Though US Central Command investigators found a May 4 air strike that caused civilian casualties in Afghanistan’s Farah province was within the rules of armed conflict, they recommended that coalition forces alter tactics, techniques and procedures to safeguard innocent civilians.
--American Forces Press Service
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
Taliban Chief Extends Control Over Insurgency - Matthew Rosenberg, Yochi Dreazen and Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal. Mullah Omar, supreme leader of the Taliban, is reasserting direct control over the militant group's loose-knit insurgency in Afghanistan, ordering attacks and shuffling field commanders in preparation for the arrival of thousands of additional US troops, according to US officials and insurgents in Afghanistan. Until recently, the ground-level conduct of the Taliban's war against the US-led coalition has been left to local commanders acting on their own. Mr. Omar, who heads a Taliban leadership council called the Quetta "shura" - named after the city in southeast Pakistan where it is believed to be based -- has typically focused on choosing Taliban leaders and funneling money, religious guidance and strategic advice to fighters. But since the start of the year, through his direct lieutenants, Mr. Omar has ordered a spate of suicide bombings and assassinations in southern and eastern Afghanistan that presage a bloody phase to come in the Afghan war, according to US officials and Afghan insurgents.
Pakistan Faces Challenge of Cementing Victory Against Taliban - Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times. The Pakistani army has exceeded expectations in its offensive against Taliban fighters in northwestern Pakistan, effectively marshaling arms, tactics and political support. But the tougher challenge will be preventing the extremists from returning, or from regrouping elsewhere. "The key question is whether the army can hold the ground afterward," said Urmila Venugopalan, a South Asia expert with the defense analysis group Jane's. The early results, which come at a huge humanitarian cost, have bolstered at least temporarily the reputation of a military sometimes accused of fostering militancy to further its long-standing fight with India over the disputed region of Kashmir. Analysts, however, pointed out that early military victories are only a first, easy step in an effective counterinsurgency campaign. The government must also address the sources of discontent on which the extremists thrive, including government corruption, inadequate services and a sclerotic legal system.
US Toughens Airstrike Policy in Afghanistan - Dexter Filkens, New York Times. The new American commander in Afghanistan said he would sharply restrict the use of airstrikes here, in an effort to reduce the civilian deaths that he said were undermining the American-led mission. In interviews over the past few days, the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said the use of airstrikes during firefights would in most cases be allowed only to prevent American and other coalition troops from being overrun. Even in the cases of active firefights with Taliban forces, he said, airstrikes will be limited if the combat is taking place in populated areas - the very circumstances in which most Afghan civilian deaths have occurred. The restrictions will be especially tight in attacking houses and compounds where insurgents are believed to have taken cover.
Taliban Averts Attacks with US Equipment - Eli Lake, Washington Times. Some Taliban fighters have been able to ward off attacks by US aircraft by wearing special infrared patches on their shirts that signal that they are friends rather than foes. The patches, which can also help suicide bombers get close to US targets, are supposed to be the property of the US government alone, but can be easily purchased over the Internet for about $10 each. Also available online: night-vision goggles and military-grade communications systems like the ones used by the terrorists who attacked the Indian city of Mumbai last year. While stealing uniforms is as old as warfare itself, the Internet has made purchases of military equipment much easier and increased the risk to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Personal Touch in Taliban Fight - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post. Harrison faces two enemies in Afghanistan. The most obvious is the Taliban, whose fighters lurk in the mountains along the border. The other is the overwhelming frustration that Afghans feel toward US forces. Eight years of airstrikes, civilian casualties and humiliating house-to-house searches have left the Afghan people deeply suspicious of the US troops who are supposed to be protecting them. As Harrison's medics hovered over the girl's body, her cabdriver father, Jonagha, squatted on the ground outside the aid station. A summer thunderstorm swept over the base. The father placed his face in his hands and prayed as the rain drenched his bloodstained tunic. Harrison and his interpreter knelt beside Jonagha. The American captain draped an arm around the man's shoulders, leaned in close and delivered the news that his daughter was dead. The man sat frozen, his face still resting in his palms and the rain pelting his back.
