This time, we're banking on an assortment of movers, shakers and muckrakers that runs the gamut from the warfare digest "Small Wars Journal" to Hot Issue cover girl Lady Gaga.
D-DAY PLUS 65 YEARS
Obama Pays Tribute to D-Day - Laura Meckler, Wall Street Journal. President Barack Obama marked the 65th anniversary of the D-day invasion on a sunny Saturday before an audience sprinkled with a dwindling number of veterans from that bloody, decisive day. "D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century," the president said at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where 9,387 Americans are buried, row after row of white headstones standing at attention alongside Omaha beach. American flags flew from the cottages along the rural roads leading to the site. There, thousands assembled to mark the day American, British and Canadian forces stormed the Normandy beaches in the surprise Allied invasion, by air and by sea, of Nazi-occupied France. Thousands were killed or wounded, but by day's end, the Allied forces had gained a foothold in Normandy and more than 100,000 others survived and began the march across Europe to win the war.
Obama Hails D-Day Heroes at Normandy - Jeff Zeleny, New York Times. President Obama led a solemn tribute on Saturday to the valiant Allied soldiers who stormed the beaches here 65 years ago and achieved the triumph of a generation that charted the course for the end of World War II. “As we face down the hardships and struggles of our time and arrive at that hour for which we were born,” Mr. Obama said, “we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving shore.” With a new era of threats gathering, Mr. Obama and the leaders of France, Britain and Canada paused to reflect upon the heroics that took place during the D-Day operations on the beaches of Normandy and the cliffs of nearby Pointe du Hoc. The spirit of those battles, the presidents and prime ministers told the crowd, holds lessons for confronting the world’s new challenges.
'History ... Has Always Been Up to Us' - Scott Wilson, Washington Post. President Obama urged the world Saturday to live up to the sacrifice made by thousands of Allied soldiers who struggled to shore here 65 years ago on D-Day, telling a hushed audience that "the selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century." "For you remind us that in the end, human destiny is not determined by forces beyond our control," Obama said during a ceremony commemorating the invasion. "Our history has always been the sum total of the choices made and the actions taken by each individual man and woman. It has always been up to us." Obama's speech at the bluff-top cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach served to underscore the message he has sought to deliver throughout his trip to the Middle East and Europe. Using a mix of criticism and understanding, he has urged rivals and allies to work now to resolve conflicts based on his view of how their national interests coincide with those of the United States.
Obama Pays Homage to D-Day Veterans - Christina Bellantoni, Washington Times. President Obama standing above the Normandy beaches where tens of thousands of Allied soldiers stormed ashore 65 years ago to begin an operation that cost nearly 10,000 American soldiers' lives said Saturday that the D-Day invasion helped defeat Nazi Germany's evil ideology bent on ruling the world. Before a throng of elderly heroes some stooped, some in wheelchairs, nearly all white-haired the president said World War II brought a clarity of purpose, unlike the troubled state of the world today. We live in a world of competing beliefs and claims about what is true. It is a world of varied religions and cultures and forms of government. In such a world, it's all too rare for a struggle to emerge that speaks to something universal about humanity. The Second World War did that, he said.
Obama Honors D-day Heroes on 65th Anniversary of Invasion - Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times. Standing on the shores of the historic Omaha Beach landing, President Obama paid tribute Saturday to the thousands of servicemen who gave their lives in the D-day invasion 65 years ago and cast it as inspiration for the struggles of today. Obama recalled the German fire that rained down on the troops as they took the beaches of Normandy, which he called "the story of America." "It is a story that has never come easy, but one that always gives us hope," he said in a speech to a sea of veterans and their families. "For as we face down the hardships and struggles of our time, and arrive at that hour for which we were born, we cannot help but draw strength from those moments in history when the best among us were somehow able to swallow their fears and secure a beachhead on an unforgiving shore."
In Normandy, Obama Meets with Veterans for a Day of Remembrance - Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes. President Barack Obama paid tribute Saturday to the veterans of D-Day, poignantly noting their ever-thinning ranks and "the sheer improbability" of their successful invasion of Normandy 65 years ago. He acknowledged that as the years go by it doesn’t get any easier for veterans to make the trip. Though many of them are now well into their 80s, at least 135 veterans made the trip to France to commemorate the historic landings on the morning of June 6, 1944. The passage of time and the veterans’ physical limitations were punctuated on the eve of the ceremony. Missing from the ranks at Normandy American Cemetery was James Norene, a 101st Airborne Division veteran who parachuted into northern France as part of the invasion force. "Last night, after visiting this cemetery for one last time, he passed away in his sleep," Obama said before a crowd estimated at around 8,000. "Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return," the president continued. "But just as he did 65 years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here." Norene’s passing obviously touched the veterans. After the 75-minute ceremony, Gerald "Red" Briggs, a Navy veteran who glimpsed the shore well before sunrise, choked up as he spoke of the commemoration.
Obama Hails ’Sheer Improbability’ of D-Day Victory - Jennifer Loven, Associated Press. Recalling the “unimaginable hell” of D-Day suffering, President Barack Obama paid tribute Saturday to the against-all-odds Allied landings that broke Nazi Germany’s grip on France and turned the tide of history. “The sheer improbability of this victory is part of what makes D-Day so memorable,” Obama said. He spoke under a sunny sky at the American Cemetery on cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach and the rest of the Normandy coastline where on June 6, 1944 Allied ships disgorged American, British and Canadian soldiers under the withering fire of Nazi troops awaiting the Allies’ cross-channel gamble. Arriving by helicopter, Obama visited an American battlefield museum with his wife, Michelle; laid a wreath in honor of the fallen; greeted US military members; and mingled with uniformed World War II veterans. Normandy’s cliffs, still pocked with gun emplacements and other reminders of the war, including the white headstones of thousands of fallen American troops, provided sure footing for a new US commander in chief who has made an early priority of strengthening America’s relations with Europe.
