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--Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
INDIA
Mumbai Attacks: 300 Feared Dead as Full Horror of the Terrorist Attacks Emerges - Damien McElroy, Rahul Bedi and Andrew Alderson, Daily Telegraph
Piles of bodies were found yesterday after commandos stormed the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, the last of three buildings that terrorists had occupied in the city. Three terrorists were killed in the battle.
The end to four days of carnage came as tensions grew between India and Pakistan over the atrocity. It is believed that just 10 highly-trained terrorists took part in the attack. Nine were killed and one suspect is under arrest. British and Indian authorities were yesterday playing down reports that some of the attackers were British, although this had not been comprehensively ruled out.
The Sunday Telegraph was given the details of a secret interrogation report based on an interview with the surviving terrorist. The 19-year-old suspect, who lived near the Pakistani city of Multan, is said to have joined Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Islamist fundamentalist group, a year ago. He is alleged to have confessed that he received weapons instruction at a training camp in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The plot is said to have been planned from there. A group then made a reconnaissance of Bombay earlier this year. India believes a Pakistani merchant ship was used to transport some, or all, of the terrorists before they seized control of a fishing trawler to reach Mumbai (Bombay). The final leg of their journey was completed in inflatable boats.
More at The Daily Telegraph.
Indians Claim Terrorists Took Orders From Pakistan - Dean Nelson, The Times
Indian authorities yesterday claimed to have proof that the Mumbai terrorists were receiving instructions from Pakistan and discussing tactics with their handlers during the three days of attacks in which they killed at least 195 people.
The claims threaten further to embitter relations between the two nuclear powers. Tensions have been high since confirmation that the only captured gunman was a 21-year-old Pakistani. It has also emerged that India had been warned that terrorists were planning an attack in Mumbai.
Up to 22 foreigners were among those killed in raids by 10-15 terrorists on sites across the city, including hotels, the main railway station, a Jewish community centre and two hospitals. The last of the gunmen was killed by Indian commandos yesterday morning, ending the siege at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. One hotel worker was found alive and 22 bodies were removed. As many as 80 bodies may still be in the building.
More at The Times.
Pakistanis Deny Any Role in the Attacks on Mumbai - Jane Perlez and Salman Masood, New York Times
Apprehensive about potential reprisals by India over the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Pakistani government insisted Saturday that it had not been involved. It pledged to take action against Pakistan-based militants if they were found to be implicated.
“Our hands are clean,” the Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said at a news conference. “Any entity or group involved in the ghastly act, the Pakistan government will proceed against it.”
The government called a crisis cabinet meeting on Saturday, a day after Indian officials suggested that a militant group with Pakistani ties, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was responsible for the attacks. Similar accusations after an attack on the Indian Parliament by another group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, brought the two governments to the brink of war in 2002.
More at The New York Times.
Ruthless Attackers, Desperate Victims - Emily Wax, Washington Post
After a wave of coordinated terrorist attacks turned parts of Mumbai's financial district into a combat zone, the full extent of the 60 hours of violence came to light Saturday in the stories of victims who filled the city's hospitals. The assailants killed at least 195 people and wounded about 300. Among the dead were 22 foreigners, including six Americans.
