QUOTE OF THE DAY

A generation ago, when the Soviets were in Afghanistan, they lost the battle for hearts and minds quickly by showing scant concern for human rights. Estimates run as high as 1.5 million dead and 10,000 villages destroyed. Now, Americans labor in the shadow of that history, and that helps to explain why alarm bells are ringing in the NATO headquarters here over the latest accounts of air raids that went wrong, causing dozens of civilian casualties.

--John Burns - The New York Times

THE LONG WAR

Military Report Says Terms 'Jihad,' 'Islamist' Needed - Bill Gertz, Washington Times

A US military "Red Team" charged with challenging conventional thinking says that words like "jihad" and "Islamist" are needed in discussing 21st-century terrorism and that federal agencies that avoid the words soft-pedaled the link between religious extremism and violent acts.

"We must reject the notion that Islam and Arabic stand apart as bodies of knowledge that cannot be critiqued or discussed as elements of understanding our enemies in this conflict," said the internal report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The report, "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words," was written by unnamed civilian analysts and contractors for the US Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East and South Asia. It is thought to be the first official document to challenge those in the government who seek to downplay the role of Islam in inspiring some terrorist violence.

More at The Washington Times.

US INTERAGENCY

US National Security's Challenge: Communication - Kenneth Weinstein and Richard Weitz, Christian Science Monitor opinion

No matter who wins the election this November, the president will have numerous foreign-policy crises on his plate: Russia's assault on Georgia and growing Russia-NATO tensions, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, and increasing challenges for the Western coalition in Afghanistan.

Our national security apparatus, largely created on an ad hoc basis over the past six decades, is ill-equipped to handle such multifaceted issues.

When a disaster erupts, there is precious little time for study by the president and his top advisers. They need an integrated system already in place that can guide rapid, informed, and strong responses to today's security challenges. Experience must be institutionalized, and barriers between agencies overcome.

The Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization funded by Congress, seeks to achieve such improvements.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

IRAQ

US Pact Hits Snag as Iraq Shiites Seek Changes - Mary Beth Sheridan and Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post

Key members of the Iraqi parliament's largest political bloc have called for all American troops to leave this country in 2011 as a condition for allowing the US military to stay here beyond year's end, officials said Sunday.

The change sought by the influential United Iraqi Alliance would harden the withdrawal date for US troops. A draft bilateral agreement completed this week would require American forces to leave by December 2011 but would allow for an extension by mutual agreement.

The Shiite bloc, which includes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party, also insists that Iraqi officials have a bigger role in determining whether US soldiers accused of wrongdoing are subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts, said Sami al-Askeri, a political adviser to Maliki. That proposal has been resisted by the Pentagon.

If the Iraqi alliance's conditions are not met, "I cannot see that this agreement will see the light," said Askeri, who is also a lawmaker from Maliki's party.

More at the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Voice of America, Christian Science Monitor, BBC News, Reuters and Associated Press.

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban Kill Dozens in Bus Ambush, Officials Say - Carlotta Gall and Taimoor Shah, New York Times

Taliban insurgents pulled some 50 passengers off a bus in southern Afghanistan and beheaded as many as 30 of them after accusing them of being soldiers traveling in civilian clothes, Afghan officials in the region announced on Sunday.

The police chief of Kandahar Province, where the attack occurred on Thursday, said that of six bodies retrieved so far, all had been beheaded, mutilated and dumped. The police had received information that 24 other people had been killed but had yet to find their bodies, the police chief, Gen. Matiullah Qati, said.

The attack was on the main road running from the southern city of Kandahar to the western town of Herat, General Qati said. It took place in Maiwand District, which is known as an area with a significant Taliban presence, where attacks on military convoys are frequent. The road is also the main route for British and Afghan army troops traveling to Helmand Province, where the insurgency is strongest.

More at the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Voice of America, The Times, and Associated Press.

Afghanistan's Emerging Antiwar Movement - Anand Gopal, Christian Science Monitor

In a musty room near the edge of town, a group of bearded men sit on the floor and heatedly discuss strategy. The men are in the planning stages of an event that they hope will impact Afghan politics – a peace jirga, or assembly, that will agitate for the end of the war between the Taliban and Afghan government by asking the two sides to come to a settlement.

