The F-22 is clearly a capability we do need – a niche, silver-bullet solution for one or two potential scenarios – specifically the defeat of a highly advanced enemy fighter fleet. The F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict. Nonetheless, supporters of the F-22 lately have promoted its use for an ever expanding list of potential missions. These range from protecting the homeland from seaborne cruise missiles to, as one retired general recommended on TV, using F-22s to go after Somali pirates who in many cases are teenagers with AK-47s – a job we already know is better done at much less cost by three Navy SEALs. These are examples of how far-fetched some of the arguments have become for a program that has cost $65 billion – and counting – to produce 187 aircraft, not to mention the thousands of uniformed Air Force positions that were sacrificed to help pay for it.
--Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
Hamid Karzai Says Bring Taliban to Table - Christina Lamb, The Times. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has urged the West to develop a new strategy for his country, warning that more troops will not necessarily improve security. “Military operations are no longer enough,” he said as the deaths of British and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan reached their highest monthly total of the eight-year war. “We have to rethink the way we do things - without that there won’t be any improvement.” Karzai called for negotiations with the Taliban. Even Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, should be encouraged to attend talks, he said.
Captive GI on Video by Taliban - Associated Press. The American soldier who disappeared June 30 in eastern Afghanistan, and was later confirmed to have been captured, appears on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two United States defense officials said. The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting, wearing a nondescript gray outfit. When one of his captors holds the soldier’s dog tag up to the camera, the name and ID number are visible. The soldier, whose identity the Pentagon has not yet released, says his name, age and hometown on the video. American defense officials confirmed that the man in the video is the captured soldier. The soldier says the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.
Labour at War over Afghanistan - Patrick Hennessy, Jasper Copping and Ben Farmer, Daily Telegraph. In an exclusive article for The Sunday Telegraph, John Hutton, the former defence secretary, joined calls for extra troops and helicopters to be provided for British forces in Helmand. Mr Hutton’s comments - his first on the subject since leaving the Government last month - were highly significant as they followed similar public demands by senior military figures in the face of an insistence by Gordon Brown that British troops were properly equipped.
John Hutton Breaks Silence to Fight for the Generals - Jonathan Oliver, The Times. John Hutton, the former defence secretary, stepped into the political row over Afghanistan last night, urging government ministers not to “second guess” the military or behave like “armchair generals”. In his first public statement on the war since he quit the cabinet last month, Hutton said the army should be given the extra troops and equipment it needed to beat the Taliban. The remarks place him squarely on the side of the military chiefs who last week provoked fury among Labour ministers by publicly calling on Gordon Brown to spend more money on the Afghan conflict. Hutton, who writes books on military history, said in an interview with The Sunday Times: “We have got to commit the right resources to ensure we can win this conflict.
Afghanistan: Troops are More Important than Political Points - Daily Telegraph editorial. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, believes that one of his fundamental duties is to ensure that British soldiers are not required to sacrifice their lives unnecessarily. He thinks that when British soldiers are asked to risk their lives in a war, they should be adequately equipped for battle - and it is his responsibility to make sure that they are. Although almost every decent human being would agree with him, there appear to be a number of figures in the present Labour Government who are unable to understand why the head of the British Army should think that protecting British soldiers is a higher priority than avoiding causing embarrassment to Labour ministers.
Troop Levels Must be Reviewed - John Hutton, Daily Telegraph opinion. Our servicemen and women are doing an outstanding job in Afghanistan. They deserve our full and total support. To do anything else at this critically important time can only serve to make their mission harder. But at this time of heightened awareness of both the service and sacrifice of our troops, it is right and proper for all of us – in Parliament and outside - to reflect on the mission we have asked them to undertake on our behalf. We need to satisfy ourselves that we have given them the right resources and the equipment to do their job safely and effectively.