The Boys of Pointe du Hoc - Washington Times editorial. (President Ronald Reagan on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, 1984) We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy, the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history. We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance. The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers - at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machineguns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.
Valor at Normandy - Washington Times editorial. Lt. Jimmie "Punk" Monteith was a big, bluff, fun-loving 26-year-old from Low Moor, Va. He had been in the Army since a few months before Pearl Harbor and had seen action in Sicily, where he received a field promotion. On the morning of June 6, 1944, he was in a landing boat with his men of Company L, 3rd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, destination Normandy. Company L was slated to land in the Fox Green sector of Omaha Beach in the first wave, but the fog of war pushed the landing boats east beyond the designated landing zone. They wound up on a thin strip of beach at the base of an unscalable cliff face. The only way off the beach was the Cabourg draw, 500 yards west, blocked by a 6-foot embankment. A German strongpoint squatted on a bluff just east of the draw, and the area was laced with barbed wire and studded with pillboxes. The landing force came under immediate fire. Company commander Capt. John Armellino directed fire from two amphibious tanks that had made it ashore until he fell, seriously wounded. Lt. Monteith took over. "When the troops were pinned down, I saw Lt. Monteith go to the same place where [Capt. Armellino] was struck down," Sgt. Hugh Martin recalled months later. "He went right through the thick fire to the tanks and got them into action."
D-Day's Clarity - New York Post editorial. Sixty five years ago this morning, the greatest amphibious force ever as sembled approached the beaches of Normandy, France - landing the decisive first blow in the campaign that would soon liberate half of Europe. The sacrifice would be great: Of the 156,000 Americans, British, Canadians and others who came ashore, more than 4,400 gave their lives that day. Yet afterward, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill would write, the allies could not "doubt that decisive victory would be gained" over Germany. Still, nothing was foreordained. The success hinged on numerous factors - meticulous planning, tides, weather, German preparedness. Such was the course of the war: a long series of breakthroughs, setbacks, surprises, reversals - and then victory.
D-Day, 65 Years On: Good's Triumph - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial. Said Edmund Burke, the brilliant 18th-century philosopher: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Good men did something on this date 65 years ago when they stormed the French beaches to liberate Europe. It was D-Day, World War II's storied Day of Decision. Good triumphed over evil. Sometimes a cause is as simple as that. Much is asked of good men when they act. The greater the evil, the greater the sacrifice. Many Allied soldiers sacrificed their lives on that longest day before their fellow brothers were able to touch the first grain of sand of the Normandy coast. And from there, wave after wave of other good men did something as they made their deadly advance to thrust the bayonet of freedom into the monstrous black heart of Nazi inhumanity. Thousands died in the process. They are heroes all, for all eternity, resting in Normandy cemeteries. If not the greatest generation, then, certainly, among them. Evil today has many forms. Some as deadly as old foes; others less so. Yet, still, it is evil. It hunkers down in its bunkers and tries to mow down all who stand up to it.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
Pakistani Refugees Doubt Army Victory over Taliban - Raza Khan, Washington Times. Pakistan's claims that it has defeated the Taliban and regained control of the Swat Valley ring hollow for many of the 3 million refugees and others who fear the government is exaggerating its battlefield successes. Despite claims by the military it had secured 90 percent of the territory in Swat that was previously under Taliban control, officials were forced to concede that every senior Taliban commander had escaped. Further compounding the military's woes, militants ambushed a convoy transporting two Taliban detainees near Swat on Saturday and killed the prisoners, thought to be aides to a cleric close to the Taliban leadership. Military officials said they were killed either during an attempt to free them, or to silence them before questioning by intelligence officials.
The Taliban will ‘Never be Defeated’ - Christina Lamb, The Times. The Pakistani intelligence agent who trained Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, to fight has warned that Nato forces will never overpower their enemies in Afghanistan and should talk to them rather than sacrifice more lives. “You can never win the war in Afghanistan,” said so-called “Colonel Imam”, who ran a training programme for the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union’s occupation from 1979 to 1989, then helped to form the Taliban. “I have worked with these people since the 1970s and I tell you they will never be defeated. Anyone who has come here has got stuck. The more you kill, the more they will expand.” A tall, bearded figure, whose real name is Amir Sultan Tarar, he trained at Fort Bragg, the US army base where America’s special forces are stationed. During the late 1970s and 1980s he controlled CIA-funded training camps for 95,000 Afghans and often accompanied his students on missions. After the Soviet defeat and the collapse of communism, he was invited to the White House by the first President George Bush and was given a piece of the Berlin Wall with a brass plaque inscribed: “To the one who dealt the first blow.” Today western intelligence agencies believe Imam is among a group of renegade officers from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) who continued to help the Taliban after Pakistan turned against them following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Militants Attack Army Convoy, Killing 2 of Their Own - Sabrina Tavernese, New York Times. Militants attacked a Pakistani Army convoy on Saturday, killing two high-level prisoners and a soldier, the military said, a strike that highlighted the reach that the Taliban still has a month after an offensive began against them. The prisoners were connected to the militant leadership in the Swat Valley, where the campaign is taking place. They were deputies of Sufi Muhammad, a religious leader with ties to the Taliban whose son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah commands the Taliban in the area. Mr. Muhammad leads a banned group called Tehrik-i-Nafaz-i-Shariah-Muhammadi, or TNSM, whose stated goal is the implementation of Islamic law and which is closely linked to the Taliban.
