If the guerrillas can be isolated from the population, i.e., the 'little fishes' removed from 'the water,' then their eventual destruction becomes automatic...
--Sir Robert Thompson
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS
US Rejects Karzai's Ploy to Call Snap Elections in April - Tom Coghlan, The Times
The United States has backed the choice of August 20 as the best date for presidential elections in Afghanistan despite a decree from President Karzai that the poll will be held on April 21.
Mr Karzai said on Saturday that he was honouring a call from the Afghan parliament to follow the Constitution, which states that his term of office ends on May 21, with elections having taken place 30 to 60 days earlier.
However, the country's Independent Elections Commission had previously indicated that an April poll would be impossible to achieve because of security concerns, logistical problems and the difficult weather conditions expected in the country's inaccessible upland areas. That view was supported by a statement issued by the US State Department yesterday which read: “The United States supports the underlying principles articulated by President Karzai and reiterates its view that elections in August, as proposed by the Independent Elections Commission, is the best means to assure every Afghan citizen would be able to express his or her political preference in a secure environment.”
More at The Times and:
Karzai Opponents Slam Decree for Early Elections - Voice of America
Karzai Draws Criticism for Early Election Call - Christian Science Monitor
US Resists Karzai Poll Date Call - BBC News
Tactical Success, Strategic Defeat - Pamela Constable, Washington Post
The US soldiers entered the sleeping village in Logar province in the dead of night on Feb. 20, sure of their target and heavily armed. They surrounded a mud-walled compound, shouting commands, and then kicked down the gate as cries of protest erupted within.
Exactly what happened next is disputed, but shots were fired and a man inside fell dead. Four other men were grabbed and arrested. Then the soldiers departed, leaving the women to calm the frightened children and the rumors to spread in the dark.
By midmorning, hundreds of angry people were blocking the nearby highway, burning tires and shouting "Death to America!" By mid-evening, millions of Afghan TV news viewers were convinced that foreign troops had killed an unarmed man trying to answer his door.
More at The Washington Post.
Iran Boosts Taliban's Artillery - Michael Smit, The Australian
Iran is supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan with surface-to-air missiles capable of destroying a helicopter, according to US intelligence sources.
They believe the Taliban want to use the SA-14 Gremlin missiles to launch a "spectacular" attack against coalition forces in Helmand in the southwest of the country, where insurgents claim to be gaining the upper hand. Although coalition helicopters operating in southern Afghanistan are equipped with defensive systems to deflect an attempted strike, the SA-14 can evade such counter-measures.
It was a shoulder-held SA-14 supplied by Iran that Iraqi insurgents used to shoot down a Lynx helicopter over Basra in May 2006. Five British service personnel died in that attack, including Wing Commander John Coxen and Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, the first British servicewoman killed in action since World War II.
Although the Iranians are not natural supporters of the Taliban, they have been willing to assist them in the past to prevent Britain and the US gaining influence in the region. Special forces have previously intercepted arms shipments from Iran that would have helped the Taliban intensify a roadside bombing campaign that has killed coalition troops over the past 18 months.
More at The Australian and:
Missile Threat to British Troops - The Times
IRAQ
Gates: Pullout Timeline Workable - Sean Lengell, Washington Times
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Sunday that military commanders wanted President Obama to extend combat troop levels in Iraq beyond his planned 2010 withdrawal deadline, though he expects continued improvements in the country will ensure the plan will succeed unchanged. "I think that, if the commanders had complete say in this matter, that they would have preferred that the combat mission not end until the end of 2010," Mr. Gates said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
But Mr. Gates said the president's decision to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, should allow for enough time and troops to provide a secure environment for remaining US military and noncombat personnel.
More at The Washington Times.
MIDDLE EAST
A Perilous Pivot - Jim Hoagland, Washington Post opinion
President Obama is pivoting the United States from fighting the "wrong" war in Iraq to "winning" the "right" war in Afghanistan, as candidate Obama promised. While there are several holes in his formulation, there is also much to admire in the way he is proceeding.
Obama's style of weighing options and making decisions is disciplined and crisp. He has recruited intelligent, experienced people to make the White House the center for devising a global strategy, not just assembling a set of policies. He has shifted the nation's angle of vision to a wide regional one extending from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. Think of it as Med-Ind, instead of AFPAK, for the moment.
More at The Washington Post.