The Frontier Against Terrorism - Asif Ali Zardari, Washington Post opinion. After the debacle of Vietnam, the United States could pack up and leave with minimal consequences for its genuine national interests; similarly, for the British in the subcontinent and the French in Algeria. But the West, indeed the entire civilized world, does not have that luxury in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the Taliban and al-Qaeda are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents. In Pakistan today, democracy must succeed. The forces of extremism must be vanquished. Failure is not an option; not for us, not for the world. How can we ensure that the forces of freedom defeat the forces of fanaticism?
IRAQ
Laws Lag in Iraq, as Patience Wears Thin - Timothy Williams and Suadad al-Salhy, New York Times. Popular support for Iraq’s democratic institutions is being undermined steadily by official corruption, yet the country has no comprehensive anticorruption law. The country’s economy is dependent almost entirely upon oil revenue, but because there is no single law regulating the industry, there is widespread confusion about investment, production and lines of authority. And parts of northern Iraq continue to be beset by ethnic and sectarian violence that could engulf the rest of the country in a new wave of warfare, but there is little prospect of a political resolution being offered any time soon to settle competing claims in the disputed province of Kirkuk.
Uneasy Iraq Weighs Implications of the Political Crisis Next Door - Ernesto Londoño and Nada Bakri, Washington Post. As post-election unrest roils neighboring Iran, Iraqi officials are warily contemplating the potential ramifications of the crisis in a country with which Iraq shares a tumultuous past and an 800-mile border. Iran is Iraq's top trading partner, has been deeply involved in Iraqi politics since the 2003 US-led invasion and is widely suspected to have fueled violence in Iraq in recent years. As a result, Iraqi officials say, a sustained political crisis in the Islamic republic could have lasting consequences for Iraq. "No one is more worried and sad about what is going on in Iran than Iraq," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters last week during an official visit to Japan. "Iran is an immediate neighbor and a powerful neighbor, and what happens there will affect us all."
ID for Slain Britons Taken Hostage in Iraq - Reuters. The bodies of two Britons taken hostage in Iraq in 2007 and handed to British officials in Baghdad late Friday have been provisionally identified, the government said on Sunday. The Foreign Office said in a statement that the dead men were “highly likely” to be the security guards Jason Creswell and Jason Swindlehurst. Peter Moore, a computer instructor, and four of his bodyguards, who were working for the Canadian security firm GardaWorld, were seized by an armed Shiite militant group from inside a Finance Ministry building in a raid in Baghdad in May 2007.
IRAN
A Tense Calm on Streets of Tehran - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. The Iranian government and opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi stepped up their war of words Sunday after at least 10 people were killed in clashes on Saturday, while an uneasy calm prevailed on the streets of Tehran on Sunday for the first time since Iran's worst political crisis in 30 years began a week ago. Government media lashed out Sunday at Mousavi, suggesting that some of his actions were illegal and blaming "terrorists" for Saturday's violence, in which at least 100 people were injured. The semiofficial Fars News Agency, which has strong ties to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, quoted a law professor at Tehran University as saying that Mousavi's actions were criminal. Some analysts in Tehran said those comments and others carried in the state-run news media questioning the legality of Mousavi's actions could be the government's way of preparing the ground for his arrest.
Heavy Security Reins In Iranian Protests - Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal. A relative and tenuous calm was restored to parts of Iran's capital Sunday amid heavy displays of security, but an escalating campaign of arrests and the continued political standoff signaled a potential widening divide among Iran's power holders. A day after one of the bloodiest clashes in a week of turmoil over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, Iran's state media on Sunday reported the arrest of five members from one of the most prominent political families here. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's daughter and granddaughter were among those detained as they participated in Saturday's street demonstrations. Later, family members said all had been released. Uniformed security agents also arrested Newsweek magazine's Tehran correspondent, Maziar Bahari, who has made documentaries on Iran and Iraq, the magazine said. He is among 24 journalists and bloggers who have been arrested since the start of the dispute last week, according to local media. The BBC said its Tehran correspondent was being expelled.
