|
|||||
|
|||||
We have to acknowledge the reality that the alliance as a whole has not trained for counterinsurgency operations even though individual countries have considerable expertise at and success in this arena.
--Robert Gates
ISRAEL / PALESTINIANS
Israel Agrees to Brief Halt in Gaza Offensive - Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal
The Israeli military said Wednesday it will briefly halt its operations in Gaza during the day to allow in humanitarian aid and fuel.
Military spokesman Peter Lerner gave no specific time for the halt. But the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem said the military has informed it of a planned lull between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. local time.
On Tuesday, three Israeli artillery shells struck a United Nations-run school in Gaza, killing at least 30 Palestinians who had sought shelter there, a U.N. spokesman said. The rising death toll accelerated international efforts to end hostilities between Jerusalem and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, according to diplomats involved in the negotiations.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Israel Ponders Truce Plans as Conflict Enters Its 12th Day - Taghreed El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner, New York Times
One day after Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a United Nations school in Gaza, Israel pondered its next move in the 12-day conflict, under international pressure to accept a pause in the fighting but committed on the ground to breaking Hamas’ ability to fire rockets into Israel.
With the death toll mounting, President Shimon Peres told Sky News in an interview on Wednesday that Israel would study cease-fire proposals put forward by Egypt. According to news reports, Israel’s security cabinet was also planning to debate the military options after almost two weeks of aerial bombardment of Gaza and a ground offensive that began Saturday.
More at The New York Times.
Israel Hits UN-Run School in Gaza - Griff Witte and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post
Israeli soldiers battling Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday fired mortar shells at a UN-run school where Palestinians had sought refuge from the fighting, killing at least 40 people, many of them civilians, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Israeli military said its soldiers fired in self-defense after Hamas fighters launched mortar shells from the school. The United Nations condemned the attack and called for an independent investigation.
More at The Washington Post.
Israel Agrees to Open Corridor for Relief Aid after UN School is Hit - Azmi Keshawi, James Hider and James Bone, The Times
Israeli mortar rounds blasted a United Nations-run school that had been converted into a refugee shelter for hundreds of Palestinians displaced by the ten-day war in Gaza, killing more than 40 people.
It was one of three UN schools hit by Israeli ordnance yesterday. The strike against the Fakhora school in the northern town of Jabaliya was the deadliest single attack of an already blood-soaked offensive.
As international peace efforts gathered pace in the aftermath of the carnage, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, backed down on his previous refusal to halt the offensive, and ordered the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” into the Gaza Strip. This would entail granting relief convoys periodic access to various areas of the territory to allow desperate Palestinians to stock up on vital goods, his office said last night.
More at The Times.
For Israel, 2006 Lessons but Old Pitfalls - Steven Erlanger, New York Times
This time, Israeli military commanders are leading from the front, not trying to direct the infantry from television screens. This time, the military has clear plans, in stages, drawn up with a year’s preparation. This time, there is no illusion about winning a war only from the air. This time, the military chief of staff has kept his silence in public, all cellphones have been confiscated from Israeli soldiers, and the international press has been kept out of the battlefield.
In these and many other ways, Israel is applying the lessons it learned from its failed 2006 war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon to its current war against Hamas in Gaza. But Israel’s failure in Lebanon also stemmed from a political and diplomatic inability to decide on clear objectives for the outcome of the war, and here the lessons of Lebanon have been not so well applied, according to senior Israeli military officials and political analysts.
More at The New York Times.
Deepening Israeli Assault on Hamas Divides Arab World - Nicholas Blanford, Christian Science Monitor
Israel pressed deeper into Gaza Tuesday in its assault on Hamas. As the battle grew deadlier, calls for a cease-fire mounted as did outrage at Israel after two strikes outside United Nations schools killed at least 34 Gaza civilians.
Across the Arab world the conflict continues to tear at the rift between factions that extol resistance to Israel and the Western-friendly autocracies and monarchies that rule in the region. As anger at Israel grows, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas backers in Iran and Syria gain more currency on the street at the expense of American allies: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. And this shifting tide of support could have an impact on US policy in the Middle East for decades.
