Tell the Truth, and speak from your pay-grade. Don't try to answer questions that would better be directed to the battalion commander or Gen. William Westmoreland or President Lyndon Johnson. If you are a squad leader, answer questions about what you know and do.

--Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS

Truce in Pakistan May Mean Leeway for Taliban - Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair, New York Times

The Taliban and the Pakistani Army signed a truce last month in Swat, the once popular tourist area just an hour north of the capital. But far from establishing peace, the pact seems to have allowed the Taliban free rein to expand their harsh religious rule.

Just days after the truce was signed, a member of a prominent anti-Taliban family returned to his mountain village, having received assurances from the government that it was safe. He was promptly kidnapped by the Taliban, tortured and murdered.

The militants then erected roadblocks to search cars for any relatives who dared travel there for his funeral. None did.

More at The New York Times.

Islamic Sharia Law Expands in Northwest Pakistan - Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

In an apparent expansion of Islamic fundamentalists' authority in the picturesque Swat Valley, local Pakistani officials have agreed to close shops at prayer times and crack down on prostitution and drug dealing as part of a proposed peace deal, according to local media reports Thursday.

The steps were among 17 points agreed to at a Wednesday meeting involving provincial government officials and supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric mediating the negotiations.

Although Sharia, or Islamic law, has been in practice in many parts of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and its tribal areas, its official expansion into a region less than 100 miles from Islamabad, the capital, last month has unnerved secular groups, human rights activists and Western officials.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Afghan Supply Chain a Weak Point - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post

The US military is laboring to shore up a vulnerable supply chain through Pakistan and Central Asia as it seeks to expand the flow of supplies into Afghanistan by at least 50 percent to support an influx of tens of thousands of troops, according to defense officials and experts.

One new link is now undergoing testing with the first shipment of US military nonlethal cargo through Russia, officials said. That cargo has already crossed into Kazakhstan on its way to Afghanistan, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

Escalating attacks on supply convoys in Pakistan, the anticipated closure in less than six months of the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan -- the last remaining American air hub in Central Asia -- and slow progress in opening up the northern supply route into Afghanistan have added urgency to the effort to strengthen the logistical backup for the troop increase, they said.

More at The Washington Post.

Kyrgyzstan Hesitates on Plan to Close Base - Alan Cullison, Wall Street Journal

The government of Kyrgyzstan is showing signs of waffling on its decision last month to close a US air base that is a major supply hub for troops in Afghanistan.

The mixed signals come as Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is coming under heightened pressure from domestic allies over the decision to close the base. While Russia has promised a $2.15 billion aid package to his government, people close to Mr. Bakiyev wonder whether Kyrgyzstan will ever see much of the money.

Mr. Bakiyev said in an interview with the BBC this week that "the doors are not closed" to talks with the US about the base. He declined to discuss what kind of talks he was prepared for and said none were under way.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Kyrgyzstan Ends Air Base Agreements - Reuters (New York Times)

Kyrgyzstan, which last month decided to close a U.S. military air base, on Friday canceled similar agreements with other members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Central Asian state's parliament voted almost unanimously to cancel eleven agreements that allowed a number of European nations as well as Australia, South Korea and New Zealand to use the Manas air base.

More at The New York Times.

IRAN

US Sets Stage to Meet Iran at Afghanistan Summit - Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal

The US proposed a United Nations-led conference on Afghanistan on March 31 that would provide a forum for the first meeting between President Barack Obama's foreign-policy team and Iran's leadership.

Mr. Obama has stressed his desire to open a dialogue with Tehran in an effort to end its nuclear program and develop cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formally proposed the Afghanistan conference at a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's foreign ministers in Brussels Thursday. "It is expected that Iran would be invited as a neighbor of Afghanistan," Mrs. Clinton said.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Clinton Wants to Include Iran in Afghan Talks - Mark Landler, New York Times

Setting up the prospect of its first face-to-face encounter with Iran, the Obama administration has proposed a major conference on Afghanistan this month that would include Iran among the invited countries, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

“We presented the idea of what is being called a big-tent meeting, with all the parties who have a stake and an interest in Afghanistan,” she said at a news conference here after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. “If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited, as a neighbor of Afghanistan.”

More at The New York Times.

LEBANON

Britain to Resume Talking With Hezbollah - John F. Burns, New York Times

The British government said Thursday that it was re-establishing contact with the political wing of the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. The move came four years after Britain broke off that relationship and moved to align with the United States in designating Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the move had been discussed in advance with the United States. Diplomats said the announcement appeared to have been timed to follow the two-day visit to Washington this week by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who met with President Obama at the White House and addressed a joint session of Congress.

More at The New York Times.

MORE NEWS AND OPINION

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

Clinton Pushes NATO Allies for United Strategy - Christian Science Monitor
NATO Commander: Warming Relations Between Pakistan, Afghanistan - AFPS
Abu Ghraib MP Slain In Bid for Redemption - Washington Post

Iraq

Iraq’s Parliament Cuts Budget - New York Times
Attack on Crowded Livestock Market South of Baghdad Kills 12 - Washington Post

The Long War

Senate Panel Reaches Terms For Probe of CIA Detentions - Washington Post

NATO

Pondering NATO's Future - Stanley Sloan, International Herald Tribune opinion

Africa

Sudanese President Rails Against West - Washington Post
Bashir Defies War Crime Arrest Order - New York Times
Sudan President Says He'll Fight War Crimes Charges - Los Angeles Times
More Misery for Sudan - Wall Street Journal editorial
What the Bashir Indictment Means - Wall Street Journal opinion

Americas

Colombia Hands Ex-paramilitary Leader Over to US - Los Angeles Times
Tourists Weigh Mexico Drug Violence - Los Angeles Times
Ousted Cuban Officials Admit Errors - Wall Street Journal

Asia Pacific

Taiwan Says It Is Not Ready for Peace Talks With China - Washington Post
North Korea's Troubles Intractable Hunger Crisis - Washington Post
South Korea Protests North’s ‘Threat’ to Civil Aviation - New York Times
North Korea, UN Open Talks After Plane Threat - Associated Press

Europe

US Explores Nuclear Pact With Russia - Wall Street Journal
Europe Advises US Officials on Climate - Washington Post
New Trial for Tycoon Is a Test for Russia - New York Times

Middle East

Israeli Spurns Criticism From Clinton - Washington Post
Fresh Start in the Middle East - New York Times editorial

South Asia

Pakistan Says It Knows Who Attacked Athletes - Wall Street Journal
Official Says Suspects Are Arrested in Cricket Attack - New York Times
How US 'War on Terror' Emboldened Sri Lanka's - Christian Science Monitor
Civilian Toll in Sri Lanka Rises, Aid Workers Say - New York Times

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.