Twin car bombs that devastated three government buildings and killed 132 people Sunday underlined a new strategy in Iraq's contest for power ahead of January elections: spectacular blows aimed at destroying faith in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to secure the country as the United States withdraws, officials and residents said.

--Washington Post

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

US Tested 2 Afghan Scenarios in War Game - Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. The Pentagon's top military officer oversaw a secret war game this month to evaluate the two primary military options that have been put forward by the Pentagon and are being weighed by the Obama administration as part of a broad-based review of the faltering Afghanistan war, senior military officials said. The exercise, led by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, examined the likely outcome of inserting 44,000 more troops into the country to conduct a full-scale counterinsurgency effort aimed at building a stable Afghan government that can control most of the country. It also examined adding 10,000 to 15,000 more soldiers and Marines as part of an approach that the military has dubbed "counterterrorism plus." Both options were drawn from a detailed analysis prepared by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan, and were forwarded to President Obama in recent weeks by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. The Pentagon war game did not formally endorse either course; rather, it tried to gauge how Taliban fighters, the Afghan and Pakistani governments and NATO allies might react to either of the scenarios. Mullen, a key player in the game, has discussed its conclusions with senior White House officials involved in the discussions over the new strategy. One of the exercise's key assumptions is that an increase of 10,000 to 15,000 troops would not in the near future give US commanders the forces they need to take back havens from the Taliban commanders in southern and western Afghanistan, where shadow insurgent governors collect taxes and run court systems based on Islamic sharia law.

Karzai Holds Head High as Nation Turns to Runoff - Pamela Constable, Washington Post. Just over a week ago, Afghan President Hamid Karzai looked like a cornered captive. Forced to disavow an election he believed he had won, and to announce this concession on a dais crowded with Western officials, Karzai - usually charming and cagey in public - seemed edgy and grim. Now, the Cheshire Cat is back. According to his aides and political confidants, Karzai has rebounded from the evident humiliation of that moment and now sees himself as a statesman who helped save Afghan democracy. They describe him as both comfortable with his decision to accept a runoff election with rival Abdullah Abdullah on Nov. 7 and confident that he will win. Although Karzai has made no public appearances and does not plan to hold any large campaign rallies in the days before the scheduled vote, aides said he is now energized by the prospect of a new election that can legitimize his fraud-tainted victory. They said he is even considering a proposal for a televised debate with Abdullah.

Afghan Challenger Considers Runoff Boycott - Joshua Partlow and Pamela Constable, Washington Post. The challenger to President Hamid Karzai is considering boycotting the upcoming runoff if his demands are not met to remove the leaders of Afghanistan's election commission who he believes are biased against him, campaign officials said Sunday. Despite his public promises that he will participate in the Nov. 7 runoff, Abdullah Abdullah has been discussing the possibility of pulling out, an outcome that could create a new political crisis and throw the legitimacy of any new government into question. His aides argue that it would be dangerous to enter an election that might reproduce the massive fraud that discredited the vote in August. Abdullah's main running mate, Homayoun Shah Assefy, said that it was clear that the United States and the international community would resist such a boycott but that it might be necessary if the Independent Election Commission is not purged of its prominent Karzai supporters.

Who is Abdullah Abdullah? - Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor. Abdullah Abdullah, the challenger to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, suggested Sunday that he might not participate in the runoff election scheduled for Nov. 7. Mr. Karzai must meet a list of demands in order to avoid the widespread fraud that marred the Aug. 20 presidential election, Dr. Abdullah said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. Without these assurances of a fair election, Abdullah said he "was not going to take the country through this saga again." Echoing the sentiments he made to The Monitor Friday, he noted that "people lost their lives" in violence that erupted during in the first election: "I don't want this opportunity to turn into another waste." The comments are undoubtedly - at least in part - overseas electioneering, Afghan style. Abdullah is playing upon Washington's doubts about corruption in Karzai's government in hopes of finding an ally. He has said Karzai must ensure the impartiality of the election commission and eliminate the "ghost polling sites" at the center of the fraud – demands the US is likely to support. Yet he is no typical Afghan power-broker - seeking a sweet deal from Karzai or backing his threats with cadres of rifle-carrying followers. In many respects, Abdullah is a uniquely complex character in Afghan politics.

Afghan Election Rests on the Backs of Donkeys - Sabrina Tavernese, New York Times. In this remote corner of northern Afghanistan (Faizabad), distances are measured in days. The only paved road lasts for less than a mile, and travel often takes place on the back of a donkey. Apply those qualities to an area the size of South Carolina, add in the topography of Colorado, and you get an election official’s nightmare, which is about how Sayed Masood saw it on Sunday, as he frantically prepared for the presidential election runoff on Nov. 7. “There is very little time,” said Mr. Masood, the top election official in Badakhshan Province. “I have to hire 130 district coordinators by tomorrow.” Now that Afghanistan’s runoff vote seems imminent, local election officials across the country are scrambling to get 15 million ballots to thousands of villages in Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Nowhere will that be more difficult than in Badakhshan, a mitten-shaped province here in northeastern Afghanistan that is nearly entirely covered by mountains. Aside from one short paved strip in the center of Faizabad, the provincial capital, the roads are dirt, with ruts and slants that make any car ride feel like a voyage at sea during a storm. Six districts have no roads that connect to the rest of the province, and ballots for those areas will be taken by helicopter, Mr. Masood said.