Pakistani Warplanes, Troops Target Militant Hideouts in Northwest - Voice of America. Pakistani military officials say Pakistani fighter jets and troops have killed at least nine militants, as they target insurgent hideouts throughout the country's northwest. Authorities say airstrikes destroyed a stronghold run by Taliban commander Hakim Ullah in the Orakzai tribal agency Saturday, but it is not clear if Ullah was present at the time. At least six militants were killed. Ullah is a top deputy to Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, who is blamed for scores of attacks against government and civilian targets. Mehsud is also believed to be a key ally for al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan.
IRAQ
5 Killed in Violence Across Iraq, but a Pilgrimage Ends Quietly - Timothy Williams, New York Times. Violence across Iraq claimed the lives of at least five people on Saturday, but an annual Shiite pilgrimage to a Baghdad shrine that attracted more than four million people concluded without major trouble. In previous years, pilgrims on the traditional walk to the gold-domed shrine in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad to commemorate the death of an eighth-century imam have been attacked by Sunni extremist groups. But as of early Saturday evening, millions of people had converged on the shrine without significant violence, Iraqi security officials said. Beginning in the early morning, Baghdad security officials ratcheted up already tight security. Major streets were closed, cars and motorbikes were banned, and hundreds of thousands of members of the Iraqi Army and police forces flooded the city.
Challengers Face an Uphill Battle in Elections in Iraq's Kurdish North - Nada Bakri, Washington Post. The campaign season is in full swing in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections Saturday. The two groups in Rasch's office represented supporters that even the 58-year-old presidential hopeful acknowledges are scant, in a bid for office that he acknowledges is quixotic. Rasch is running as an independent against the incumbent, Massoud Barzani, who was elected president of Iraqi Kurdistan in 2005. The pragmatic and cautious Barzani has been at the center of Kurdish politics - in the region, in the rest of Iraq and in the broader Kurdish homeland - since succeeding his father, a legendary guerrilla leader, as head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party more than 30 years ago. Rasch's uphill candidacy is playing out in a region simultaneously considered the most democratic in Iraq and not all that democratic.
Suspect Arrested in Attack on US Base in Iraq - Associated Press. Iraqi police said Saturday that they have arrested a member of an Iranian-backed militia suspected in an attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in southern Iraq. Meanwhile to the west of Baghdad, a bomb killed three people, including the son of a tribal leader. Maj. Gen. Adil Daham, chief of the Basra provincial police, said the militiaman confessed early Saturday to the attack on a US base near the airport. The soldiers were killed Thursday night in a rocket attack, the US military said, in a rare assault on troops in the comparatively quite south. During a search of the house where the suspect was arrested, Iraqi officials say they seized four Iranian-made rockets and documents listing names of officials to be targeted.
IRAN
Iran’s Ex-President Criticized for Comments About Election - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. Several prominent Iranian conservative figures and hard-line newspapers offered sharp criticism on Saturday of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who delivered a speech on Friday that assailed the government’s handling of last month’s presidential election. Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, a conservative member of Iran’s Guardian Council and the former head of the judiciary, lashed out at Mr. Rafsanjani, saying the former president did not have the right to call for the release of arrested protesters. He also said Mr. Rafsanjani had exaggerated the role of democracy in Islamic government and thereby diminished the importance of divine sanction.
Iranian Cleric Is Seeking the Mantle of Khomeini - Elaine Sciolino, New York TImes. During his decades in Iranian politics, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been praised as a pragmatist, criticized as spineless, accused of corruption and dismissed as a has-been. Now, in assailing the government’s handling of last month’s disputed presidential election, Mr. Rafsanjani, a 75-year-old cleric and former president, has cast himself in a new light: as a player with the authority to interpret the ideals of Iran’s 30-year-old Islamic republic. Using his perch as a designated prayer leader on Friday to deliver the speech of a lifetime, Mr. Rafsanjani abandoned his customary caution to demand that the government release those arrested in recent weeks, ease restrictions on the media and eradicate the “doubt” the Iranian people have about the election result. And he implicitly challenged the authority of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to make decisions without seeking consensus.