"People are growing tired of the fighting," says Bakhtar Aminzai of the National Peace Jirga of Afghanistan, an association of students, professors, lawyers, clerics, and others. "We need to pressure the Afghan government and the international community to find a solution without using guns."

Mr. Aminzai is not alone in his sentiments. As violence and insecurity grow in this war-ravaged nation, a broad network of peace activists have been quietly pushing for negotiations and reconciliation with the Taliban.

This push coincides with recent preliminary talks in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government hosted a secret high-level meeting in September with former Taliban officials and members of the Afghan government. The event was intended to ultimately open the door to direct talks with the Taliban.

Analysts interviewed say that the majority of Afghans favor some sort of negotiated settlement between the warring sides, but many peace activists are critical of the Saudi talks. "We want reconciliation with the Taliban through a loya jirga," or grand assembly of Afghans, says Fatana Gilani, head of the Afghanistan Women's Council (AWC), a leading nongovernmental organization (NGO) here. "We don't want interference from foreign countries or negotiations behind closed doors," she says.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

An Old Afghanistan Hand Offers Lessons of the Past - John Burns, New York Times

It is one of a flow of disarming asides that Russia’s ambassador to Kabul deploys while warning of the grim prospects that he says will doom the American enterprise in Afghanistan if the United States fails to learn from mistakes made during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s.

“I know quite a lot about the past,” the ambassador, Zamir N. Kabulov, said in polished English with a broad smile during an interview in Kabul one morning last week. “But almost nothing about the future.”

In fact, it is precisely because of a belief that the Soviet past may hold lessons for the American future that a talk with Mr. Kabulov is valued by many Western diplomats here. That is a perception that has drawn at least one NATO general to the Russian Embassy in Mr. Kabulov’s years as ambassador, though the officer involved, not an American, showed no sign of having been influenced by what he heard, Mr. Kabulov said.

“They listen, but they do not hear,” he said with another wry smile.

“Their attitude is, ‘The past is the past,’ and that they know more than I do.” Perhaps, too, he said, “they think what I have to say is just part of a philosophy of revenge,” a diplomatic turning of the tables by a government in Moscow that is embittered by the Soviet failure here and eager for the United States to suffer a similar fate.

More at The New York Times.

RUSSIA

Russia Is Striving to Modernize Its Military - Thom Shanker, New York Times

When asked to assess what seemed to be a Russian resurgence, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have provided the same sanguine response, echoed down through the ranks of government analysts who have spent years reading obscure Russian military journals and scrutinizing classified satellite photographs.

The Russian military fell to third world standards from neglect and budget cuts in the turbulent years when Boris N. Yeltsin was president, they say. The new Kremlin leadership is working to create a force that can actually defend the nation’s interests.

The military has embarked on a program to buy modern weapons, improve training and health care for troops, trim a bloated officer corps and create the first professional class of sergeant-level, small-unit leaders since World War II.

Which is not to say that the United States will stop judging Russian behavior in light of what it considers a clumsy, ill-advised and unnecessary invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

More at The New York Times.

TURKEY

Turkey Puts 86 on Trial Over Planned Coup - Suna Erdem, The Times

The trial of 86 members of an extreme right-wing secularist group referred to as the Deep State, who are accused of plotting murder, social unrest and a military coup to overthrow the elected Turkish Government, starts today.

The nationalist operators within the security forces and bureaucracy are accused of acting illegally to undermine the Government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former Islamist.

The group, which is known as Ergenekon, also opposed the Turkish bid for membership of the European Union, which it believed weakened the country against its many enemies.

More at The Times.

