Democrats keep calling for "operational testing" of the national missile defense system, implying that current testing is inadequate. Critics, including many in the media, routinely write that missile defense "doesn't work," and then call for more flight tests. When Congress cut funds for a missile defense site in Poland, one of the reasons given was that more operational testing of ground-based defenses was needed.
But consider what happened last Friday. A ballistic missile launched from Kodiak, Alaska, flew thousands of miles southeast before being struck and destroyed some 100 miles over the ocean by an interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast. It was an operational interceptor, same as the nearly two dozen now in silos in Alaska and California, launched from an operational site, using operational command and control, manned by operational crews and tracked by the operational radar at Beale AFB, Calif…
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