New Iranian Nuclear Head Urges Mutual Trust With West - Edward Yeranian, Voice of America. Iran's newly-appointed nuclear energy chief is calling for an end to hostilities between his country and the West, and renewed efforts to build trust. Iranian government TV says that the country's new nuclear energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi is urging the West to end hostilities with Tehran and to start building trust. "Legal and technical discussions about Iran's nuclear case have finished," he insists, "and there is no room left to keep this case open." They were Salehi's first comments to the media, since being appointed by President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Friday, following the resignation of veteran nuclear negotiator Gholam Reza Aghazadeh.
THE LONG WAR
Specialized Interrogation Unit May Be Created - Peter Finn, Washington Post. A Justice Department-led task force reviewing interrogation policy is leaning toward the creation of a small, specialized unit drawing personnel from intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies to question without the use of coercion any future high-value terrorism suspects captured by the United States, according to administration officials. President Obama ordered an interagency review of interrogation policy in January. The task force, led by a federal prosecutor steeped in national security issues, was charged with determining whether interrogation guidelines in the Army Field Manual are sufficient for other agencies, such as the CIA, that may capture and question suspects outside the United States.
Internal Rifts on Road to Torment - Joby Warrick and Peter Finn, Washington Post. The officials who authorized or participated in harsh interrogations continue to dispute how effective such methods were and whether important information could have been obtained from Abu Zubaida and others without them. In March, The Washington Post reported that former senior government officials said that not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's coerced confessions. The International Committee of the Red Cross, in a 2007 report made public this year, said the application of harsh interrogation methods, "either singly or in combination, constituted torture." George Little, a CIA spokesman, said harsh interrogation was always "a small fraction of the agency's counterterrorism mission." Now, he added, "the CIA is focused not on the past, but on analyzing current terrorist threats and thwarting terrorist plots."
Government Hit Squads, Minus the Hits - Scott Shane, New York Times. The movies make it look so easy: the sniper’s crosshairs on a terrorist’s forehead; the plastic explosive taped beneath a foreign spy’s car; the lethal potion slipped into a dictator’s morning coffee. So perhaps the biggest surprise about the Central Intelligence Agency’s furor du jour - the secret program, hidden from Congress, to kill the leaders of Al Qaeda - is not that there was such a program, which many Americans assumed. Nor is it that former Vice President Dick Cheney instructed the CIA to keep the program from Congress. Mr. Cheney has never been accused of reckless openness about intelligence programs. The real surprise is that in eight years of off-again, on-again brainstorming, planning and training, the program did not kill a single terrorist. It did not even mount an attempt, CIA officials say.
US FOREIGN POLICY
The Big Decisions to Come - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. Six months on, how is Barack Obama doing in foreign policy? Some leading experts give the new president high marks for improving America's battered image abroad, but they warn that the hard work is still ahead. Obama's first priority was boosting America's standing in a world angered by the Bush administration's arrogance and unilateralism. Obama rightly saw this as a major national security threat, and he used his charisma to change that image in a hurry. And to a large extent, Obama has succeeded. "We have taken off the table reflexive anti-Americanism as a reason not to deal with us," says Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. "We're not shimmying in the end zone. But we are a long way from where we began."
Foreign Policy by Deadline - Jim Hoagland, Washington Post opinion. President Obama's surge in Afghanistan has a year to show that the increase in US forces and aid can turn the tide there. It is not an open-ended commitment of American troops and money. Iran needs to respond to Obama's offer of engagement before Sept. 24, when the Group of 20 major economies will meet in Pittsburgh. If Tehran does not accept, the United States will ask Russia, China and other key countries to go the United Nations and impose tougher sanctions on Iran. That summit is also the moment when Obama will assess progress toward new Middle East peace negotiations by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority and Arab states. They can deal with each other, or with a displeased American president.