Iran Admits Discrepancies in 3 Million Votes - Nazila Fathi and Michael Slackman, New York Times. Locked in a bitter contest with Iranians who say the presidential elections were rigged, the authorities have acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, state television reported Monday following assertions by the country’s supreme leader that the ballot was fair. But the authorities insisted that discrepancies, which could affect three million votes, did not violate Iranian law and the country’s influential Guardian Council said it was not clear whether they would decisively change the election result. The news emerged on the English-language Press TV as a bitter rift among Iran’s ruling clerics deepened over the disputed election. The outcome of the vote, awarding a lopsided victory to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has convulsed Tehran in the worst violence in 30 years, with the government trying to link the defiant loser to terrorists and detaining relatives of his powerful backer, a founder of the Islamic republic.
Split Deepens Between Top Clerics in Iran - Jeffrey Fleishman and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times. As the power struggle inside Iran's political class appeared to intensify, with reformist and conservative leaders exchanging sharp statements that blamed each other for last week's deadly street violence, authorities announced irregularities that could affect 3 million votes in 50 cities. The Guardian Council, which oversees elections, found that "votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to cast ballots in those areas," state-owned Press TV reported. A spokesman for the council said the votes were not enough to reverse the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The revelation was announced as opposition leader and presidential challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi has alleged widespread fraud and has called for the June 12 elections to be annulled. It also came as the divide between Iran's senior clerics over the direction of the country took on a harsh public tone. But there was no repetition of Saturday's bloody battles as a tense calm settled over Tehran.
Iran Admits 50 Cities Had More Votes than Voters - Martin Fletcher, The Times. In 50 Iranian cities the number of votes cast in this month presidential election exceeded the number of eligible voters, the state's election watchdog admitted today. The surprising admission by the Guardian Council was, however, designed to undermine the claims of the defeated candidates that the vote was rigged. Mir Hossein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main rival in the hotly-disputed election, and the other two losing candidates have claimed that the vote exceeded eligible voters in as many as 170 districts. Abbasali Kadkhodai, a spokesman for the council of senior clerics, told the state television channel IRIB: "Our investigation shows that the number of districts they announced is not correct. Based on our preliminary report, 50 districts face this issue."
Iran Vote Patterns Suspect, Study Says - Agence France-Presse. A new analysis of voting figures in Iran's disputed presidential election published Sunday found "irregularities" in the turnout and "highly implausible" swings to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Independent British think tank Chatham House found that in two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, the turnout was more than 100 percent a trend that it said was "problematic," although admittedly not unprecedented in Iran. The analysis of Interior Ministry figures also found that overall, there was a 50.9 percent swing to Mr. Ahmadinejad, with official results suggesting that he won the support of 47.5 percent of those who had backed reformist candidates in the2005 election. "This, more than any other result, is highly implausible and has been the subject of much debate in Iran," the study said.
In Iran Battle, Both Sides Seek to Carry Islam’s Banner - Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, ended his prayer sermon in tears on Friday, invoking the name of a disappeared Shiite prophet to suggest that his government was besieged by forces of evil out to destroy a legitimate Islamic government. The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, in criticizing the government, demanded the kind of justice promised by the Koran and exhorted his followers to take to their rooftops at night to cry out, “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.” In the battle to control Iran’s streets, both the government and the opposition are deploying religious symbols and parables to portray themselves as pursing the ideal of a just Islamic state.