Olson Says Success in Afghanistan, Pakistan Requires Knowledge of Region - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service. Success in Afghanistan and Pakistan will require an intimate local knowledge of the tribal culture and a small coalition footprint, the commander of US Special Operations Command said here yesterday. Navy Adm. Eric Olson told the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities that the United States stands ready to do whatever it can to help Pakistan combat extremists, but “I think that we can't help Pakistan more than they want to be helped,” he added. The situation in Pakistan is complicated, the admiral said, and the United States will not force help on people who don’t want it. “One of the filters on sort of their willingness to be helped is how the Pakistan military is perceived within Pakistan,” the admiral said. “It is the strongest element of Pakistan, historically. It is the element of government upon which the people depend.” Pakistan is a proud country with a proud military tradition, and America cannot take actions that would cause the Pakistani military to appear to be an extension of the US military, Olson said. “We can only help them in a way that truly helps them, and they are much more expert in that than we are,” he told the subcommittee. The Pakistanis also have never forgotten the cut-off of military contacts in 1990 as a result of the Pressler Amendment, which sought to pressure Pakistan into not developing nuclear weapons. Even though full relations were re-established between the countries in 2003, Olson said, a full generation of Pakistani officers did not work with their American counterparts.
Suicide Bomber Hits Islamabad Emergency Call Center - Voice of America. A suicide bomber has attacked a police emergency call center in the capital of Islamabad, killing two police officers and wounding others. Pakistani police say the bomber approached the building late Saturday and detonated explosives when security officers opened fire. The bombing is the latest in a string of attacks on Pakistani cities that officials say are retaliation for the military's campaign against the Taliban in the country's northwest. Earlier Saturday, two high-ranking prisoners were killed in a bomb and gunfire attack on a military convoy that was transporting detainees. Pakistani officials identified the prisoners as Muhammad Alam and Ameer Izzat. The two men were arrested Thursday and were senior members of the militant group Tehrik-e-Nifaz-i-Shariat-e-Muhammadi. Alam was a deputy while Izzat was the group's spokesman. Major-General Athar Abbas says the men were being taken from Malakand to the city of Peshawar for interrogation. He said it was possible they were the target of the attack.
IRAQ
A High-Priced Media Campaign That Iraqis Aren't Buying - Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post. The pages of Baghdad Now, an Arabic-language newspaper, portray a country on the upswing. Iraqi soldiers and policemen are proud, capable civil servants who take weapons off the streets and doggedly pursue criminals. Iraqis of all sectarian backgrounds work in unison. The Iraqi government delivers. The paper's editorials hail democracy. Fashion pages chronicle the latest fads in Beirut and Kuwait. There's little news of the more than 130,000 American troops who remain in the country. That the paper has no publicly known editor, no bylines and no ads is no mistake. It is part of America's huge psychological warfare campaign to influence Iraqis' behavior and attitudes.
UN Says Iraq Still Too Fragile to Handle Returning Refugees - Lisa Schlein, Voice of America. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says Iraq is still too fragile to absorb the more than 1.5 million Iraqis living outside the country. The UNHCR says security has generally improved. But, it warns conditions are not ripe for a massive return of refugees. The UN refugee agency is appealing to the international community to maintain its support for Iraq. It says the country currently is in a difficult and fragile transition phase and remains in urgent need of outside assistance. UNHCR spokesman, Ron Redmond, says security has improved, but it still is not good enough to encourage the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have sought refuge in other countries to return home.
US Military: Children Being Used to Carry Out Iraq Attacks - Voice of America. The US military says insurgents are increasingly using children to carry out attacks against US and Iraqi forces. The military issued a statement Saturday documenting at least five incidents in the last month in which Iraqi teenagers targeted troops in northern Iraq. Some of the attacks involve young people who threw grenades at security forces, others involve suicide bombings. US military officials condemn the involvement of young people, saying "to endanger children with acts of terrorism is despicable." They say insurgents recruit children to carry out attacks because of the reduced scrutiny young people encounter from security officials.
Face of Attacks in Iraq Turns Younger, US Says - Marc Santora, New York Times. Even as American combat troops move to withdraw from Iraq’s cities by the end of the month, several recent episodes have highlighted the dangers Americans still face here, complicated by what the military says is an increasing presence of children in the fighting. In Hilla, south of Baghdad, residents said American forces shot and seriously wounded a 6-year-old girl on Saturday after a bomb went off near their patrol. American military officials denied the report. Separately on Saturday, the military issued a news release detailing what it said was an increasing pattern of extremists recruiting children to conduct attacks. It cited three cases in the past few weeks outside the northern city of Kirkuk in which children 14 to 16 tried to attack Americans with grenades.
Baghdad Outpost Eager to Put Boredom Behind - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. When the combat outpost in northwest Baghdad known as Joint Security Station Hurriya 2 closes Sunday, it won't be a day too soon for the 180 or so US soldiers based there. "There's not much to do around here, and we go stir-crazy sometimes," said Army Spc. Corey Hessler, 22, who is looking forward to the fast-food outlets and air-conditioned barracks that await him on the vast Camp Victory base beside Baghdad's airport. Hurriya 2, a cluster of small warehouses shared with a unit of the Iraqi army, may have provided little in the way of creature comforts, but the outpost has served its purpose: It put US "surge" troops on the ground in two of the most dangerous neighborhoods in northwest Baghdad. In fierce fighting more than a year ago, the Shiite Muslim militias that had controlled the areas of Shula and Hurriya were routed, and the current crop of soldiers, who arrived in October, have seen little in the way of action. Now they and thousands of other American military personnel are either packing up or have already redeployed under the terms of the security pact that requires US forces to withdraw from Iraq's cities by June 30.