UK MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
Whatever David Cameron Does as PM, He will Cause Pain and Anger - Matthew d'Ancona, Daily Telegraph opinion. For a taste of what the Cameron era will be like, behold the row over defence spending of the past week. The demands made by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, for "more boots on the ground" in Afghanistan; the consequent Labour whispering campaign against Dannatt; the attacks upon Bob Ainsworth, the tragic-looking new Defence Secretary, over the £1.4 billion cut in the military helicopter budget; a surly confrontation between Gordon Brown and the Commons Liaison Committee on Thursday over defence resources: all these are familiar spin 'n' spending rows of the sort that have characterised the New Labour years. But there is another, more productive way to survey this fractious debate: as a parable of what lies ahead, a case study of what might be called the great Cameron Conundrum.
Bitter Fallout as Brown and the Generals Caught in War Games - Gaby Hinsliff, The Guradian. It was meant to be the day Gordon Brown highlighted his support for war heroes. A young soldier seriously injured in Iraq, now raising funds for charity, was to join him on Friday for a photo opportunity underlining the prime minister's respect for military sacrifice. But it was not Phil Packer who ended up splashed all over yesterday's papers. It was Sir Jock Stirrup, chief of the defence staff, and his frank admission that he was "busting a gut" to get more helicopters for Afghanistan - destroying weeks of official insistence that the mission in Helmand was fully equipped. And it left the prime minister, who had told the Commons 48 hours earlier that field commanders had "assured me that ... troops have the equipment that they need", twisting in the wind.
AFRICA
Seizures Show Somalia Rebels Need Money - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times. The Shabab, Somalia’s most fearsome Islamist group, the one leading a guerrilla war against the weak transitional government, may be running into a problem with its cash flow. In the past week, Shabab rebels have seized two French security advisers originally captured by a different band of Somalian gunmen, and now they are widely suspected of another kidnapping on Saturday morning along the Kenya-Somalia border. “They need money,” said one Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing diplomatic protocol. “It’s a fact.” Another fact: kidnapping is one of the few money-making industries left in shattered Somalia.
Polls Close, Counting Begins in Mauritania - Scott Stearns, Voice of America. Vote counting is underway in Mauritania following Saturday's presidential election. Nine candidates are running to restore constitutional order following last year's coup. Electoral officials began counting ballot papers immediately after polling stations closed here. Each clear plastic ballot box was emptied in the polling station in the presence of observers from each candidate. Those observers verify the count by signing-off on the provisional result along with the polling station's supervising official before that total is sent to the Interior Ministry.
Post-Coup Mauritania Holds Presidential Vote - Associated Press. A former army general who seized power by overthrowing this Islamic republic's first freely elected president last year is gunning for Mauritania's presidency again -- this time legitimately, through the ballot box. Saturday's election represents a chance for the coup-plagued desert nation, which straddles the Arab and African worlds, to end decades of military rule and resurrect billions of dollars in frozen aid once pledged by international donors. But in a country where military strongmen wield more power and influence than the constitution or any written law, neither task will be easy.
AMERICAS
Honduras Talks to Resume, Zelaya Gives Ultimatum - Voice of America. Representatives of the ousted and interim governments of Honduras are scheduled to hold talks Saturday in an attempt to resolve their political crisis peacefully. But both sides have shown little willingness to compromise. Toppled President Manuel Zelaya said Friday he plans to return to his country and his post with or without an agreement from the US-backed talks being held in Costa Rica. Mr. Zelaya set midnight Saturday as the deadline for negotiators to reach a solution that would restore him to power. He said any other result would be a failure, and he indicated he would not accept mediators' proposal for a power-sharing agreement. The ousted leader did not say when or how he would return to Honduras. The interim government has threatened to arrest him if he does.