US Troops Hope Afghanistan Sacrifices Not in Vain - Sara A. Carter, Washington Times. The sirens blared as a Taliban rocket attack rattled troops across Kandahar Air Field for the second time last week. Army Sgt. 1st Class Teresa R. Coble and other members of her unit at the base's media-support center hit the floor, lay flat on the dusty cement and protected their heads with their hands. Later, the unit moved to cement-reinforced bunkers until the all-clear sounded. While the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan and Afghans prepare to vote for president for the second time in four months, some of those already braving rockets and bombs worry that their mission has lost the support of the US public and that their sacrifices - and those of their fallen comrades - have been in vain. "What about the troops who died giving their lives for this mission?" Sgt. Coble asked as she waited for the rocket alert to finish. By next August, Sgt. Coble, 27, from Germantown, will have served more than 30 months combined in Iraq and Afghanistan, far from her only child, five-year-old Troy Davis. "We would not be honoring the lives of the troops who died if we left here without finishing our mission, and many troops are concerned that the American people have forgotten why we came here to begin with," she said.

Afghans Protest Rumored Desecration of Koran by US Troops - Laura King, Los Angeles Times. Hundreds of angry protesters in Afghanistan's capital burned an effigy of President Obama on Sunday, acting on rumors that American troops had desecrated the Koran. US military officials emphatically denied that any copies of the Muslim holy book had been mishandled, and they accused the Taliban of spreading falsehoods to incite hatred against Western forces. The protest - reminiscent of similar demonstrations in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world in recent years - showed how easily passions involving religious sensitivities can be stirred up even with a dearth of evidence. The incident also pointed to a strong undercurrent of anti-American sentiment at a politically fraught time in Afghanistan, less than two weeks before a runoff to settle a divisive, fraud-tainted presidential election. The Nov. 7 face-off between President Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah was agreed to only after heavy US pressure on Karzai to accept the results of an international audit. The investigators found that as many as one-third of the ballots cast for Karzai in the Aug. 20 election were fraudulent. That put the Afghan leader below the threshold of victory, 50%, and made a runoff necessary.

Pakistan Villagers Take Up Guns, Sticks Against Taliban - Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times. Members of the 40-day-old tribal militia in this Swat Valley village (Kanju) come in all shapes, from all walks of life. Some struggle to fasten bandoleers around pot bellies; some haven't finished high school. They are doctors and teachers, wealthy landowners and dirt-poor wheat farmers. Some make their way with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, others with only a wooden stick in hand. What unites them is the memory of the Taliban's brutality, a time when the militant organization took over Kanju and the rest of the Swat Valley. Taliban militants beheaded perceived enemies, flogged women and bombed school buildings. With most of Swat back in the hands of the government after a military operation that drove the Taliban into hiding, thousands of Pakistanis in towns like Kanju have been banding together to form lashkars, or tribal militias, to help keep trouble from coming back. Subhan Ali commands 4,000 men who form a lashkar that regularly combs Kanju's dilapidated buildings and surrounding countryside for fleeing Taliban fighters and their sympathizers. "Most of us don't have weapons," said Ali, 35. "At the start of all this, the Taliban took away a lot of our guns. Then the army came and took more of our guns. Many just have batons, but even that they will use."

Think Before Surging - Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post opinion. Dick Cheney has accused Barack Obama of "dithering" over Afghanistan. If the president were to quickly invade a country on the basis of half-baked intelligence, would that demonstrate his courage and decisiveness to Cheney? In fact, it's not a bad idea for Obama to take his time, examine all options and watch how the post-election landscape in Afghanistan evolves. The real question we should be asking about Afghanistan is: "Do we need a third surge?" The number of US forces in Afghanistan in January 2008 was 26,607. Over the next six months, the total rose to 48,250. President Bush described this policy as "the quiet surge," and he made the standard arguments about the need for a counterinsurgency capacity - the troops had to not only fight the Taliban but also protect the Afghan population, strengthen and train the Afghan army and police, and assist in development. In January, 3,000 more troops, originally ordered by Bush, went to Afghanistan in the first days of the Obama presidency. In February, responding to a request from the commander in the field, Obama ordered an additional 17,000 troops into the country. Put another way, over the past 18 months, troop levels in Afghanistan have almost tripled. Sending an additional 40,000 troops would mean an over 300 percent increase in US troops since 2008. (The total surge in Iraq was just over 20,000 troops.) It is not dithering to try to figure out why previous increases have not worked and why we think additional ones would.