Former Iran President at Center of Fight Between Classes of the Political Elite - Michael Slackman, New York Times. Even before his daughter and four other relatives were briefly detained on Sunday, one of the big mysteries to envelop Iran since the disputed presidential election has been the role of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. One of Iran’s wealthiest and most powerful men, a former right-hand man to the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mr. Rafsanjani was an outspoken critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the campaign and a supporter of the opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi. His absence from public view, coupled with the provocative, though temporary, detention of his family members appears to have escalated an internal battle between two classes of Iran’s political elite. Even if the street protests are stopped, the split threatens to paralyze the state and undermine the legitimacy it has tried to construct since the 1979 revolution, analysts say.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi's Unusual Career Arc - Borzou Daragahi, Ramin Mostaghim and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times. Iran's economy stood in shambles and its international status was at a nadir. Disturbed by the leadership of then-President Ali Khamenei, Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi wrote him a letter and threatened to resign from his high-ranking post, according to news accounts at the time. "The affairs of Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan are in your hands," Mousavi's 1988 missive reportedly said. "You know better how disastrous these have been to the country." Mousavi's threat to resign was ignored, but within a year, he was shuffled aside from Iran's political scene, spending the next two decades painting, reading and lecturing at universities. Today, Mousavi, 67, finds himself again facing off against Khamenei, now the country's supreme leader, as the figurehead of a surprise reform movement built around his own presidential election campaign and the widespread belief among his supporters and independent experts that the June 12 vote count was rigged in favor of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As he ascends the international stage, Mousavi, however, is still very much a blank slate. In public, he remains soft-spoken, almost aloof, measuring his words carefully when he speaks, often awkwardly.
Israel's Top Leaders Voice Support for Iran Demonstrators - Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been a convenient bogeyman for Israel. So the early claim of his reelection as Iran's president brought quiet sighs of relief to many Israeli leaders, who figured it would be easier to rally Western pressure against Iran as long as the Holocaust-denying hard-liner remained in power. Now, after more than a week of massive protests by defiant Iranians alleging electoral fraud, sentiment in Israel is shifting. Its leaders have joined the Israeli public in openly applauding the demonstrators and asking aloud whether the theocratic regime feared by the Jewish state as a threat to its existence might be crumbling. "It is a regime whose real nature has been unmasked, and it's been unmasked by incredible acts of courage by Iran's citizens," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They go into the streets and face bullets... Something very deep, very fundamental is going on. There's an expression of a deep desire amid the people of Iran for freedom."
Iran Complicates Obama's To-do List - Jon Ward, Washington Times. President Obama is finding out, as former President George W. Bush did, that when it comes to governing, other people's elections can be a troublesome business. The tumultuous aftermath of Iran's presidential election more than a week ago has complicated the president's plans to engage Tehran in a quest for a "grand bargain" to stop the Islamic Republic's pursuit of a nuclear weapon. On Sunday, Iran's government announced that five members of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's family have been arrested, suggesting a rift among Iran's theocratic rulers, although state media later said they were released. The government also said at least 10 people were killed and 100 injured in clashes between demonstrators and police.
Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology - Christopher Rhoads and Loretta Chao, Wall Street Journal. The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale. Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections. Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.
Obama's Persian Tutorial - Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal opinion. President Barack Obama did not "lose" Iran. This is not a Jimmy Carter moment. But the foreign-policy education of America's 44th president has just begun. Hitherto, he had been cavalier about other lands, he had trusted in his own biography as a bridge to distant peoples, he had believed he could talk rogues and ideologues out of deeply held beliefs. His predecessor had drawn lines in the sand. He would look past them. Thus a man who had been uneasy with his middle name (Hussein) during the presidential campaign would descend on Ankara and Cairo, inserting himself in a raging civil war over Islam itself. An Iranian theocratic regime had launched a bid for dominion in its region; Mr. Obama offered it an olive branch and waited for it to "unclench" its fist. It was an odd, deeply conflicted message from Mr. Obama. He was at once a herald of change yet a practitioner of realpolitik. He would entice the crowds, yet assure the autocrats that the "diplomacy of freedom" that unsettled them during the presidency of George W. Bush is dead and buried. Grant the rulers in Tehran and Damascus their due: They were quick to take the measure of the new steward of American power. He had come to "engage" them. Gone was the hope of transforming these regimes or making them pay for their transgressions. The theocracy was said to be waiting on an American opening, and this new president would put an end to three decades of estrangement between the United States and Iran.