Mediator’s Plan Would Return Honduran Ex-President - Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times. The mediator in talks seeking to break the deadlock between the deposed Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, and the de facto government that exiled him urged both sides on Saturday to agree to a plan that would return the ousted leader and grant a general amnesty for political offenses. The seven points proposed by the mediator, President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, during a second round of negotiations at his house in the capital, San José, would require the political elite of Honduras to recognize Mr. Zelaya as the country’s legitimate president, which they have yet to do. Rixi Moncada, a representative of Mr. Zelaya, said Mr. Arias proposed during the afternoon session that the ousted president be reinstated by Friday.
Arias Proposes Solution to Honduras Crisis - Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, seeking a solution to the Honduran coup crisis, on Saturday proposed reinstating ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya as president and holding early elections as part of a power-sharing plan for a new government. Zelaya said he accepted Arias' plan in principle, but the de facto government in Honduras continued to insist that Zelaya not be allowed to return to the presidency. Zelaya has threatened to make his way back into Honduras as early as today if a deal to restore him to power was not reached in Saturday's negotiations. Arias, the mediator of the negotiations at his home in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, urged patience. More talks may take place today.
Zelaya's Side Accepts Plan to End Honduras Crisis - Associated Press. A negotiator for ousted President Manuel Zelaya says his side has accepted in principle the points proposed by a mediator to end the Honduras coup crisis. But negotiator Enrique Flores says the interim government of Roberto Micheletti has rejected the central point of allowing Mr. Zelaya to be reinstated, leaving the talks stalemated. Mr. Flores says "in principle we accept all the points, to later discuss them in detail." But he says the Honduras' de facto leaders have shown no willingness to accept Mr. Zelaya's return, adding that if there is no progress "we will declare the talks a failure."
Venezuela's Drug-Trafficking Role Is Growing Fast, US Report Says - Juan Forero, Washington Post. A report for the US Congress on drug smuggling through Venezuela concludes that corruption at high levels of President Hugo Chávez's government and state aid to Colombia's drug-trafficking guerrillas have made Venezuela a major launching pad for cocaine bound for the United States and Europe. Since 1996, successive US administrations have considered Venezuela a key drug-trafficking hub, the Government Accountability Office report says. But now, it says, the amount of cocaine flowing into Venezuela from Colombia, Venezuela's neighbor and the world's top producer of the drug, has skyrocketed, going from an estimated 60 metric tons in 2004 to 260 metric tons in 2007. That amounted to 17 percent of all the cocaine produced in the Andes in 2007.
Drug Cartels Imperil Immigrants in the Desert - Sacha Feinman, Los Angeles Times. It was not always like this; migrants and drugs once occupied separate worlds. But tougher border enforcement has pushed the groups into the same obscure parts of the desert. The close company adds a new element of danger to migrants' already perilous journey, and may be responsible for a drop in immigration and economic decline in towns that depend on the migrants. As drug smuggling groups find their profits pinched by tighter border enforcement, they have moved into human smuggling, according to US law enforcement officials. And with good reason: The average migrant pays about $1,300 to $1,800 to be smuggled past the bolstered Border Patrol as well as fences, surveillance towers and other new security measures. What once was a wildcat operation with marginal profits has become big business.
Nicaragua Revolutionaries Feel Betrayed - Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times. Thirty years after the Sandinistas came to power, many are still loyal to the cause but feel disillusioned by the policies of President Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla commander. On July 19, 1979, a young Nicaraguan guerrilla commander with an idealistic swagger and a droopy black mustache helped overthrow a brutish dictator and captivate the world's imagination. Three decades later, older and not necessarily wiser, President Daniel Ortega has repulsed many followers and baffled others.
Tentative Calm Brings Optimism to a 'Failed' Haiti - Michael Deibert, Washington Times. The dark afternoon clouds that gradually roll over Haiti's capital herald the beginning of the rainy season, but the early-morning bursts of sunshine might more accurately capture the national mood these days. While the country remains desperately poor, it is more peaceful than it has been in years - no small feat in a place with a volatile political history. Some of the credit goes to the United Nations and President Rene Preval. A few years ago, the authority of the state did not extend much beyond Port-au-Prince, where armed gangs controlled neighborhoods. Since the inauguration of Mr. Preval in May 2006, however, a fragile calm has prevailed.