More at The Washington Post and:
Mumbai Siege Over, Indian Forces Kill Last Militants - Voice of America
Terrorists Planned a 9/11 in India - Washington Times
India Faces Reckoning as Terror Toll Eclipses 170 - New York Times
Siege Ends, Death Toll Rises - Globe and Mail
Mumbai Siege Survivors Detail Harrowing Ordeals - Washington Post
Mumbai: City of Death - The Times
Mumbai Residents Fear Attacks' Aftereffects - Los Angeles Times
Three Days Of Terror In Mumbai - San Francisco Chronicle
Mumbai Assess Impact of Siege - Voice of America
Indian PM Calls High-Level Meetings - Voice of America
India, Pakistan Lock Horns - Toronto Star
Pakistan Withdraws Pledge to Send Spy Chief to India - Voice of America
Pakistan Pledges to Look into any Militant Role in Attacks - Los Angeles Times
Defiant Pakistan Disputes India's Allegations - Washington Post
Attacks Stoke India-Pakistan Tensions - Washington Times
Pakistan May Move Troops on Afghan Border to Indian Border - Kyodo
US Says 2 Americans Killed in Mumbai Attacks, But Toll Could be Higher - VOA
Hour by Hour: Three Days of Terror in Mumbai - Toronto Star
Innovative, Ruthless, Disciplined Terrorism Stalks Us Again - The Times
Mumbai Attacks: Al-Qaeda Methods and Ideology - ABS-CBN News
The Audacious Attack Which Took a Year to Plan - Daily Telegraph
Aftermath of the Mumbai Attacks - New York Times
Mumbai: Authorities Face Questions Over Siege - Time
Day After, Mumbai Limping to Normalcy - Times of India
Attack Illuminates Weakness in India's Government - Newsweek
Bin Laden-inspired Group Wants Asian Caliphate - The Times
Terror Blasts Hole in Peace with Pakistan - The Times
Indian Allegations Alarm Pakistan - BBC News
Mumbai Fallout Tests Pakistan's Govt-military Ties - Dawn
Attacks Imperil Delicate US Role Between Rivals - New York Times
Bush Offers Condolences, Full Support to India - Voice of America
US Aiding India's Investigation - Associated Press
Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpses Into Attacks - New York Times
It's Time to Stand by Bloodied India - The Times editorial
Dateline: Mumbai - Baltimore Sun editorial
The Scourge of Terror - Jerusalem Post editorial
Delhi’s Blunders in Fighting Terrorism - The Times opinion
Terrorists Join Forces -The Australian opinion
Let Bombay Remind Us: They Haven't Gone - Daily Telegraph opinion
Fallout From Mumbai - Washington Post opinion
A Cloud Over India's Muslims - Los Angeles Times opinion
New India in the Crosshairs - National Review opinion
From New Delhi - National Review opinion
An Idea Lost on Fanatics - Los Angeles Times opinion
It’s Not the Cold War - National Review opinion
Mumbai Could Happen Just About Anywhere - OC Register opinion
Terror Changes Course, With the Same Deadly Results - The Australian opinion
India Is Pointing in the Right Direction - Der Spiegel opinion
IRAQ
The Thrill of Victory - Investor's Business Daily editorial
Nineteen months after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the war "lost," a freely elected Iraqi Parliament signs a security pact with the United States. We won. It is the terrorists and their appeasers who lost.
While Americans sat down for Thanksgiving dinner deciding what they were thankful for, the Iraqi parliament Thursday passed an agreement with the US that set a date certain for American withdrawal, as war critics wanted. But it was based on conditions on the ground, as the Bush administration insisted.
The conditions on the ground are that the jihadists are a spent force that lost the war as well as the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Province after province has been returned to Iraqi control, and the young Iraqi nation appears both willing and able to defend itself.
Under the terms of the agreement, US forces will withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities by June 30, 2009, and the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012. The deal could still be rejected by the Iraqi people in a referendum scheduled for July 30, a key Sunni demand to get their agreement, but by then US troops will no longer be a visible presence in urban areas.
More at Investor's Business Daily.
AFGHANISTAN
Australians Fight on for a Better Future - Paiul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald
Embarking on Australia's new Afghan assignment to mentor some of the men of the country's fledgling army, this hand-picked group of 67 has become an OMLT - operational mentor and liaison team.
After more than three decades of war it is no surprise that Afghans are courageous in combat. But their wars have been wild, brutal affairs, in which boys were given guns and told they were soldiers. They fought when they had to; they went home or hung in the bazaar when they did not.
The OMLT program is a crash-course for the ranks and the leadership of the 70,000- strong Afghan National Army in the finer, if more mundane aspects of soldiering - organisation and command structures; tactical planing and discipline, logistics and supply lines. Not the kind of stuff on which mujahideen militias rely for their oomph.
Up close, this OMLT is like every other aspect of Australia's experience in Afghanistan. It is executed with enthusiasm and professionalism, but it remains part of a project that was under-manned and underfunded even before the recent decision to double the size of the ANA.
More at The Sydney Morning Herald.
Mercenaries Join Forces With Taliban - Cameron Stewart, The Australian
Islamic extremists from Chechnya are taking part in attacks on Australian troops in Afghanistan, according to secret intelligence assessments. The Chechen fighters, radicalised and battle-hardened by years of war in their homeland, are reported to be joining the Taliban in attacks on Australian patrols in Oruzgan province. The same intelligence report claims Iran is supplying logistical support and tactical guidance to the Taliban in the region.