Iran and the Tragedy of Bad Ideas - Andrew Klavan, Wall Street Journal opinion. There are times when wrestling with the mysteries of storytelling can be revelatory. I recently saw the film "The Stoning of Soraya M.," and, as a professional storyteller, found myself puzzled by how compelling a tale it was. Based on actual events recounted in a book by expatriate Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, the movie tells of the brutal 1986 judicial murder of a woman falsely accused of adultery in the Islamic slave state of Iran. Having, as a woman, no right to defend herself, she was horrifically stoned to death in accordance with Shariah law -- one of an untold number of Iranian women to suffer such a fate. It's a very well-made film, passionate, powerful and beautifully acted. But by rights, the story shouldn't work. The plot is too inevitable to qualify as a drama, and it is not concerned enough with individual character to rank as classical tragedy. It does derive some power from the sheer awfulness of its central event, but stories with nothing but awfulness to recommend them usually fail.
Obama's Iran Dilemma - E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post opinion. Protesters hit the streets demanding freedom and fair elections. A repressive government strikes back and denounces the dissidents as unpatriotic subversives. Change, even revolution, is in the air. Liberals and progressives should be natural allies of those trying to overturn the existing order. They stand for democracy, equality and freedom, or they stand for nothing. In principle, it's conservatives who preach prudence. But there is a tension in the progressive worldview. Usually, the left also favors restraint in foreign policy. It typically prefers negotiation to war, advises caution in the use of American power and recoils at what it sees as the trigger-happiness of parts of the right. Iraq is Exhibit A for the dangers of presuming that American power can easily remake the world. As Iranians battle in the streets to transform their nation, President Obama finds himself caught squarely in this liberal dilemma.
Right-Thinking Realism - Paul J. Saunders, Washington Post opinion. Attacks are mounting against President Obama for failing to offer sufficient support to backers of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran, with claims that Obama is "siding with the regime" against the Iranian people. This approach to the crisis is derided as "realist" - typically with quotation marks - as well as cold-blooded and insufficiently committed to American values. But the president has struck the right tone in his public statements, calling on Iran's government to stop "all violent and unjust actions" and making clear that Washington and the world are watching. And he is right to avoid becoming more deeply involved in Iran's post-election political crisis, both practically and morally. Many politicians and commentators seem to suffer from the illusion that the United States can have a decisive influence on Iran's political evolution. They appear to believe this despite the fact that engineering Iraqi democracy - which a number of them also urged - has been far more difficult and costly than was advertised at the outset.
NORTH KOREA
Test Looms as US Tracks North Korean Ship - Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times. A North Korean ship shadowed by an American Navy destroyer and possibly heading toward Myanmar on Sunday could pose the first test of how far the United States and its allies will go under a new United Nations resolution to stop the North’s military shipments. The United States began tracking the ship, the 2,000-ton freighter Kang Nam, after it left Nampo, a port near Pyongyang, the North’s capital, on Wednesday. Pentagon officials have said they suspect the ship is carrying prohibited materials, but they have declined to say where it may be headed. A South Korean cable news network, YTN, on Sunday quoted an unidentified intelligence source as saying that Myanmar was the destination of the freighter, which may be carrying missile components.
Pyongyang Declares it's a 'Proud Nuclear Power' - Associated Press. President Obama said the US is ready to cope with "any contingencies" involving North Korea and vowed not to "reward belligerence and provocation." South Korea's YTN news network reported that a US Navy destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying missiles and related parts toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new UN sanctions, imposed after the North's recent nuclear test. The sanctions toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have spiked since North Korea defiantly conducted its second nuclear explosion on May 25. It later declared that it would expand its atomic bomb program and threatened war to protest the UN sanctions. On Monday, the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said it is "nonsense" to say the country threatens the US and claimed that Washington threatens the North. The paper also warned that the country is prepared to strike back if attacked.