ASIA PACIFIC
US Envoy: Washington Ready for Talks With North Korea - Voice of America. A top U.S. diplomat for East Asia and Pacific Affairs says the United States is willing to talk with North Korea if it abandons its nuclear ambitions. Kurt Campbell told reporters in South Korea Saturday that the US is following a two-track strategy. He said the United States also is pressing for the enforcement of United Nations sanctions against the regime in Pyongyang. Campbell arrived in Seoul from Tokyo, where he discussed the North Korean nuclear threat with Japanese officials. The two sides agreed to set up regular talks on boosting the US defense of Japan against a possible attack by North Korea.
Bombing Probe Points to Notorious Terrorist - Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal. An unexploded bomb found at one of the Jakarta hotels targeted by suicide bombers on Friday provides "strong indications" that Southeast Asia's most-wanted Islamic terrorist was behind the deadly hotel attacks, a senior Indonesian antiterrorism official said a day after the explosions. Even before the bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton, which killed nine people, Indonesian police had ramped up a hunt for Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian master bomb-maker who is wanted in connection with a string of deadly terrorist attacks in Indonesia, said Ansyaad Mbai, the head of counterterrorism at Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs, in an interview Saturday.
Investigations Continue into Jakarta Terrorist Bombings - Brian Padden, Voice of America. Investigations continued Saturday into the Friday bombings at two hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia that left nine people dead and at least 50 injured. Little information about the bombings is being released to the public. On Saturday, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited the sites where two bombs exploded at the Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels. On Friday the president said the bombings were acts of terrorism but he made no statement during the visits.
Indonesian Officials Strain to Identify Bombers - Norimitsu OPnishi, New York Times. Indonesian officials struggled Saturday to identify the two suicide bombers behind Friday’s deadly attacks at two American hotels here even as they said more clearly that the two men appeared to have had ties to a Malaysian Islamic extremist. A high-ranking Indonesian security official, Ansyaad Mbai, said publicly that the nature of the attacks indicated strongly that the suicide bombers had ties to the Malaysian extremist, Noordin Muhammad Top, who has long been the most wanted terrorist in Southeast Asia. A onetime leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terrorist network with links to Al Qaeda, Mr. Noordin is now believed to lead a splinter group.
Flare-Ups of Ethnic Unrest Shake China's Self-Image - Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post. The violence in Guangdong was echoed in the far western city of Urumqi, when clashes between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese on July 5 killed 192 people and injured about 1,700. Both incidents have shaken China's view of itself as a country that celebrates diversity and treats its minority populations better than its counterparts in the West do. The incidents in Guangdong and Urumqi fit a pattern of ethnic unrest that includes the Tibetan uprising in March 2008, followed by bombings at police stations and government offices in the majority Uighur province of Xinjiang that left 16 officers dead shortly before the August Olympics. Each conflict has had specific causes, including high unemployment, continued allegations of corruption involving public officials and charges of excessive force by police. But for the Chinese government, they add up to a major concern: Friction among the nation's 56 officially recognized ethnic groups is considered one of the most explosive potential triggers for social instability.
THE CAUCASUS
Chechen Leader 'Threatened' Natalia Estemirova - Mark Franchetti, The Times. The human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, who was abducted from her Chechen home last week and murdered, had been forced to flee to Britain last year after the republic’s president personally threatened her, say colleagues. Estemirova left Chechnya for four months because she no longer felt safe after a heated exchange with President Ramzan Kadyrov. He was angry that she had challenged his order that women should wear headscarves in public in the predominantly Muslim territory.