IRAQ

Twin Bombings Rock Central Baghdad, More Than 130 Killed - Elizabeth Arrott, Voice of America. Iraqi police say two car bombs have claimed the lives of more than 130 people in central Baghdad. More than 500 others have been wounded in the Sunday blasts. The attackers struck just outside the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area that houses many government buildings. Police say the first bombing hit the justice ministry. Minutes later, another massive car bomb exploded outside the provincial government headquarters. Ambulances rushed to the scene. Private cars were also used to ferry the many wounded to hospitals. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. While violence in Iraq has dropped dramatically since the height of sectarian fighting, the attacks were the second major security breach in Baghdad - a city filled with checkpoints - in two months. Twin bombings in August struck another two government buildings, killing about 100 people. Baghdad blamed Syria for harboring the suspects in that attack, a charge Damascus denies. The accusation and suspicions have caused a rift between the neighbors that has yet to be resolved. Sunday's bombings occurred as Iraq's parliament tries to pass legislation needed to hold elections in January. Successful elections are considered a benchmark of Iraq's return to stability after six years of conflict. A recurring theme among those planning to take part is unity across sectarian lines. The US military plans to withdraw many of its troops after the vote. Any delay could affect the US timetable for leaving the country.

Bombings Rock Iraq's Political Landscape - Anthony Shadid, Washington Post. Twin car bombs that devastated three government buildings and killed 132 people Sunday underlined a new strategy in Iraq's contest for power ahead of January elections: spectacular blows aimed at destroying faith in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to secure the country as the United States withdraws, officials and residents said. Sunday's attack, cutting through snarled traffic during the morning rush hour, was the worst in Baghdad since 2007. With an attack Aug. 19 that killed about 100 people, insurgents have now wrecked an array of pillars of the state's authority: the Foreign, Finance, Justice, and Municipalities and Public Works ministries, along with the Baghdad provincial headquarters, which are all gathered in a fortified swath of downtown. Unlike the carnage unleashed by attacks in crowded mosques, restaurants and markets, aimed at igniting sectarian strife, these blasts appeared to rely on a distinctly political logic. In elections scheduled for January to choose a new parliament, Maliki has staked his future on having restored a semblance of security to the war-wrecked country. In the street Sunday, where blood and ashen detritus mixed with water surging from broken mains, that claim seemed as tattered as the forlorn facades of the targeted buildings.

Iraq Bombings, Deadliest Since 2007, Raise Security Issue - Timothy Williams, New York Times. Two synchronized suicide car bombings struck at the heart of the Iraqi government here on Sunday, severely damaging the Justice Ministry and provincial council complexes, leaving a scene of carnage that raised new questions about the government’s ability to secure its most vital operations. The bombers apparently passed through multiple security checkpoints before detonating their vehicles within a minute of each other, leaving at least 132 dead and more than 520 wounded strewn across crowded downtown streets. Blast walls had been moved back off the road in front of both buildings in recent weeks. It was the deadliest coordinated attack in Iraq since the summer of 2007 and happened just blocks from where car bombers killed at least 122 people at the Foreign and Finance Ministries in August, in the continuation of a focused attempt by insurgents to strike at the government’s most critical functions. For months, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is seeking another term as Iraq prepares to hold national elections in January, has painstakingly tried to present Iraq as having turned a corner on the violence that threatened to tear the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

Explosions Kill at Least 147 in Baghdad's Government Center - Ned Parker and Raheem Salman, Los Angeles Times. Car bombs exploded in Baghdad this morning next to two key government buildings, killing at least 147 people and wounding more than 700. The explosions occurred as political leaders were preparing to meet to try to resolve a fierce dispute that could delay national elections, ranked as pivotal to Iraq's long-term stability. The car bombs, at least one of them a suicide bombing, according to police, blew up by the justice ministry and a Baghdad provincial office, sites separated by one broad city block. The attacks, the bloodiest in Iraq this year, hit the nerve center of Baghdad's national and local governments, shattering windows, sending debris flying and tearing down parts of buildings. Salam Ali, 30, had been riding his motorcycle to work when the blast knocked him off his bike. "I saw people wounded and killed at the explosion scene," said Ali, speaking from the crowded Karkh hospital in western Baghdad. "Security forces started to shoot randomly. There was flames and smoke from the explosion." The areas on the eastern side of the Tigris River are flanked with police and army checkpoints and are very near to Baghdad's foreign ministry, which was targeted in one of two attacks in August that killed around 100 people. That blast, referred to as "bloody Wednesday," rattled Iraqis' growing sense of security, and until today the city had not seen any more violence on that scale.

Deadly Blasts Rock Baghdad, Killing Dozens - Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal. Two powerful suicide car bombs near high-profile government offices rocked the capital on Sunday in the deadliest attack here in more than two years, killing at least 147 people and raising fresh worry about the capabilities of Iraq's security services ahead of national elections scheduled for January. The Ministry of Interior said that in addition to the dead, more than 500 people were injured. Charred bodies, limbs and the smoldering shells of dozens of cars littered the area. The explosions also shattered windows throughout the nearby Mansour Hotel, which houses the Chinese Embassy. Some ceilings collapsed. The blasts, which the government said bore the signature of al Qaeda in Iraq, most damaged Baghdad's provincial headquarters and the nearby federal Ministry of Justice. Many of the protective blast walls surrounding those buildings collapsed. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the site of the attacks and blamed al Qaeda and members of the Baath party. His office said in a statement that the explosions were meant to create instability and to stop the January parliamentary elections. President Barack Obama called the attacks an attempt to "derail Iraq's progress." He said the US "will stand with Iraq's people and government as a close friend and partner as Iraqis prepare for elections early next year." The president spoke with Mr. Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani by phone to express his condolences. The timing of the Sunday bombings coincided with plans by Iraq's top political body, the Political Council for National Security, comprising top political leaders and cabinet ministers, to consider ways to end a stalemate over a crucial election law needed to begin work ahead of the vote. The legislation has stalled over disagreements between factions over how the vote will be conducted in Kirkuk, an oil-rich region in the north torn by sectarian and ethnic tensions among the area's Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen.