NEWS & OPINION NOTES

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Opium Cash: Taliban Better Organised and More Dangerous - Daily Telegraph
Pakistani Jets Kill Insurgents as US Diplomat Visits Islamabad - VOA
Aid Worker Killed in Kabul - New York Times

Pakistan

Pakistan Forced to Scrounge for Cash - The Australian
Pakistan May Take IMF Aid to Avoid Bankruptcy - Daily Telegraph
Pakistan Steps Up Antiterror Fight - Washington Times opinion

Iraq

The Missing Ingredient for an Iraq Recovery: Trust - Los Angeles Times
For Iraq, Falling Oil Prices Could Have Silver Lining - Los Angeles Times
UK and Iraq to Begin Troop Talks - BBC News
UK Iraq Force Will Shrink - The Times
Hutton Hints of Troop Withdrawal - Daily Telegraph

Iran

Iran Scrambles to Stem Oil Price Plunge - Los Angeles Times

Homeland Security

America's Useless Terrorism List - Los Angeles Times opinion

Africa

S. Africa: ANC Dissidents Confirm New Party - Daily Telegraph
South Africa's Fractious ANC - Los Angeles Times opinion
Zimbabwe's Rivals Take Power-Sharing Dispute to Southern African Summit - VOA
Zimbabwe Rivals to Discuss Dispute - New York Times
Zimbabwe Deal 'Can be Salvaged' - BBC News
Zimbabwe Opposition Won't be at Summit with Mugabe - Associated Press
Mugabe Allies Warn Over Allocation of Cabinet Positions - Daily Telegraph
Mugabe's Time is Up - The Australian editorial
Chinese Oil Workers Kidnapped in Sudan - Voice of America
China Workers Abducted in Sudan - BBC News
First Justice, Then Peace in Sudan - Christian Science Montior opinion
Emirs Still Hold Power in Nigeria - Associated Press
Gunmen Kill UNICEF Worker in Somalia - Reuters

Americas

Falling Oil Prices Dent Hugo Chávez's Clout - Christian Science Monitor
US Court Told of Venezuela Graft - BBC News
Colombian Drug Baron Admits Guilt - BBC News
Drug Killings Haunt Mexican Schoolchildren - New York Times
Amnesia in Nicaragua - Washington Post opinion
Obama Is Wrong About Colombia - Wall Street Journal opinion

Asia Pacific

China Enacts Major Land-Use Reform - New York Times
China to Allow Land Transfers - Washington Post
Is North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-il Dead? - Daily Telegraph
Thai Prime Minister Promises Talks With Cambodia - Voice of America
Beyond the Current Crisis, Thai Tensions Run Deep - New York Times

Europe

Putin’s Deputy Rules Out Attacks on Neighbours - The Times
Police in South Ossetia Ordered to Return Fire - Associated Press
Russia Fleet 'May Leave Ukraine' - BBC News
Russia Unromanticized - Washington Post opinion

Middle East

Ultraconservative Islam on Rise in Mideast - Associated Press
Israel Rethinks Saudi Peace Plan - Associated Press
Israel's Livni to Ask For More Time to Form Govt - Agence France-Presse

South Asia

Sri Lanka Military Says 19 Rebel Bunkers Captured - Associated Press

BOOKS

Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips

Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz

Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.

EVENTS OF INTEREST

3-7 November - Counterinsurgency Leaders' Workshop (COIN Workshop). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Sponsored by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center. This event is a five-day program focused on understanding the fundamentals of insurgency and counterinsurgency. This is a version of the same extremely popular workshop offered to hundreds of military and civilian attendees over the past two years. The COIN Center has expanded the number of slots available to compensate for the high demand of previous sessions. The proceedings are UNCLASSIFED and registration is open to all interested US government and allied personnel.

6-7 December - Boyd Conference 2008 (Conference). Charlottetown, Prince Edward, Canada. There is an opportunity to hold a short, intense seminar on the applicability of Boyd’s ideas, particularly operating inside the OODA loop and grand strategy (sustaining our own morale and attracting the uncommitted), on the weekend of December 6-7 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI. Canada. The theme would be applying these ideas to conflict in the post-Iraq era, and more specifically to the types of diffused, networked, “open source” armed conflicts that some have called “fifth generation warfare.” We are also interested in exploring solutions, such as the role of “resilient communities” (RC), for countering them. As Oil and food prices have climbed and the mortgage crisis has grown, the need to think more about Resilient Communities has become more urgent. We may have to re-invent our world! We envision this as a working seminar to help shape the policy agenda in the first year of the new administration.