Chechnya Is Gripped by Political Kidnappings - Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times. The wars that have ravaged Chechnya since the collapse of the Soviet Union have officially ended. Grozny, the capital, has been mostly rebuilt, and stores and cafes are open. Yet the republic is in the throes of an epidemic of kidnappings. The abduction and killing last week of Natalia Estemirova, a celebrated human rights worker, came in the context of an escalating trend of unexplained disappearances. Dragged off the sidewalks, pulled out of beds at night or grabbed from their cars, scores of people have simply vanished. In the first six months of this year, the Russian human rights organization Memorial, where Ms. Estemirova worked, documented 74 kidnappings in Chechnya, compared with 42 for all of 2008.
MIDDLE EAST
Israel Told to Halt East Jerusalem Housing Project - Associated Press. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel can build anywhere in Jerusalem - a position likely to complicate an unusually tense standoff with the US over settlement construction. The US has demanded that Israel suspend a contentious building project in east Jerusalem because it would hurt peacemaking. The Palestinians see the city's eastern sector as capital of a hoped-for state and oppose any Jewish construction there. Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it that same year.
SOUTH ASIA
Pakistan Admits Extremists' Involvement in Mumbai Attacks - Alex Rodriguez and Anshul Rana, Los Angeles Times. A dossier compiled by Pakistani investigators acknowledging that a Pakistani extremist group was behind last year's Mumbai attacks could help set the stage for the beginnings of a thaw in relations with India. The dossier, which Pakistani officials handed over to their Indian counterparts during talks in Egypt last week, concludes that the militant Islamic group Lashkar-e-Taiba organized the attacks on luxury hotels, a railway station and other targets in Mumbai in November that killed 166 people.
Clinton Urges Global Fight on Terrorism, Meets Mumbai Victims - Voice of America. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged US support in the global fight on terrorism Saturday, as she met with victims of last year's terror attacks in India's commercial city, Mumbai. Clinton also said the United States is not pressuring India to improve relations with Pakistan. She said it is up to the two sides to determine how to go forward with peace talks. Also Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said he is determined to bring the attackers to justice. He said dialogue is the only way to forward with India.
India Visit Leaves Officials for Last Day - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reached out to the full spectrum of Indian society Saturday, sharing petits fours with corporate titans, including a man building a $1 billion home, and later munching nuts with rural women who embroider clothing for just dollars a day. Clinton, on her first full day of a three-day tour of India, also participated in a nationally televised town hall discussion on education with Bollywood star Aamir Khan and paid tribute to the more than 170 victims of a three-day terrorist siege here last November. In a rarity for a secretary of state, she is not due to meet with any Indian officials until the last day of her visit, when she hopes to announce agreements that could lead to military and nuclear deals.
Justifying a Costly War in Sri Lanka - Lydia Polgreen, New York Times. More than 2,000 years ago, a Sinhalese king named Dutugemunu saddled up his elephant and headed north to fight and kill Elara, an invading Tamil king from India. The battle between the men is one of the most celebrated moments in Sri Lankan history, and the last time, until two months ago, that a Sri Lankan ruler won such a decisive victory over a mortal threat. Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that fans of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the president of Sri Lanka, have taken to calling him a modern-day incarnation of King Dutugemunu. After all, he presided over the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, among the world’s most enduring and vicious guerrilla separatists, hardened fighters who have humiliated four presidents over nearly three decades. Asked about this comparison earlier this month, Mr. Rajapaksa laughed it off, insisting that the legend was misunderstood as a triumph of one ethnicity over another. After his victory, the story goes, Dutugemunu made peace with the Tamils and honored the memory of Elara, who was beloved by his people. History will decide whether Mr. Rajapaksa will be remembered as a nationalist avenger or a unifying peacemaker.
BOOKS
Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan - Doug Stanton.
Horse Soldiers tells the important story of the Special Forces soldiers who first put American boots on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting alongside the Northern Alliance, the troops, often riding on horseback, achieved several important victories against the Taliban.
War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age - Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker.
War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, the grassroots public has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the US military into a lean, lethal, computerized force crashed in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war - indeed, the US Army calls it armed social work - in which the local matrix population becomes the center of strategic gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.
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.