The information is contained in a confidential plan obtained by The Weekend Australian for a military-style US-funded operation to wipe out the opium fields near Tarin Kowt, where Australia's military contingent is based. The report, written in October last year by officials of the US-government funded Poppy Elimination Program, says: "Recent intelligence indicates the Taliban and Chechens have been joining forces to carry out larger-scale attacks on coalition force patrols and bases (in Oruzgan).
More at The Australian.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Joint Chiefs Chairman 'Very Positive' After Meeting With Obama - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief -- no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books. Summoned nine days ago to President-elect Barack Obama's Chicago transition office, Mullen showed up with just a pad, a pen and a desire to take the measure of his incoming boss.
There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the US force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead. After the meeting, the chairman "felt very good, very positive," according to Mullen spokesman Capt. John Kirby.
As Obama prepares to announce his national security team early this week, he faces a military that has long mistrusted Democrats and is particularly wary of a young, intellectual leader with no experience in uniform, who once called Iraq a "dumb" war. Military leaders have all heard his pledge to withdraw most combat forces from Iraq within 16 months -- sooner than commanders on the ground have recommended -- and his implied criticism of the Afghanistan war effort during the Bush administration.
More at The Washington Post.
Obama's Strong-willed National Security Team - Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
President-elect Barack Obama says he wants to lead an administration where strong-willed senior officials are ready to argue forcefully for differing points of view. It appears that in two months, he'll get his wish, and then some.
Obama's new national security team is led by three veteran officials who have differed with each other -- and with the president-elect -- on the full menu of security issues, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons and Arab-Israel conflict. The president-elect is expected on Monday to begin introducing a team that includes Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), whom he has chosen as secretary of State; retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr., tapped to be the new national security advisor; and Robert M. Gates, who has agreed to stay on as Defense secretary.
Their collaboration isn't likely to be as contentious as the first-term Bush administration battles between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney. Clinton, Gates and Jones have worked smoothly, with the only visible clashes coming between Clinton and Gates' deputies over Iraq. But Obama will have some clear choices among their views, which differ in nuance in some cases and more starkly in others. Obama appears to be determined to keep them in line; advisors say he believes the Pentagon has become too strong in the Bush years, and he wants to reassert White House control.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan
45 Taliban Militants Killed in Afghanistan - Voice of America
Iraq
Top Shi'ite Cleric Expresses Concern about Iraq-US Security Pact - VOA
Top Shiite Cleric in Iraq Raises Concerns About Security Pact - Washington Post
Pact with US Worries al-Sistani - Associated Press
Rocket Attack on Baghdad's Green Zone Kills 2 - Los Angeles Times
Obama’s Iraq Inheritance - New York Times opinion
Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq - Washington Post opinion
Iran
Iran Executes IT Expert Who Spied for Israel - The Times
Protecting Iranian Dissidents - Washington Times opinion
The Long War
Report: US Vulnerable To Bioterrorism Attack - Washington Post
Status of the Case Against Ft. Dix Defendants - Philadelphia Inquirer
Trial of Muslims Grips Australians - Washington Times
Police Must Hunt the True Enemy Within - Daily Telegraph editorial
Terrorism That’s Personal - New York Times opinion
Avoiding Guantanamo II - Washington Post opinion
Playing Games at Gitmo - Washington Times opinion
Judging Detainees on the Facts - Boston Globe opinion
NATO
Expand NATO Prudently - Washington Post opinion
United Nations
The UN's Obsession with Demonizing Israel - Boston Globe opinion
Piracy
To the Shores of Tripoli... Weekly Standard opinion
PMC
My Husband Was a Blackwater Hero - Washington Post opinion
OPEC
OPEC Puts Off Any Drop in Output Until Dec. 17 - Washington Post
United States
One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex - New York Times
Obama Ponders National Security Team - Agence France-Presse
World
Crystal Ball for World Affairs - Boston Globe editorial
Africa
Hundreds Killed in Nigeria - Daily Telegraph
Hundreds Killed in Nigeria Over Election Results - Agence France-Presse
At Least 200 Die in Nigeria Clashes - Associated Press
UN Envoy, Rebel Leader Meet in Eastern Congo - Voice of America
Congo Rebel Chief Threatens 'War' - BBC News
Congo's Hidden War Robs Parents of Their Children - Daily Telegraph
In Zimbabwe, a Land Of Broken Trust - Washington Post
Mugabe Arrests Soldiers Amid Fears of Pay Revolt - Daily Telegraph
British Woman, 74, Killed in ‘Wild West’ Zimbabwe - The Times
Uganda Rebel Fails to Sign Deal - BBC News
Americas
Drugs Turf War Turns Mexico's Tijuana into Death Zone - Daily Telegraph
Mexico Drug Suspects Extradited at Record Pace - Los Angeles Times
Russia, Venezuela Agree to Navy Ties - Agence France-Presse
Vote Creates Unlikely Foe for Leader of Argentina - New York Times
Asia Pacific
US Pacific Command Adjusts its Strategy - Taipei Times
33 Wounded in Thai Grenade Attack as Airport Takeover Continues - VOA
Thailand Blast Injures Dozens at Government House - Los Angeles Times
Blast Hits Thai Government House - BBC News
Thai Riot Police Flee as Protesters Storm Airport Checkpoints - The Times
Thai Protesters Break Through Cordon - Associated Press
Violence Escalates in Thai Capital - Reuters
Any Which Way: Britons Dash for Thai Escape - The Times
Europe
Claims of Secret Arms Sales Rattle Ukraine’s Leaders - New York Times
Gag Order Applies to Russian Officers - Associated Press
Middle East
Hamas Blocks Hajj Pilgrims From Leaving Gaza - Voice of America
South Asia
Sri Lankan Floods Uproot Thousands - 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
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.