More at The Christian Science Monitor and:
At Least 30 Killed in Israeli Attack on UN School in Gaza - Voice of America
Cease-fire Calls Rise After School Bombing - Washington Times
30 Palestinians Sheltering in Gaza School Killed - Los Angeles Times
Gaza Fighting Intensifies; Rising Casualties Growing Concern - Voice of America
Mideast Mediators Seek Anti-Tunnel Plan - Washington Post
Hamas Fighter: 'We Fight Israel One Day On, One Day Off' - The Times
Abbas Pleads with UN for Gaza Help - Agence France-Presse
International Pressure Grows for Israeli Ceasefire - Daily Telegraph
UN Chief Demands Gaza Ceasefire - BBC News
Analysis: Will Israel Call a Gaza Ceasefire? - Daily Telegraph
Unintended Consequences Pose Risks for Mideast Policy - Washington Post
Gaza Humanitarian Situation Dire - Voice of America
Int'l Red Cross Decries Gaza Humanitarian Crisis - Voice of America
Rice to New York for Gaza Diplomacy - Voice of America
Sarkozy Urges Syria to Exert Pressure on Hamas - Voice of America
EU's Diplomatic Efforts are Fractured - Los Angeles Times
Sealing Egypt Border 'Key to Gaza Ceasefire' - The Times
Egypt Proposes Israel-Palestinian Cease-Fire - Voice of America
Israel Puts Media Clamp on Gaza - New York Times
Restrained Obama Leaves Many Displeased - Los Angeles Times
The Mideast’s Ground Zero - New York Times opinion
The World Won't Act So Israel Does - The Times opinion
West Must Guarantee Gaza Resolution - The Australian opinion
Militant Islam Threatens Us All - Wall Street Journal opinion
Middle East 'Proportionality' - Los Angeles Times opinion
Gaza Distraction - Washington Times opinion
Hamas and Turkey - Washington Times opinion
'International Community' Echoes? - Washington Times opinion
HAMAS / IRAN
Controversy Arises Over Alleged Hamas-Iran Ties - Gary Thomas, Voice of America
While moderate Arab states have been largely quiet about the conflict in the Gaza Strip, Iran has been sharply vocal in its criticism of Israel and has offered support to Hamas. Most analysts agree there are links between Iran and Hamas, but they differ about the nature and depth of those ties.
Israel has long contended that Iran backs Hamas the same way Tehran supports its primary proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli officials say that Iran has armed and trained Hamas fighters. But it is a controversial allegation.
George Joffe, a Middle East expert at Cambridge University in Britain, dismissed the claim that Iran could have penetrated the Israeli cordon around the Gaza Strip to provide arms to Hamas.
"Quite how Iran could have maintained those sorts of contacts seems to me very difficult to understand. Even inside the occupied territories, it would have been very difficult for those kinds of links to exist. They are isolated, in effect, from the rest of the Middle East, too. So again, simple logic seems to me to suggest that the close ties that are proposed really can't exist," he said.
But Reva Bhalla, a Middle East analyst with the private intelligence firm Stratfor, said Iran uses a sophisticated Hezbollah smuggling network to get arms to Hamas.
"Basically, you'll have a bunch of Hezbollah agents who will procure arms through Sudan. They'll enter Egypt under forged documents, pay off disgruntled Bedouins in the Sinai with things like light arms, cash, Lebanese hashish - which they can sell in the black market - and pay off Egyptian security guards as well so that they can travel covertly into Gaza to pass off the weapons shipments through Hamas' pretty extensive underground tunnel network," she said.
More at Voice of America.
Iran's Hamas Strategy - Reuel Marc Gerecht, Wall Street Journal opinion
Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that Sunni and Shiite radicals don't work together - er, except when they do. Proof that the conventional wisdom is badly wrong is on offer in Gaza, where the manifest destiny of the Islamic Republic of Iran is now unfolding. Tehran has been aiding Hamas for years with the aim of radicalizing politics across the entire Arab Middle East. Now Israel's response to thousands of Hamas rocket provocations appears to be doing just that.
Born in the 1980s from the ruins of the Palestine Liberation Organization's corrupt and decaying secular nationalism, Hamas is a grass-roots, Sunni Islamist movement that has made Shiite Iran a front-line player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Before Hamas, the mullahs had financed the Palestine Islamic Jihad, whose holy warriors became renowned suicide bombers. But Islamic Jihad has always been a fringe group within Palestinian society. As national elections revealed in 2006, Hamas is mainstream.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
SOUTH ASIA
Pakistani, Afghan Leaders Vow Joint Terrorism Fight - Pamela Constable, Washington Post
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, whose government has been accused by India of supporting a major terrorist attack there, vowed Tuesday to work closely with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to combat terrorism, saying it had become a menace to all countries in the region.
Zardari, making his first visit to Afghanistan, was welcomed by Karzai as a "brother" and returned the familiarity several times during a joint news conference at Karzai's palace in Kabul. The exchanges between the two civilian leaders appeared far more relaxed than Karzai's tense interactions with Pakistan's previous ruler, Pervez Musharraf.
More at The Washington Post.
PAKISTAN
National Security Adviser Says Pakistan Is Top US Challenge - John McKinnon, Wall Street Journal
The biggest foreign-policy challenge awaiting President-elect Barack Obama isn't Iraq or Afghanistan but Pakistan, President George W. Bush's national-security adviser said.
In an interview previewing a valedictory speech he plans to give on Wednesday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said Pakistan's increasingly turbulent border region poses threats not just to the US mission in Afghanistan, but also to neighboring India, as evidenced by the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, as well as to urban areas of Pakistan itself -- and the world beyond.
If extremists succeed in destabilizing Pakistan, the resulting chaos will threaten the entire region, Mr. Hadley is expected to say in his speech.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
SRI LANKA
Tamil Tigers Prepare for Last Stand in Sri Lanka, But Military Victory is Not Political Peace - Dean Nelson, Daily Telegraph
If the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa is to be believed, the Tamil Tigers, the rebel movement which inspired a new generation of suicide bombers, are about to be defeated, bringing his country's 25-year civil war to an end.