Barack Obama: US Prepared for North Korea Threats - The Times. President Barack Obama said the United States is “prepared for any contingencies” involving North Korea - including the regime's reported threat to launch a long-range missile toward Hawaii. Japanese media have reported the North Koreans appear to be preparing for a long-range test near July 4. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has ordered additional protections for Hawaii in case a missile is launched over the Pacific Ocean. “This administration - and our military is fully prepared for any contingencies,” Mr Obama said during an interview with CBS News to be broadcast in the US Monday on The Early Show. “I don't want to speculate on hypotheticals,” Mr Obama said. “But I want ... to give assurances to the American people that the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted in terms of what might happen.”
THE LONG WAR
Gitmo Lawyers - Washington Times editorial. A deal is in the works to send Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Saudi Arabia, but don't ask the attorney general about it. Executive Order 13493 on Jan. 22 appointed Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. co-chairman of the Special Task Force on Detainee Disposition, the interagency group charged with determining the status of persons captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations. But according to Justice Department regulations, Mr. Holder is required to recuse himself from certain detainee matters because his law firm represented the detainees. The Legal Times reported in March that there are more than a dozen such conflicted lawyers at the department. This includes five of the top 10 officials in the department, including the attorney general; Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden; Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli; Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West; and Lanny A. Breuer, chief of the Criminal Division, who, like Mr. Holder, hails from the firm Covington & Burling LLP.
US FOREIGN POLICY
Obama and the Rogues - Wall Street Journal editorial. President Obama took office loudly promising to be the anti-George W. Bush of foreign policy, vowing to "extend a hand" to adversaries "willing to unclench" their fists. What he has received instead is an education in the reality of global rogues, and how he responds has become a major test of his Presidency. The immediate challenges are North Korea and Iran, governments that the American left claimed were "evil" only because Mr. Bush had declared them so. Perhaps Mr. Obama believed this too, though five months later he has learned otherwise. North Korea has rejected his every overture and is now defying the UN to press its nuclear and proliferation ambitions. As for Iran, the mullahs are attempting to crush a popular uprising after a stolen election while also showing disdain for Mr. Obama's diplomatic entreaties.
AFRICA
Ex-Zambian Leader’s High Life Awaits a Verdict - Celia W. Dugger, New York Times. the gleaming black Mercedes-Benz pulled up to the courthouse, an aide rushed to the passenger door, bowed deeply and then ceremoniously opened it. A foot, finely shod in a dove-gray shoe, appeared, followed by the rest of the man, Frederick Chiluba. For a decade, he was president of Zambia. Now, more than seven years after he left office, a court is deciding whether he stole from his impoverished people. A verdict is to be announced July 20. As common thieves and drug peddlers milled about, Mr. Chiluba strode through the corridors to his hearing, shaking hands, smiling magnanimously, throwing an arm around a co-defendant to chuckle over a private joke.
AMERICAS
The FARC's Ecuadorean Friends - Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal opinion. Previously undisclosed documents, fruits of the Colombian military's raid on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (a.k.a. FARC) camp in Ecuador in 2008, came into my hands last week. The FARC's second in command, Raúl Reyes, was killed in that raid. But he left behind laptop computers containing correspondence detailing a cozy relationship not only with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez but also - the fresh documents reveal - with the government of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. Someone should tell the White House. Ten days ago, President Obama called Mr. Correa to, according to a spokesman, "congratulate him on his recent re-election." Mr. Obama also wanted to "express his desire to deepen our bilateral relationship and to maintain an ongoing dialogue that can ensure a productive relationship based on mutual respect." Mr. Correa is anything but respectful of US interests in the region. He's more like Fidel Castro - albeit with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois. Under his rule, liberty has been evaporating faster than you can say bolivariano. Now the Reyes letters provide strong evidence that he has been actively supporting the Marxist FARC guerrillas, who see the US as a major enemy.