Baghdad Blasts Kill 147 - Eli Lake, Washington Times. As the Obama administration weighed sending more troops to Afghanistan, the worst terrorist attack in two years rocked Baghdad - a grim reminder that the insurgency thought to be largely defeated in 2007 and 2008 is still capable of spectacular bloodshed. Two powerful suicide car bombs detonated in front of Iraq's Justice Ministry and other government buildings midday Sunday, killing at least 147 people, according to the Associated Press. The dead included 35 employees at the Ministry of Justice and at least 25 staff members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, officials told the AP. More than 700 others were wounded, including three American contractors. The attacks undercut optimistic comments that Iraq's Sunni insurgency has been fully defeated by an alliance of the US and Iraqi military and a federation of Sunni sheiks known as the Awakening. The bombings also may have been timed to humiliate Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who returned this weekend from a trip to Washington, where he participated in a conference aimed at bolstering international investment in Iraq. Mr. al-Maliki is running for re-election next year and is basing his campaign in part on the claim that Iraqi security has significantly improved on his watch, despite the withdrawal of thousands of US troops.

Baghdad Car Bombs Kill at Least 147 in Deadliest Attacks for Two Years - Oliver August, The Times. Twin car bombings in central Baghdad killed at least 147 people today in what looks like the start to a blood-drenched election campaign. The attacks - the deadliest in two years - occurred along a road thronged with traffic and destroyed three government buildings, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Works and the Baghdad governor's office, where ten members of parliament were attending a meeting. The bombs exploded within two minutes of each other at around 10:30 in the morning, First came a smaller bomb outside the Baghdad governorate, driving pedestrians north along Haifa street towards a ministerial complex 500 metres away, where the second and larger bomb went off. Hospitals overflowed with more than 600 wounded and columns of brown smoke hung over the city for hours. Haifa Street, which runs north from the fortified Green Zone, was flooded several feet deep with water from burst mains. The water turned red in places with the blood of the dead and injured. The attack was most likely carried out by Sunni extremists, linked to al-Qaeda or the former regime of Saddam Hussein, who are trying to undermine the current government. Iraqis are meant to elect a new parliament on January 16 but a row over election rules could cause a delay.

Baghdad Bombings: Iraqis at the Scene Blame Political Parties - Jane Arraf, Christian Science Monitor. Iraqis at the site of the latest suicide car bombings on Sunday said they believed that political parties were responsible for the twin attacks on government ministries. The mangled remnants of cars were flung blocks away by the force of two car bombs that hit almost simultaneously mid-morning on a workday outside the Baghdad governorate offices and the Justice Ministry, killing more than 130 people and wounding almost 600. The explosion blew out the windows of a major hotel used by foreigners and foreign embassies. Several hours after the attack, the streets were still flooded with pools of water and blood while emergency workers used cranes to search the destroyed ministries for remains of the victims. "This is all from the political parties - they want to gain seats in the election," said Abbas Fadhil, a street vendor who arrived on the scene moments after the explosion. "Look - there are lots of empty seats now," he said, pointing to the collapsed ceilings and overturned chairs of the Justice Ministry where he stood. Near the office of the Baghdad provincial governorate, Salar Saman Mohammad waded into the flooded street to try to determine whether a blackened wreck of a car with shattered windows belonged to his brother, lying wounded in hospital. A 14-year-old worker in the car with his brother at the time was also seriously wounded in the blast. "Everybody knows it's the political parties behind this trying to gain power," he said. Mr. Mohammad, a plumber, said the brand new car had been stripped of its head lights and license plates after the explosion. "They are animals here - they don't know if the owner is dead and they are stealing," he said. "There had to be someone with official backing behind this - how could they get through the checkpoints?" said Um Ali, standing at the edge of an impassible street. "Why are our children, our sisters still being killed? For 20 years we've been fighting," she said.

A Resilient Baghdad on a Day of Horror - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. From the air Sunday morning, this looked like a city restored. You could see paddle boats skimming the pond at Zawra Park, and go-karts and waterslides. And in every direction, new schools and soccer fields and bustling warehouses - all taking shape under the canopy of the new Iraq. But down below, it turned out to be a morning from hell. Terrorists exploded two massive car bombs at the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial administration, killing more than 100 and wounding more than 500. It was the worst day of violence this year, and it was, as the terrorists intended, a reminder of the fragility of Iraqi security. Around the time the bombers struck, I was flying over the city in a Black Hawk helicopter with Gen. David Petraeus. As commander of US forces in Iraq from 2007 to 2008, he helped restore stability here. He was returning Sunday as Centcom commander, and he decided on his way in from the airport to conduct one of his careening airborne tours of the city, which he used to make so frequently that the helicopter pilots gave them the code name "Purple Rain."