US Troops in Salman Pak Find that the Most Important Part of Joint Force is Sharing Information - Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes. In Salman Pak, Bair found a newly formed Iraqi brigade that had no combined operations center linked in with the Americans. To get in touch with an Iraqi commander, Bair’s staff had to use cell phones. Worse, Bair’s predecessor did not get along with Husseen. The two men could barely stand to talk, Bair said. Now, Bair is pushing to build a combined operations center and station so the Iraqi and American troops can live, work and plan patrols all from the same building. The center will be at the brigade headquarters in the Salman Pak Hotel, a former luxury getaway for Baghdad’s elite that also once served as a location for insurgent beheadings in the beginning of the war. A joint operations center with all the parties plugged in, could have prevented the Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoint from firing on the joint patrol, Bair said.
After Cairo, It’s Clinton Time - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times opinion. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry after reading the reactions of analysts and officials in the Middle East to President Obama’s Cairo speech. “It’s not what he says, but what he does,” many said. No, ladies and gentlemen of the Middle East, it is what he says and what you do and what we do. We must help, but we can’t want democracy or peace more than you do. What should we be doing? The follow-up to the president’s speech will have to be led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This will be her first big test, and, for me, there is no question as to where she should be putting all her energy: on the peace process. No, not that peace process - not the one between Israelis and Palestinians. That one’s probably beyond diplomacy. No, I’m talking about the peace process that is much more strategically important - the one inside Iraq.
IRAN
In Iran, Disparate, Powerful Forces Ally Against Ahmadinejad - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. Powerful reformists and conservatives within Iran's elite have joined forces to wage an unprecedented behind-the-scenes campaign to unseat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, worried that he is driving the country to the brink of collapse with populist economic policies and a confrontational stance toward the West. The prominent figures have put their considerable efforts behind the candidacy of reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who they believe has the best chance of defeating the hard-line Ahmadinejad in the presidential election Friday and charting a new course for the country. They have used the levers of government to foil attempts by Ahmadinejad to secure funds for populist giveaways and to permit freewheeling campaigning that has benefited Mousavi. State-controlled television agreed to an unheard-of series of live debates, and the powerful Council of Guardians, which thwarted the reformist wave of the late 1990s, rejected a ballot box maneuver by the president that some saw as a prelude to attempted fraud.
Rural Iran May Shift Its Loyalty - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. In the 2005 election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received a large part of his support from Fars and the other central provinces. His victory was achieved through a word-of-mouth campaign led by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and voluntary paramilitary units known as baseej, who promoted the then-unknown candidate to farmers and laborers in towns such as Dast-e Arzhan. In the years since, Ahmadinejad has focused policies based on spreading the wealth on these backwater regions, which he has visited regularly during his term. But despite the widely held view that his support remains strong in rural areas, many of Dast-e Arzhan's 3,000 residents say they plan to vote for his main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in Friday's election. They say that Ahmadinejad has not lived up to his promises and that they are worse off since he came to power.
In Iran, Ahmadinejad Opponent Sees Surge of Enthusiasm - Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor. Etched into the desert at the base of dun-colored crags, Birjand was once a stronghold of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Voters in 2005 favored the firebrand in higher percentages here than in any other city. Mr. Ahmadinejad returned the favor by making Birjand his first stop as president, lavishing the underdeveloped area, 800 miles southeast of Tehran, with projects and cash. So no one would have been more surprised than the president himself to see the exuberant welcome given to his main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, just one week before Iran's June 12 presidential election. Toppling Ahmadinejad, who has been in perpetual campaign mode for four years, visiting every province at least twice and spreading cash and favors to the millions of Iranians who have written letters to him, was never going to be easy. Ahmadinejad has received frequent support from Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei. And he has the quiet institutional backing of the ideological basiji militia and Revolutionary Guards, who have benefited hugely from presidential largesse. But in Birjand, new Mousavi adherents are angry over Iran's tanking economy, the president's failure to fulfill extravagant promises, and, finally, disgust over a head-to-head debate last Wednesday in which Ahmadinejad's knifetwisting criticism exposed past regime deeds, corruption of top leaders, and even dragged Mousavi's wife into the mix.
Cleric Suing Ahmadinejad for 'Slander' - Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press. A powerful former president said Saturday he will sue hardline leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for slander over remarks he made during an election debate. In the latest obstacle to his campaign for re-election, Mr. Ahmadinejad has found himself in a bitter confrontation with Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and another former president, reformist Mohammad Khatami, neither of whom is a candidate in Friday's vote. In a highly charged televised debate Wednesday, Mr. Ahmadinejad accused Mr. Rafsanjani, his sons and several other former top officials of corruption. It was an unusual move, given that Iranian politicians often avoid mentioning names in their attacks on opponents.
Urgent Need for Action - Zachary S. Simms, Washington Times opinion. The Islamic Republic of Iran is on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon. It already is spinning enough centrifuges and has nuclear facilities spread out in such a way as to infer a weapons-production program. Iran's ties to terrorist organizations such as the Lebanese-based Shi'ite group Hezbollah make it a unique and even more dangerous threat where nuclear weapons are concerned. Below are two very possible scenarios - the first more possible than the second - that could occur in the wake of Iran's procuring a nuclear weapon.