MORE NEWS AND OPINION
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
Many in Afghanistan Oppose Troop Buildup Plans - Christian Science Monitor
Afghan Officials Caution Against Scale Back of US Effort - Voice of America
Step Aside, Limey, This is How to Fight the Taliban - The Times
Taliban Loses Major Foothold in Pakistan - Associated Press
Coalition Forces Kill Militants in Afghanistan, Seize Caches - AFPS
US Missile Hits Taliban Village; 7 Dead - Associated Press
Missiles 'Kill Seven' in Pakistan - BBC News
Field Notes From Afghanistan - Washington Post
Actress Forced into Hiding as Taleban Return - The Times
Who Has the Power in Afghanistan? - Christian Science Monitor opinion
How to Win in Afghanistan - Washington Times opinion
Iraq
Military Leaders Back Obama's Iraq Plan - Voice of America
Gates Defends Iraq Withdrawal Plan - New York Times
Gates: Plans on Track for New Transition Force Role in Iraq - AFPS
Mullen Voices Support for Iraq Decision - AFPS
Oil Price Drop Squeezes Iraq on Security - Associated Press
Hundreds of Iraqi Shiites Protest Voting Results - Washington Post
Iraq Civilian Death Toll Rises in February - Voice of America
Iran Pushes Iraq to Close MKO Camp - Christian Science Monitor
Combined Forces Discover Weapons, IEDs in Iraq - AFPS
Obama Can't Leave Iraq in the Lurch - Christian Science Monitor
Mission Accomplished - The Australian editorial
A Hard-Earned Opportunity, Indeed - National Review editorial
The Economic Cost of War - New York Times opinion
Iran
Adm. Mullen Says Iran Has Material for Bomb - Wall Street Journal
Mullen: Iran Has Fissile Bomb Materials - Associated Press
Iran's Uranium 'Enough for Bomb' - BBC News
Iran’s Leaders Stick to the Same Script - New York Times
Radio Reporter From the US Is Held by Iran - New York Times
Iran Clenches Its Fist - Wall Street Journal opinion
The Long War
Duties That Are Best Shared - Washington Post opinion
Canada: A Resolute Ally in the War on Terror - Wall Street Journal opinion
US Department of Defense
Secretary Addresses Pakistan, Afghanistan, Other Key Issues - AFPS
Declining Defense - Wall Street Journal editorial
The Pentagon Meets the Real World - New York Times editorial
A Respectful Homecoming - Washington Post editorial
F-22 Raptor Imperative - Washington Times opinion
US National Security
Welcome to the Toughest Job in Town - Washington Post book review
US Department of State
Super (Sub) Secretaries - New York Times opinion
United Nations
US Threatens Boycott of UN Racism Conference - Voice of America
A UN Education - Wall Street Journal editorial
Africa
Mugabe Vows to Continue Zimbabwe Land Reform - Voice of America
Mugabe Vows to Seize More Farms - BBC News
Rebels 'Retake DR Congo Positions' - BBC News
S. Africa: ANC Unleashes Terror Against Election Rivals - The Times
South Africa's Prominent ANC Members Join COPE - Voice of America
Guinea-Bissau Army Chief 'Killed' - BBC News
Residents Say Guinea-Bissau’s President Has Been Killed - Reuters
Americas
Mexico: The War Next Door - CBS News
Drug Trade Seen as Threat to US - Associated Press
Gates: Military Can Help Mexico in Drug War - Associated Press
US Gun Trial Echoes in Drug-Torn Mexico - Wall Street Journal
Venezuela: Chávez Orders Army Takeover of Rice Mills - The Times
Nicaragua: Sandinistas Control Streets - Christian Science Monitor
Asia Pacific
US, China Hold Military Talks after 5-Month 'Pause' - Voice of America
US, China Revive Military Talks - Washington Post
US and China Revive Military Talks - New York Times
North Korea, UN Hold Talks at Border - Associated Press
ASEAN Urges Burma to Release Political Prisoners - Voice of America
Australia: Memorial a Tribute to Peacekeepers - The Australian
The Caucasus
Chechen Women Face Strict Rule of Islam - Associated Press
Europe
Serbian Spy's Trial Lifts Cloak on CIA Alliance - Los Angeles Times
Ukraine Teeters as Citizens Blame Banks and Government - New York Times
EU Denies Request For Bailout of E. Europe - Washington Post
Growing Economic Crisis Threatens the Idea of One Europe - New York Times
Middle East
Clinton Is at Helm of Mideast 'Dream Team' - Wall Street Journal
US to Pledge $900 Million to Palestinians - Voice of America
Clinton Starts Mideast Diplomacy With Cash for Gaza - New York Times
US Talks Tough on Gaza Aid - Washington Post
Hamas Presence Threatens US Aid - Washington Times
Militants Fire Rockets Into Israel - Agence France-Presse
Israel Threatens 'Harsh' Retaliation for Palestinian Rocket Attacks - VOA
Plan to Raze Arab Neighborhood Hit - Washington Times
Clinton in Egypt for Gaza Aid Conference - Voice of America
Israeli Limits Stymie Gaza Rebuilding - Christian Science Monitor
Olmert Likely to Face Charges in Corruption Case - New York Times
Hariri Tribunal Opens in The Hague - Voice of America
Fear Grips Democracy in Lebanon - Washington Times opinion
South Asia
Bangladesh: Mutiny Dealt Serious Blow to Security - Christian Science Monitor
Bangladesh Border Guards Returning to Post After Violent Mutiny - VOA
Search for 1,000 Soldiers After Dhaka Mutiny - The Times
Bangladesh Mutiny Charges Announced - BBC News
BOOKS
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz
The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.
The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney
The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.
Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett
In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen
A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.
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.