IRAN

UN Inspectors in Iran for Nuclear Plant Visit - Voice of America. United Nations nuclear inspectors are in Iran for a three-day visit to examine one of Iran's controversial uranium enrichment sites. A four-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived in Iran early Sunday. Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reports the team toured the nuclear facility near Qom later in the day, but there was no immediate confirmation from the IAEA. Iran acknowledged in September that it had been building this enrichment plant. Iran's nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, says Iran is allowing UN inspectors to visit the facility to prove the country's "good will" and to reassure the world community of its "peaceful nuclear activities." Iran is still deliberating over a UN-backed proposal to allow Russia to enrich uranium for Iran to fuel a research reactor. The deal, agreed to by Russia, the United States and France, is designed to prevent Iran from enriching uranium to the point that it can be used for nuclear weapons. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, says Iran will respond to the offer in the coming days.

UN Inspectors Visit Iranian Site - Associated Press. UN inspectors entered a once-secret uranium enrichment facility with bunker-like construction and heavy military protection that raised Western suspicions about the extent and intent of Iran's nuclear program. The visit Sunday by the four-member International Atomic Energy Agency team, reported by state media, was the first independent look inside the planned nuclear fuel lab, a former ammunition dump burrowed into the treeless hills south of Tehran and only publicly disclosed last month. The inspectors are expected to study plant blueprints, interview workers and take soil samples before wrapping up the three-day mission. No results from the inspection are expected until the team leaves the country, but some Iranian officials hailed the visit as an example that their nuclear program was open to international scrutiny. ''IAEA inspectors' visit to Fordo shows that Iran's nuclear activities are transparent and peaceful,'' the official IRNA news agency quoted lawmaker Hasan Ebrahimi as saying.

Both Iran and West Fear a Trap on Uranium Deal - David E. Sanger, New York Times. Just before international inspectors on Sunday were guided for the first time into an Iranian nuclear enrichment plant whose existence was a state secret until recently, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament warned his countrymen to beware of American efforts to “cheat” Iran out of the nuclear fuel that has become the country’s currency in reasserting its power. In Washington, the concern is precisely the reverse. Here, even some of President Obama’s aides are wary that Iran is setting a trap, trying to turn the administration’s signature offer of engagement into a process of endless negotiations. They are acutely aware of the fact that the clock is ticking: While talks continue, Iran is steadily enriching more uranium, the fuel it would need if it ever decided to sprint for the bomb, much as Israel and India did 30 years ago, followed by Pakistan and North Korea. That struggle - pitting Iran’s fears of falling for a Western conspiracy to neutralize its “strategic reserve” against the West’s fears of being lured into an Iranian plot to buy time for a secret nuclear bomb program - lies at the heart of the complex set of moves and countermoves now being played out around the globe. It will probably be several weeks before the results of the inspection of the newly revealed Qum nuclear enrichment plant are known. Iran has said it will give a definitive answer before then about whether it will go along with a deal to turn over much of its current stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia for further processing, so that it can be returned to Iran for use in a reactor that makes medical isotopes.

THE LONG WAR

The Cover-Up Continues - New York Times editorial. The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up. We have had recent reminders of this dismaying retreat from Mr. Obama’s passionate campaign promises to make a break with Mr. Bush’s abuses of power, a shift that denies justice to the victims of wayward government policies and shields officials from accountability. In Britain earlier this month, a two-judge High Court panel rejected arguments made first by the Bush team and now by the Obama team and decided to make public seven redacted paragraphs in American intelligence documents relating to torture allegations by a former prisoner at Guantánamo Bay. The prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British national, says he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco and at a CIA-run prison outside Kabul before being transferred to Guantánamo. He was freed in February.

UNITED STATES

Hate Crimes and Jet Engines - Washington Times editorial. With a war on, it would be nice if there were some adults in the Democratic Party who understand that the 2010 defense-policy bill is not the place for payoffs to domestic constituencies. Instead, President Obama is about to sign a bill that expands federal thought crimes to cover bias based on sexual orientation and greenlights more funding for an unnecessary and wasteful second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The engine program is a fiscally irresponsible effort to create and support jobs by lawmakers from Ohio, Indiana and other states where General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce plan to build turbines unwanted by the US military. Proponents of the move claim that a second F-35 engine would lower costs by creating competition for Pratt & Whitney's main engine. Military contracting simply doesn't work that way. The companies won't be competing, just producing them on parallel tracks. The Pentagon says their existing engine is performing fine and a second one would delay fielding the plane. Nevertheless, the measure recommends spending $560 million next year on this parochial waste with hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer dollars surely to be spent in later years. Delays will boost costs still more. The measure also provides an unnecessary special status under federal law for a single group by extending hate-crimes law covering the use or threat of force based on race, color, religion or national origin to include "gender identity." If a murder or other act of violence is committed, the perpetrator can already be prosecuted under existing laws. What they might have been thinking is irrelevant.