THE LONG WAR
Forceful Words and Fateful Realities - Rod Nordland, New York Times. Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo last Thursday was “soft spoken and eloquent,” said Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Iraqi cleric, grudgingly, since he also said he despised it. It was a speech that meant different things to different people, a quality that has been much noted in this president. He supported Israel, but reached out to the Muslim world in an unprecedented way. Some friends were troubled, others reassured. Some of America’s enemies denounced it, but none dismissed it. Not even the arch-enemies at whom, in some important way, the speech was directed. Just the day before, in fact, a pre-emptive audio tape attributed to Osama bin Laden warned his followers not to trust whatever Mr. Obama would say. And as it turned out, his fear was justified. In the view of Fawaz Gerges, the president’s speech was above all else about the war on terror, a direct attack on Mr. bin Laden and the mindset he promulgates. “Barack Obama is not just trying to reach out to Muslims for the sake of it,” says Mr. Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Sarah Lawrence College and an authority on modern jihad. “He’s trying to hammer a deadly nail in Osama bin Laden’s message.” What President Obama understood more than his predecessors, Mr. Gerges says, is that it is not a war that can be won militarily, but only ideologically.
US Lawyers Agreed on the Legality of Brutal Tactic - Scott Shane and David Johnston, New York Times. When Justice Department lawyers engaged in a sharp internal debate in 2005 over brutal interrogation techniques, even some who believed that using tough tactics was a serious mistake agreed on a basic point: the methods themselves were legal. Previously undisclosed Justice Department e-mail messages, interviews and newly declassified documents show that some of the lawyers, including James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general who argued repeatedly that the United States would regret using harsh methods, went along with a 2005 legal opinion asserting that the techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency were lawful. That opinion, giving the green light for the CIA to use all 13 methods in interrogating terrorism suspects, including waterboarding and up to 180 hours of sleep deprivation, “was ready to go out and I concurred,” Mr. Comey wrote to a colleague in an April 27, 2005, e-mail message obtained by The New York Times.
Terrorism Suspects and US Law - Los Angeles Times editorial. President Obama has departed decisively from the lawlessness and barbarism of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies, even if you believe - as this page does - that he could go further. His reasoned defense of his approach to terrorism in a speech last month was an edifying contrast to the self-justifying rant by former Vice President Dick Cheney on the same day. Yet one passage in Obama's speech provoked dismay among civil libertarians. After delineating how the administration would treat four categories of detainees -- those accused of violating US law, those charged with war crimes, those ordered released by the courts and those who can be repatriated -- the president identified a fifth: those "who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people." Those suspected terrorists would be held without trial.
Inconsistent Interrogation Tales - David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, Washington Times opinion. As the controversy continues over what and when Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation methods (EIM), there is a significant overlooked dimension to this Washington melodrama. If the speaker, as she admits, was informed as early as 2002 of the program, including the possible use of waterboarding, but was powerless to challenge that policy - except by using it as a political tool in the 2006 congressional elections - the entire web of practical, legal and institutional arrangements known as "intelligence oversight" is useless, a congressional Potemkin Village. This would weaken Congress' hard-won post-Watergate authority to share responsibility for the nation's intelligence activities. Of course, the extent to which Congress can constitutionally control the president's management of intelligence activities is arguable. However, Congress has a constitutional prerogative to determine how much money can be spent on the intelligence establishment, and - at least at a general level - how the funds are spent.
US NATIONAL SECURITY
Jim Jones's Team - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. Defense Secretary Robert Gates doesn't give interviews all that often. So it was interesting that Gates reached out last week to talk about Gen. Jim Jones, the national security adviser, and how he is managing the foreign policy process in the Obama administration. Gates is a fan of the retired Marine general. He said that he has watched national security advisers up close since Henry Kissinger in the early 1970s and that Jones is "among the best" he has seen. "I think of Jim as the glue that holds this team together," Gates said. Despite all the talk about big egos in the Obama group, he says that at the top level it is "not a team of rivals, but a team." This encomium wouldn't be newsy, or even very interesting, if it weren't for the whispering campaign about Jones that has been making the rounds in Washington for the past two months. The proverbial "anonymous sources" have been sniping at Jones, claiming that he is out of the loop and unprepared, doesn't stay late enough in the office and kicks his dog. (Actually, I made up the last part.)
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Demand for Special Operators Could Strain Force, Commander Says - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service. Demand for the services of US Special Operations Command could strain the force, the command’s top officer said here yesterday. Navy Adm. Eric Olson testified before the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities. Special Operations Command, with headquarters in Tampa, Fla., is responsible for organizing, equipping, training and providing fully capable special operations forces to serve under the operational control of geographic combatant commanders around the world. This gives the command many of the administrative details in managing the force. In addition, the command is a combatant command in its own right, responsible for synchronizing Defense Department planning against global terrorism, and also is the department’s proponent for security force assistance. “In this role, we expect to foster the long-term partnerships that will shape a more secure global environment in the face of global challenges such as transnational crime, extremism and migration,” the admiral said. The command has broad responsibilities and capabilities, and this makes it “the force of choice,” Olson said. While 86 percent of the overseas force is deployed to the US Central Command area of operations - most in Iraq and Afghanistan -- the command must maintain a global presence. “In fiscal 2009, special operations forces have already conducted operations and training in 106 countries around the globe,” Olson told the representatives. This has put stress on the force, but the command – along with the services – is handling it for now. Rotations are different for different services and specialties, the admiral said.
Intolerable Rise in Soldier Suicides - New York Times editorial. Nearly the entire military corps at Fort Campbell, Ky., was summoned last month to hear an anxious general make an extraordinary plea about the alarming rate of suicide by soldiers. “Don’t take away your tomorrow,” the general beseeched his audience of thousands of men and women at the base, where 14 suicides in the first half of this year leads what many fear could be a record toll across the military services. The woeful challenge reaches far beyond Fort Campbell, as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized in Washington last week. He predicted the toll this year will top the record of 2008, when the Army suffered 133 suicides. That was twice the number in 2004, before the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns turned into a slog of repeated tours.
US FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Experts Say Full Disclosure May Not Always Be Best Tactic in Diplomacy - Mark Landler, New York Times. President Obama laid down a marker in Cairo last week for candor in American diplomacy. The United States, he declared, will “say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs” - a line that drew applause from his Arab audience. But candor and diplomacy are not synonymous, and if Mr. Obama were to apply the same approach to thorny problems like Iran and North Korea, it might not produce the intended results, according to foreign affairs experts. Some say he risks forsaking the advantages of “constructive ambiguity,” the diplomatic practice of fudging differences, credited to Henry A. Kissinger. As a practical matter, few analysts expect the Obama administration to rewrite the rules of diplomacy, which have always relied on a mix of public pronouncements, tacit understandings and back-channel talks.
Woodrow Wilson's Heir - Robert Kagan, Washington Post opinion. President Obama likes to see himself as a pragmatist, but in foreign policy he is proving to be a supreme idealist of the Woodrow Wilson variety. Like Wilson's, Obama's foreign policy increasingly seems to rest on the assumption that nations will act on the basis of what they perceive to be the goodwill, good intentions or moral purity of other nations, in particular the United States. If other nations have refused to cooperate with us, it is because they perceive the United States as aggressive or evil. Obama's job is to change that perception. From the outreach to Iran and to Muslims, to the call for eliminating all nuclear weapons, to the desire for a "reset" in relations with Russia, the central point of Obama's diplomacy is that America is, suddenly, different. It has changed. It is better. It is time, therefore, for other nations to cooperate. But how has America changed? Obama's policies toward Iran, the Middle East, Russia, North Korea, China, Latin America, Afghanistan and even Iraq have at most shifted only at the margins - as many in those countries repeatedly complain. So what, for instance, is the source of the "new beginning" in US-Muslim relations that Obama called for in Cairo?
AUSTRALIA DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE
John Faulkner Puts Defence Department on Notice - Mark Dodd, The Australian. New Defence Minister John Faulkner has warned the defence department that he expects high standards as he assumed responsibility for an ambitious reform program. Senator Faulkner, a veteran of more than a decade of Senate defence estimates hearings, said he was “delighted” to be chosen to lead 90,000 civilian and uniformed personnel but admitted he was “right at the bottom of a steep learning curve”. “I'll have very high expectations of the department of defence as its new minister.” said Senator Faulkner, dubbed “Field Marshal Faulkner” by Kevin Rudd. “I'll also have absolute confidence those expectations will be met. “What I've had I think throughout my time as a minister in a range of portfolios as the prime minister has said, for a very very long time - I think - and I believe a very professional, respectful and appropriate relationships with the departments that I've ministered. “That's my expectation in defence who I've had a long association with.” A leading member of Labor's socialist left faction, Senator Faulkner has served at various times as shadow minister for social security, public administration and home affairs.
UNITED STATES
We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours. - Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington Post opinion. Years ago, as the Cold War was coming to an end, I said to my fellow leaders around the globe: The world is on the cusp of great events, and in the face of new challenges all of us will have to change, you as well as we. For the most part, the reaction was polite but skeptical silence. In recent years, however, during speaking tours in the United States before university audiences and business groups, I have often told listeners that I feel Americans need their own change - a perestroika, not like the one in my country, but an American perestroika - and the reaction has been markedly different. Halls filled with thousands of people have responded with applause. Over time, my remark has prompted all kinds of comments. Some have reacted with understanding. Others have objected, sometimes sarcastically, suggesting that I want the United States to experience upheaval, just like the former Soviet Union.
UNITED KINGDOM
In Britain, A Desperate Brown Is Hanging On - Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post. Two years ago, Gordon Brown entered 10 Downing Street for the first time as prime minister and promised, without a smile, to "try my utmost." The brainy, stone-faced Scot was the perfect tonic for a British public jaded after a decade of his flashy predecessor, Tony Blair. Within a week, Brown's popularity ratings had soared to 77 percent. Now a battered Brown finds himself desperately clinging to his job, facing a fed-up public, a rebellious party and, if things get much worse, the prospect of being one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in modern British history.
AFRICA
Guinea-Bissau Security Forces Kill Politicians - Scott Stearns, Voice of America. Security forces in Guinea-Bissau say they killed three former government ministers as part of an operation to stop a coup attempt. One of those killed was a candidate in the presidential elections taking place later this month. A statement from state intelligence services says former interior minister Baciro Dabo, former defense minister Helder Proenca, and former prime minister Faustino Embali were killed by military police as part of an operation to foil an attempted coup. "Among the authors of this coup," the statement says, "some came quietly while others tried to resist, that is why they were killed." The statement says security forces acted after gathering proof that coup plotters planned to kill the head of the armed forces, overthrow interim leader Raimundo Pereira and dissolve the national assembly.
AMERICAS
A Slow Burn Becomes a Raging Fire - Mary Beth Sheridan and Del Quentin Wilber, Washington Post. He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books. Occasionally, he would voice frustration with US policies, but to his liberal neighbors in Northwest DC it was nothing out of the ordinary. "We were all appalled by the Bush years," one said. What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country, an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three decades. "I have become so bitter these past few months. Watching the evening news is a radicalizing experience," he wrote in his diary in 1978, referring to what he described as greedy US oil companies, inadequate health care and "the utter complacency of the oppressed" in America. On a trip to Cuba, federal law enforcement officials said in legal filings, Myers found a new inspiration: the communist revolution.