In the week since his army captured Kilinochchi, the Tigers' administrative capital in the north of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa has made a series of triumphalist claims, including the boast that this key victory was won without a single civilian casualty.
There is no doubting the military significance of the loss of the Tigers' capital. Since the government abandoned a ceasefire in January last year, it has pushed the Tigers back towards their last strongholds on the far north of the island.
More at The Daily Telegraph and BBC News.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
US Troops Kill 32 Insurgents in East Afghanistan - Associated Press
Female Cops Test Traditional Gender Roles in Afghanistan - CS Monitor
Forces Target Bomb Networks in Afghanistan - AFPS
US Troops Train Afghan Security Guards - AFPS
India / Pakistan
India: Official Agencies in Pakistan of Supported Mumbai Terror Attacks - VOA
Dossier Gives Details of Mumbai Attacks - New York Times
Singh Accuses Pakistan on Mumbai - BBC News
Pakistan Denies Official Involvement in Mumbai Attacks - Los Angeles Times
Iraq
This Time, Iraqis Hear and See Candidates - New York Times
Former Blackwater Guards Plead Not Guilty - Washington Post
Guards Plead Not Guilty in ’07 Killings in Baghdad - New York Times
Shi'ites Flock to Iraqi City for Start of Ashura - Voice of America
Women Banned from Baghdad Shrine - BBC News
Marines Raise Flag on New US Embassy in Baghdad - AFPS
Iran
Tehran Offers to 'Protect' Ebadi - BBC News
The Long War
New CIA Boss Signals End of Waterboarding and Rendition - Daily Telegraph
Order Could Keep Public From Hearing Details of 9/11 Trials - Washington Post
Detainees: Overreach at Bagram - Washington Post editorial
United States
A Spy Chief with Little Intelligence Experience - Christian Science Monitor
Critics Round on Obama Choice of CIA Chief - The Times
Is Panetta Qualified? - Los Angeles Times editorial
A Surprise Pick for CIA - Washington Post opinion
Gates, Mullen Thank Bush for Commitment to Troops - AFPS
Defense Leaders Laud Bush at Farewell Ceremony - AFPS
Commander in Chief, Bush Cites Military’s Valor, Sacrifice - AFPS
Purple Heart Criteria Exclude PTSD, Defense Officials Say - AFPS
United Kingdom
MI5 Chief: We Have Got Terrorists on the Run - The Times
The Special Relationship with US - The Times editorial
Why MI5 Comes Out of the Shadows - The Times opinion
Africa
UN: Desolation in Congo Area Attacked by Rebels - Voice of America
Ugandan Rebels Kill 12 in Congo - Associated Press
Congo Rebels Back 'Ousted' Chief - BBC News
Nigeria Insists on Guinea's Suspension from ECOWAS - Voice of America
After Coup, US Halts Aid to Guinea - Agence France-Presse
Tensions Threaten Kenya's Fragile Coalition Government - Voice of America
Nigerian Pirates Grab French Ship - BBC News
Ethiopia Imposes Aid Agency Curbs - BBC News
Africa Command to Airlift Peacekeeper Equipment to Darfur - AFPS
Americas
In Cuba, Pinning Hopes on Obama - Washington Post
Venezuela Expels Israeli Envoy - BBC News
Asia-Pacific
China Warned to Expect Social Unrest - The Times
China: The Discordant Society - The Times editorial
Europe
France Wary of Strife Spreading From Gaza - Washington Post
Anti-Semitic Attacks Rise in Europe - The Times
Flow of Gas From Russia Via Ukraine Plummets - Washington Post
Ukraine Says Russia Halts All Gas to Europe - New York Times
Gas Spat Sends Shivers Across Europe - Wall Street Journal
Russia Cuts Gas Supplies to Europe - Christian Science Monitor
Ukraine: Gas Talks With Russia to Resume Thursday - Voice of America
The Winter Gas War - Wall Street Journal editorial
Re-emerging Russia - Washington Times editorial
Russia: Silencing the People - Washington Times editorial
South Asia
Democracy Returns in Bangladesh - BBC News
Vote Deposes Kashmir Politician - BBC News
New Initiative to Boost Crop Yield in South Asia - Voice of America
BOOKS
The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks
Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.
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
13 January - The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: A Discourse to Shape America’s Discourse (Symposium). Washington, D.C. – at the Reserve Officer’s Association at the intersection of First Street and Constitution Avenue, NE. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 was passed as the U.S. was beginning a "war of ideology... a war unto death," as America's Ambassador to Russia described it at the time. But, beginning in the 1970's, instead of promoting international engagement through information, cultural and educational exchanges, the law was distorted into a barrier of engagement. From its propaganda and counter-propaganda intentions, it transformed into an anti-propaganda law for reasons that had little to nothing to do with concerns over domestic influence and far removed from the original intent of the law. Keynotes will be given by Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy Michael Doran. There will be four 90 minute panels – past, present, future, and Congress – that will emphasize Q&A, discourse, and debate and not presentations or monologues. Registration is free, open to the public, and required to attend. The event will be on the record with a transcript available after the event. A public report based on the proceedings will be produced. Registration and other information can be found at http://mountainrunner.us/symposium.
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.