AFRICA

Nigerian Rebels Declare Indefinite Ceasefire - Gilbert da Costa, Voice of America. Nigeria's most prominent armed group has declared an indefinite ceasefire to allow for peace talks with government. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, says the government has committed itself to what it called "a serious and meaningful dialogue" with the group to address its concerns. MEND emerged in early 2006, knocking out nearly a quarter of Nigeria's oil output within weeks, the start of what it called a fight for more local control of oil resources. Security analysts say MEND has been depleted by several key leaders and thousands of gunmen who accepted a government amnesty and disarmed. The amnesty granted immunity from prosecution to any militant who renounced violence before October fourth. The governor of the key oil producing Bayelsa state, Timpreye Sylvia, says MEND no more represents a serious threat to the oil industry and should be ignored. "Who is left in MEND? I think MEND is just a faceless human being sitting on a computer in one small room somewhere. I do not believe there is anything really called MEND, because the key people who propelled MEND have all said they are not in it anymore," said Sylvia.

Zimbabwe Army and Police Chiefs Face Arrest Over Land Grab by Army Officer - Jan Raath, The Times. Zimbabwean courts are expected to order the arrest of the country’s defence and police chiefs this week in a key test of the judiciary’s ability to rein in marauding security forces. The most senior High Court judge is likely to order the arrest of the army commander, Lieutenant-General Philip Sibanda, and the police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, for contempt of court after they failed to discipline an army officer who seized a white farmer’s land. In a country where many now doubt even President Mugabe’s control over elements of the security forces, the order is unlikely to be obeyed. Taking over white farms has been a hallmark of Mr Mugabe’s regime but the case of Charles Lock, 45, a professional agronomist and former Zimbabwe Test bowler, is unique. He was the only white person to have been officially allocated his farm under Zimbabwe’s land laws without paying heavy dues to the ruling party. When an army general, Justin Mujaji, invaded Mr Lock’s farm, Karori, in 2007, he had no grounds for taking the land apart from the threat of violence. It had been home to 120 workers and their families. General Mujaji has forced Mr Lock and his workers off the farm three times, only for Mr Lock to fight his way back with court orders. He finally accepted his eviction after General Mujaji’s men allegedly shot and injured a farm worker, severely beat several others and raped a woman on the farm. But Mr Lock was determined to retain his assets from the property.

Tunisians Vote in Presidential Election - Voice of America. Tunisians voted Sunday in a presidential election that is expected to be another landslide victory for incumbent President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. As of late afternoon Sunday, Tunisia's official news agency reported voter turn-out had reached 84 percent. The 73-year-old president is running against three low-profile challengers in his bid for a fifth term in office. Mr. Ben Ali has run the North African country for more than two decades. He won the last presidential election in 2004 with more than 94 percent of the vote. National and African Union observers are monitoring the poll. But international rights groups say the government has ensured victory for Mr. Ben Ali by harassing the opposition. In a television address Saturday, the president responded to critics who say the election is unbalanced and fraudulent. He said actions will be taken against those spreading doubts or accusations about the integrity of the election without providing proof. Tunisians were also electing members of parliament in Sunday's poll.

AMERICAS

Two Men and Their Hunt for Marijuana - William Booth and Steve Fainaru, Washington Post. What does a tough Mexican army major barking orders in the outlaw hills of the Sierra Madre have in common with the laconic sheriff detective from the north woods of California who puts a marijuana sticker on his truck as a joke? They are both professional weed-whackers committed to the cause - the hard, dirty, difficult destruction of marijuana out in the fields, plant by plant. Mexico has the largest marijuana eradication operation in the world, followed by the United States. It is a downright Sisyphean task. October is harvest time. Marijuana bushes as burly as Christmas trees are hidden between the corn stalks above the beaches of Acapulco, and the buds are swelling o n the steep hills of California's Six Rivers National Forest. There is also a thriving indoor business, almost impossible to find. The United Nations says 145 million pounds of marijuana was grown last year, with Morocco, Paraguay, Mexico and the United States the top-producing countries. Here are two men trying to whittle that number down.

Polls Give Former Guerrilla Leader Edge in Uruguay Elections - Voice of America. Voters in Uruguay are casting ballots Sunday in a presidential election that pits former guerrilla leader Jose Mujica against former president Luis Lacalle. Opinion polls say Mr. Mujica is the clear front-runner. However, the polls indicate he will narrowly miss winning an absolute majority needed to avoid a run-off. Mr. Mujica, 74, was once the leader of the Tupamaro guerrillas, a group that organized political kidnappings and bank robberies in the 1960s. He was held in solitary confinement for years in a Uruguay prison. Mr. Lacalle was Uruguay's president from 1990 to 1995. The 68-year-old lawyer founded the four-nation South American trade bloc known as Mercosur, but he has vowed to pull Uruguay out of Mercosur if he is elected president. The winner will replace President Tabare Vazquez, who has successfully guided Uruguay's economy in the five years he has been in office. The new president will take office in March, 2010.