8 December - Counterinsurgency Leadership Seminar (Seminar). Quantico, VA. On 8 December 2008 the US Marine Corps Center for Irregular Warfare (CIW) will host a Counterinsurgency Leadership Seminar at Little Hall (Base Theater), Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia, featuring Colonel Stephen Davis (USMC), Colonel David Maxwell (USA) and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling. This seminar is cosponsored by CIW, US Joint Forces Command Irregular Warfare Center (IWC), the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center (COIN Center) and Small Wars Journal (SWJ). Seminar Panel Members: Colonel Stephen Davis, USMC. Col Davis is currently the Deputy Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Previously, Col Davis commanded Regimental Combat Team 2 in Iraq. Colonel David Maxwell, USA. COL Maxwell is currently the G-3 (Operations Officer) of the US Army Special Operations Command. Previously he commanded the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, USA. LTC Yingling is the Commander of 1st Battalion, 21st Field Artillery and is currently deployed to Iraq performing detainee operations. He has served two previous tours in Iraq, and has also deployed to Bosnia and Operation Desert Storm. Colonel Daniel Kelly, USMC, will moderate. Col Kelly is the Director of the US Marine Corps Center for Irregular Warfare. He has held a wide variety of command and staff billets and participated in numerous operations to include Operations Restore Hope / Continue Hope (Somalia), Operations Allied Force / Joint Guardian, (Kosovo) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF I and II).
13 January - The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future (Symposium). Washington, D.C. Mark your calendar for January 13, 2009. That is the confirmed date for “The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future”, a symposium to discuss the legislation on which America’s arsenal of persuasion is anchored. The one-day event will be hosted in Washington, D.C., with the location and co-sponsor all but confirmed. The format is four 90 minute panels and will emphasize Q&A, discourse, and debate and not presentations or monologues. The four panels will focus on past, present, future, what to do, respectively. Panelists will be drawn from practitioners (State and Defense Departments), academics, Congress, and the media. The event is free and open to the public but registration will be required (see below). This is a first of its kind in-depth discussion into the legislation that continues to set the parameters of our global engagement. Enacted at the beginning of the First War of Ideas, it is long past time to discuss it ten or more years into the Second War of Ideas, a struggle that goes beyond terrorism and insurgency and into economic and financial power.
26-28 February - Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA) (Conference). Texas A&M University - Memorial Student Center Complex, College Station, TX. Sponsored by Texas A&M University. The Student Conference on National Affairs at Texas A&M is in its 54th year. This years conference topic is US Interventions in Problematic Area's Around the World. It will take place from February 26th to the 28th. While the conference activities are focused toward Graduate and Undergraduate students, the speakers we have are open to the general public. Two of the at least five speakers we have confirmed are, Joe Galloway, Author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young, and James Olson, former Director of Counter Intelligence for the CIA. The other speakers will be the best individuals we can find in military, humanitarian, and business issues. We are currently interested in any individuals with a background in Humanitarian issues to speak, or individuals with professional knowledge on the topic to facilitate our student delegate roundtables. More information can be found at scona.tamu.edu and interested parties can contact scona.information@yahoo.com.