How an American Couple Came to be Spies for Cuba - Gail Russell Chaddock, Christian Science Monitor. A retired State Department official - aided by a top security clearance, a shortwave radio, and his wife - passed on secret information to the Cuban Intelligence Service for nearly three decades. That’s the gist of a grand jury indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors on Friday. The State Department is still working on a damage assessment, but federal prosecutor David Kris describes the alleged spy activity as “incredibly serious.” The arrest of Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, is the latest in a series of high-profile Cuban spying cases. This latest federal indictment, the result of a three-year joint investigation by the FBI and State Department, came just days after Cuba accepted a US offer to renew talks on immigration. “These talks are part of our effort to forge a new way forward on Cuba, that advances the interests of the United States, the Cuban people and the entire hemisphere,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a press conference in San Salvador on June 1.
Accused Spy's Lecture Raised Flags - Ben Conery, Washington Times. Nearly three years before he and his wife were arrested on charges of spying for Cuba, Walter Kendall Myers raised the ire of his superiors at the State Department after delivering a lecture that criticized US foreign policy. Mr. Myers, who was a high-ranking State Department analyst and part-time professor at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the time, told a gathering at the university in 2006 that the relationship between the US and Great Britain was "totally one-sided." According to published reports, Mr. Myers said the US stance toward Great Britain, one of its closest allies, is to "typically ignore them and take no notice - it's a sad business." The State Department reacted angrily, calling Mr. Myers "just plain wrong" and ordering him to a meeting with his superiors. Similar criticisms of US foreign policy are found in Mr. Myers' writings about Cuba in a diary the FBI said it recently seized. The writings praise former Cuban President Fidel Castro and blast US involvement with the island country as violent imperialism.
9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility - Simon Romero, New York Times. Nine police officers were killed Saturday as security forces regained control of a petroleum facility from indigenous protesters in a remote jungle region, raising the death toll related to protests by indigenous activists since Friday above 30, Peruvian government officials here said. Prime Minister Yehude Simon said the officers were killed in the events surrounding a push to retake a pumping station belonging to Petroperú, the national oil company, in the northern Bagua Province, where indigenous protesters had kidnapped 38 police officers. Twenty-two of the abducted officers were freed, but seven were still missing, officials said. The killings came amid reports by indigenous groups that security forces killed as many as 25 protesters Friday in clashes at a different location in Bagua, where Indians had blocked a highway. Mr. Simon confirmed that at least 9 Indians had been killed and 155 wounded, and that a total of 22 police officers had been killed, intensifying the most acute crisis faced by President Alan García since he took office in 2006.
31 Dead in Peru Clashes - Adriana Leon and Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times. The death toll from a bloody clash between Peruvian police and indigenous protesters over the rights to natural resources rose to at least 31 Saturday, including nine police officers reportedly taken hostage by demonstrators at an oil pumping station. According to official sources, 22 police officers and nine protesters were killed Friday as security forces tried to clear a highway in the Amazon region of northeastern Peru that demonstrators had blocked on and off for weeks. Among those killed were nine of 38 police officers reportedly taken hostage at a pumping station operated by state-owned PetroPeru. Most of the other police officers escaped, officials said. But as the government issued an arrest warrant for indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, whom it blamed for the violence, activists insisted that many more protesters had been killed than listed in the official toll.
ASIA PACIFIC
Obama: Considering New Approach Toward North Korea - Voice of America. US President Barack Obama said Saturday he is going to take a "very hard look" at the US approach toward North Korea because of what he described as "extraordinarily provocative" actions by Pyongyang. Mr. Obama said the United States does not intend to continue a policy of rewarding provocation and called on North Korea to respond to diplomatic efforts aimed at persuading Pyongyang to get rid of its nuclear weapons. The US president made the remarks during a press conference in Normandy with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy. North Korea recently conducted nuclear and missile tests. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Saturday his country will not let North Korea use its nuclear threat to win concessions, and he called for Pyongyang to return to six-party disarmament talks.
Seoul Rejects North's Threats in Border Clash - Kwang-tae Kim, Associated Press. South Korea's president said Saturday his country won't give in to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, while Pyongyang accused Seoul of sending patrol boats into its territorial waters - the scene of past bloody naval clashes. In France, President Obama suggested a new, stronger response to North Korean nuclear and missile testing, saying the North has tested the limits of patient diplomacy intended to persuade the reclusive communist country to accept international demands and end its nuclear program. The North's official Korean Central News Agency claimed the South's patrol boats were sailing into North Korean waters daily around the rivals' disputed western sea border. The Korean-language report warned that aggressors would be dealt "merciless punishment that will be beyond imagination."
Malaysia's Oldest Opposition Party Faces Test - James Hookway, Wall Street Journal. Malaysia's Islamist opposition party pledged to open its doors to non-Muslim ethnic-Chinese and Indians as it attempts to cement its role as potential a king maker in this racially-divided but resource-rich country. But the reformist wing of the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, hit a road-bump when party delegates voted to retain their religiously-conservative vice president, Nasharuddin Isa Mat, at their annual assembly on Saturday. Political analysts say the conflicting signals from PAS suggest Malaysia's oldest opposition party is still struggling to determine how quickly it should consolidate its surprising and successful alliance with Malaysia's two other main opposition parties, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party and the secular, left-leaning Democratic Action Party. The outcome could determine the political future of one of Southeast Asia's most significant suppliers of palm oil, timber and natural gas to the world economy.
Myanmar Democracy Movement Appears to be Weakening - Charles McDermid, Los Angeles Times. Even as the trial of activist Aung San Suu Kyi approaches a predictable conclusion in a tumbledown prison courtroom in Yangon, the verdict may already be in for Myanmar's pro-democracy movement. The opposition, already reeling before Suu Kyi's arrest, increasingly appears powerless, divided and incapable of mustering the international intervention needed to topple the country's long-ruling military government. As one opposition leader put it, the prevailing sentiment within the opposition is "outrage and utter hopelessness."