ASIA PACIFIC
Thai Rebels Recruiting in Schools, Study Says - Thomas Fuller, New York Times. Insurgents in southern Thailand are using a network of Islamic schools to recruit fighters, but their movement does not appear to be linked to Al Qaeda or other foreign Islamist groups, according to a study due to be released Monday. Since an increase in violence five years ago, analysts have sought to pinpoint the primary motivations of an insurgency that has left more than 3,400 people dead in towns and villages only several hours away from Thailand’s most popular beach resorts. The 20-page study, by the International Crisis Group, describes a homegrown movement of Malay Muslim fighters seeking independence from Thailand and built around longstanding resentment toward the Thai Buddhist majority. Thai officials have in the past attributed the violence to the drug trade and other criminal activities.
THE CAUCASUS
Ingushetia’s President Wounded in Bomb Attack - Clifforc J. Levy, New York Times. The leader of an unstable republic near Chechnya, who had been installed by the Kremlin in an effort to tamp down tensions there, was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt Monday morning, officials said. The leader, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, president of Ingushetia, was being driven to work in a motorcade when it was hit by an enormous bomb. One or more of his bodyguards may have been killed, local news agencies said. There were conflicting reports about the gravity of Mr. Yevkurov’ s wounds. He was said to be undergoing surgery at a local hospital. Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Moscow, said the attack may have been a suicide bombing.
Ingushetia Leader Wounded in Attack - Associated Press. The president of the troubled North Caucasus region of Ingushetia was critically wounded when his convoy was hit by an explosion Monday, Russian officials said. It was unclear whether Yunus Bek Yevkurov's car convoy was hit by a car bomb or a landmine or whether he was the target of the explosion. But he was the third top official to be wounded or killed in Ingushetia in the past three weeks and the fourth in the North Caucasus this month. The explosion occurred around 8:30 a.m. local time as Mr. Yevkurov traveled in a convoy outside the Ingush regional center Nazran, said Ingush Interior Ministry spokeswoman Madin Khadziyeva said. He was hospitalized in unknown condition, she said. Federal Emergency Situations Ministry officials said he was in critical condition.
SOUTH ASIA
In Mumbai Terrorism Case, An Emotional, Historic Trial - Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post. Pakistani-born Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, is accused of being one of the two assailants caught on film at the train station, where 48 people died. He is also the only alleged gunman captured alive during the terrifying three days beginning Nov. 26, when 10 men arrived in Mumbai by boat and attacked 10 sites, including two five-star hotels and a Jewish outreach center, killing more than 170 people. His trial, on charges of terrorism, criminal conspiracy and waging war against the state, began two months ago, and the stakes could not be higher for India. For years, the government in New Delhi has accused Pakistan-based Islamist militant groups of fomenting terrorist attacks in India. But this is the first time a Pakistani national has been arrested and brought to justice after police said he was caught on camera engaging in terrorist activities. Many Indians resent this elaborate trial and the security apparatus set up to protect Kasab, saying there is enough evidence to execute him now - the penalty he will face if convicted.
Lessons from Sri Lanka - Peter Leitner and Rajika Jayatilake, Washington Times opinion. Sri Lanka recently emerged victorious from one of the world's longest-running conflicts, once termed an "unwinnable" war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers. The LTTE is considered one of the deadliest terrorist groups, having invented the concept of the modern-day suicide bomber and carried out the murder of two sitting heads of state. In addition, the Tamil Tigers pioneered use of female suicide bombers, homemade minisubmarines, ultralight aircraft and "warehouse ships" pre-positioned on the high seas to resupply terrorist operations on shore. These homegrown terrorists held Sri Lanka hostage through brutal acts of terror for almost three decades, demanding a separate state for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of Sri Lanka while building a vast global terror network.
BOOK REVIEWS
The Battlefield Can Be an Unforgiving Teacher - Janet Maslin, New York Times book review of The Unforgiving Minute by Craig M. Mullaney.
Soldiers of Misfortune - James Glanz, New York Times book review of Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage by Donovan Campbell.
A Counterinsurgency Primer - Max Boot, Wall Street Journal book review of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.
Reluctant Warriors - The Economist book review of both The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Thomas Ricks and The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.
BOOKS
The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars - David H. Ucko.
Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures? In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality.
Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda - Thomas P. Odom.
In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the US Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide.
Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.
Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.
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.