Michael Moore Irks Supporters of Chávez - Simon Romero, New York Times. Michael Moore, the filmmaker who is a bête noire of conservatives in the United States, now appears to have made some enemies among the leftist supporters of President Hugo Chávez. During a recent appearance on ABC’s late-night program “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Mr. Moore gave an account - apparently tongue in cheek - of how he drank a bottle-and-a-half of tequila with Mr. Chávez at the Venice Film Festival in September, and how he mistook Venezuela’s burly foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, for a bodyguard. Those comments have created an uproar here among some of Mr. Chávez’s loyal supporters, known as Chavistas. “Michael Moore is a most unfortunate coward,” Eva Golinger, an American lawyer who lives in Caracas and who is one of Mr. Chávez’s most prominent defenders in international leftist circles, wrote in an essay widely disseminated here that lambasted the filmmaker. Mr. Chávez, who had traveled to Venice for the screening of “South of the Border,” Oliver Stone’s documentary about Venezuela’s president and other leftist leaders in Latin America, has not publicly remarked on Mr. Moore’s appearance on the show. Mr. Moore did not respond to requests for comment. But the reaction of some Chavistas offered a view into their readiness to attack anyone criticizing their leader, without stopping to ponder whether the criticism was meant to be amusing or not.

Argentina's Kirchner Targets the Press - Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal opinion. One way a president can boost poll numbers in a bad economy is to wrest control of the central bank and start printing lots of pesos. There's nothing like cheap financing to restore the market's enthusiasm for buying all sorts of stuff - from stocks to houses - already on sale at fire sale prices. The great reflation will make people feel rich again. A weak currency will also be a short-term boon to exporters, whose profits can then be taxed at ever higher rates. Complainers can be denounced for their greed. Of course this perpetual motion machine will eventually conk out and when it does, a government that expects to survive will find it necessary to silence its critics. Just ask Argentines, who are living all of this in real time. After more than five years of heavy state intervention in the economy, Argentina is again sliding into recession. Double-digit inflation is spiraling north and the government is running out of money. In response, President Cristina Kirchner is cracking down on the free press. Argentines are wondering if their democracy will survive. The story of how Argentina got here is important to recall. The economy was flat on its back after the 2001-2002 collapse of "convertibility," the monetary arrangement that pegged the peso to the dollar. A demoralized nation was looking for a savior.

ASIA PACIFIC

Hatoyama Underscores Focus on Economy - Takakashi Nakamichi, Wall Street Journal. Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, in his first keynote address to Parliament, Monday said his biggest task is to put the nation's economy on a sustainable growth track, highlighting his strong desire to ensure the country's embryonic recovery takes root. Mr. Hatoyama also vowed to implement election-campaign pledges to jump-start consumption as well as other initiatives like turning Tokyo's Haneda airport into a 24-hour international hub. He spoke on the first day of an extraordinary parliamentary session scheduled through Nov. 30. He didn't give details concerning the new government plans to reduce Japan's ballooning public debt while spending money to support the economy, saying only that he will "consider a fiscal-rehabilitation path from the broad, long-term perspective." Mr. Hatoyama's speech is the latest indication that his Democratic Party of Japan, which last month ousted the rival Liberal Democratic Party from its almost unbroken half-a-century rule, considers it a priority to buttress the nation's recovery from its worst recession since World War II rather than mend the nation's tattered fiscal health. The world's recent financial and economic crisis "has had a significant impact on the economy and employment and the current situation still requires us to remain alert," Mr. Hatoyama said. "The Hatoyama Cabinet's most important task is to put Japan's economy back on a self-sustaining recovery track driven by private-sector demand and secure sustainable growth while paying attention to international policy coordination."

THE CAUCASUS

Ingushetia Opposition Figure Is Shot Dead in Car - Ellen Barry, New York Times. A longtime opposition figure in the republic of Ingushetia was killed Sunday morning when his car was strafed with gunfire as he drove along a federal highway, adding another name to the list of activists who have been killed recently in the Northern Caucasus. Maksharip Aushev, a businessman from a prominent family, was killed and a passenger was wounded when they were shot with automatic weapon fire from a passing vehicle in the neighboring republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. Russia’s prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, said he would personally oversee the investigation. Mr. Aushev’s life turned a corner in 2007, after his son and nephew were kidnapped. He blamed state security forces for the abductions and threw his considerable clout behind organizing public protests against then-President Murat Zyazikov. Last year, after the opposition journalist Magomed Yevloyev was shot to death in police custody, Mr. Aushev offered to take responsibility for Mr. Yevloyev’s Web site, Ingushetia.org.