China Creates Specter of Dueling Dalai Lamas - Edward Wong, New York Times. For centuries, the selection of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama has been steeped in the mysticism of a bygone world. On the windswept Tibetan plateau, his closest aides look for divinations in a sacred lake. A mountain god transmits oracular messages by possessing a high lama. Monks scour villages for boys precocious in their spiritual attunement. All that is about to change, as the current Dalai Lama and his followers in exile here in India compete with the Chinese government for control of how the 15th Dalai Lama will be chosen. The issue is urgent for the Tibetans because the current Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of all Tibetans and the charismatic face of the exile movement, has had recent bouts of ill health. He turns 74 in July. Both the Chinese and the Tibetan exiles are bracing for an almost inevitable outcome: the emergence into the world of dueling Dalai Lamas - one chosen by the exiles, perhaps by the 14th Dalai Lama himself, and the other by Chinese officials.
After Tiananmen, China Wedded Force With Freedom - John Promfret, Washington Post opinion. Twenty years after the crackdown, the most intriguing question to me isn't how many people died, or whether there were deaths on the square itself or just on the streets that led to it. It's this: How has the Communist Party managed to emerge from that experience stronger than ever? In 1989, a chorus of Western voices predicted the party's collapse. "One foot in power and one foot on a banana peel," was how the late, great David Schweisberg of United Press International described the party's predicament. I, too, filed my share of sensationalist dispatches, intimating a coming collapse. But the party has defied such predictions. And it has done so by taking a brilliant step: giving a lot of Chinese - in the countryside, the cities, the media, the security services and the government - a bigger stake in preserving the existing system.
MIDDLE EAST
Obama, Sarkozy Express Agreement on Mideast - Voice of America. US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have agreed on the need to push for a two-state solution for peace in the Middle East and to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The two leaders were meeting in Normandy ahead of the commemorations Saturday of the 65th anniversary of the allied invasion of France during World War II. Mr. Sarkozy denounced what he called "insane" statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has suggested that Israel be wiped off the map. The French leader also supported Mr. Obama's call for Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank. Mr. Obama said the parties must move beyond the current stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians. He also reiterated a call for Palestinians to renounce violence and demonstrate they will be able to follow through on promises made in negotiations.
Obama Woos Syria in Push for Peace - Sarah Baxter and Uzi Mahnaimi, The Times. Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East is to visit Syria this week after the president said “the moment is now” to push for peace. Former senator George Mitchell’s expected visit follows a fortnight’s intensive diplomatic wooing of Syria in the hope of splintering its alliance with Iran and persuading Damascus to use its influence to moderate Hamas, the militant Islamic group that rules the Gaza Strip. There has been no official confirmation of Mitchell’s trip, but one State Department official said he was “95% sure” that Syria was on the itinerary: “The president is committed to comprehensive peace. Syria is one of the parties. It therefore makes sense for Mitchell to start engaging them.” The initiative follows Obama’s ground-breaking speech last week in Cairo, which impressed his audience but left the Arab world wondering whether he would act on his words. Yesterday the president said he hoped to see “serious, constructive negotiations” by the end of the year on creating a Palestinian state.
Security Key Issue in Lebanon Elections - Mandy Clark, Voice of America. As voters in Lebanon go to the polls on Sunday June 7, one issue seems to be dominating the elections more than any other: security. In the tumultuous landscape of Lebanese politics, the issue of security is of particular importance to one candidate: Nayla Tueni, whose father Gebran Tueni was assassinated six months after being elected in 2005 to the seat she now seeks. Nayla Tueni is a candidate for parliament. A stable Lebanon matters to her more than most candidates. Her father was Gebran Tueni, a member of parliament who was assassinated in 2005. His murder was widely seen as revenge for his criticism of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese allies. Syria, who has long lobbied for control of Lebanon, continues to deny the accusations. Nayla Tueni believes outside forces are still a major threat to Lebanon.
Lebanese Flock to Polls for Parliamentary Vote - Majdoline Hatoum and Maria Abi-Habib, Wall Street Journal. Lebanese voters flocked to polls Sunday in a closely fought parliamentary election pitting a Western-leaning coalition of politicians holding the current majority against an opposition bloc spearheaded by Hezbollah. Results aren't expected until Monday, though early unofficial results might trickle in late Sunday. Voting kicked off at 7 a.m. and polling places will be open for the most part until 7 p.m. Though rhetoric between the two sides heated up considerably in the days ahead of the polls, there haven't been reports of disturbances early Sunday. On Saturday, a public holiday, voters streamed out of Beirut toward their family homes across the country, where typically they are required to vote. By Saturday evening, Beirut's streets were eerily quiet. Expatriate Lebanese from around the world have flocked home for the voting, the first parliamentary election since 2005. Most of the races for parliament's 128 seats are easy to call, leaving just a handful of battleground districts as key to deciding who wins a majority in the next body. Voters in the southern Mediterranean city of Sidon, for instances, are voting in one of those tight races.
US Staged Iranian Coup as Barack Obama Admits CIA Role - The Australian. Barack Obama made a significant gesture of conciliation to Iran when he admitted US involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew the government of prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," the US President said in his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. It was the first time a serving US president has publicly admitted Washington's involvement in the coup. The US Central Intelligence Agency, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalised the oil industry, run until then by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the US, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhand methods to get rid of an elected government to suit its economic and strategic interests. Washington became the major backer of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the Islamic revolution of 1979. Relations between the two countries have been severed since the revolution's aftermath and former president George W.Bush made the Tehran government part of his "axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Stalinist North Korea.
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
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.