Opposition Figure in Ingushetia is Killed - Philip P. Pan, Washington Post. A popular opposition figure in Russia's restive Ingushetia province was gunned down Sunday morning in the latest killing of a government critic in the North Caucasus, prompting outrage from human rights groups and raising fears of further violence in the region. Maksharip Aushev, a businessman who had led mass protests against alleged abuses by the government's security forces, was driving on a major highway in the neighboring province of Kabardino-Balkaria when a passing vehicle sprayed his car with more than 60 bullets, authorities said. The attack also seriously wounded a passenger. Colleagues condemned the slaying as an attempt to silence voices critical of the authorities. They said it sent an especially chilling message because Aushev held a post on a human rights council established by Moscow and enjoyed the support of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the local governor appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev last year. Yevkurov has reached out to human rights activists and the opposition, offering them a degree of protection, but Aushev's killing suggests that he, and by extension the Kremlin, may be losing control over the overlapping law enforcement agencies fighting a growing Islamist insurgency in the region.

EUROPE

Czech President Klaus Still Holding Out Over Lisbon Treaty - David Charter, The Times. Václav Klaus, the Czech President, who is the last hurdle to full ratification of the Lisbon treaty, has made a final attempt to derail the agreement. In a submission to the Czech Constitutional Court, which will decide tomorrow whether the treaty is compatible with the country’s constitution, Mr Klaus has suggested that it should be subject to a referendum. The President, who is the only head of state yet to sign the treaty, attacked the EU notion of “shared sovereignty” as a contradiction that effectively means a loss of national control. President Klaus made his written statement in support of a case against the treaty brought by 17 Czech senators, who have asked judges to rule that the agreement is unconstitutional because it transfers powers to Brussels. He also asked for a ruling on whether the treaty changed the terms of the Czech Republic’s accession to the EU in 2004 so significantly that a new referendum should be ordered. The court will hold a one-day public hearing tomorrow in a case seen as the final legal obstacle to the treaty in the Czech Republic.

Serbia Pledges Cooperation Before Karadzic Trial - Stefan Bos, Voice of America. A stand-off is expected Monday between former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and the UN court in The Netherlands as the war crimes suspect says he will boycott the start of the long-awaited trial. Serbia's Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremic, has told VOA News his country will do "its utmost" to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The UN Tribunal in The Hague wants Radovan Karadzic to face 11 charges Monday, including involvement in Europe's worst massacre since World War II in Bosnia-Herzegovina, during the violent break-up of Yugoslavia. Prosecutors say Karadzic was the architect of the killings of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian-Serb forces in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995, as part of an "ethnic-cleansing" campaign to keep areas under Serbian control. But the former Bosnian-Serb leader says he will not attend the official start of his trial because he had "not enough time to prepare his defense." His lawyer claims he needs at least another nine months to prepare himself. The court says it plans to start the trial anyway. Trial observers point out that judges could start proceedings without him or force the defendant or his counsel to appear.

Judges Told to Get Tough in Trial of War Crimes with 7,000 Victims - David Charter, The Times. More than 13 years after the slaughter of 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, one of the late-20th century’s worst alleged war criminals finally faces justice today. For relatives of the victims and other survivors of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, the start of Radovan Karadzic’s genocide trial is crucial to putting memories of the horrors to rest. Judges at The Hague are being urged to get tough with the former Bosnian Serb leader, who is planning to boycott today’s opening of the trial. Mr Karadzic, who was arrested after spending more than a decade on the run, has vowed to defend himself but says that he will stay in his cell when the prosecution begins its case because he needs at least another nine months to prepare his defence. He faces 11 war crimes charges and a million pages of evidence. After the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav President who died in custody before a verdict was reached, the Karadzic case is the last chance for the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to bring a political mastermind of the Balkan wars of the 1990s to justice. Mr Karadzic, 64, faces two genocide charges, related to ethnic cleansing and the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, Europe’s worst single atrocity since the Second World War, as well as nine other war crimes charges.

Scottish Police Review Lockerbie Case - Jennifer Quinn, Associated Press. Police detectives are reviewing the Lockerbie bombing case to try to determine whether anyone helped the only person convicted of the attack that killed 270 people on a Pam Am flight over Scotland, police and prosecutors said Sunday. After Abdel Baset al-Megrahi dropped an appeal against his conviction earlier this year, a review of the evidence was undertaken, the head of the Dumfries and Galloway Police said. "Now that Mr. (al-Megrahi) has decided to abandon his appeal against conviction, a further review of the case is under way in respect of others who acted with him in the murder of 270 people," the statement said. Chief Constable Patrick Shearer said that detectives previously have looked at the evidence to try and find new leads in the bombing, and this review is the latest in a series "which have formed part of an investigative strategy in keeping with our determination to pursue every possible lead." Pan Am Flight 103, bound from London's Heathrow Airport to New York, exploded over Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988. All 259 people aboard - mainly Americans - and 11 people on the ground were killed when the airliner crashed into the town of Lockerbie.

MIDDLE EAST

Israeli Police Storm Disputed Jerusalem Holy Site - Robert Berger, Voice of America. There was violence today at the most sensitive holy shrine in Jerusalem revered by both Muslims and Jews. At least 15 Palestinians were arrested, but there were no serious injuries. Israeli police stormed into a disputed holy place in Jerusalem's Old City and threw stun grenades to disperse Palestinian stone throwers. The clash took place at the Mosque of Al Aksa, the third holiest place in Islam. Jews call it the Temple Mount, the site of the two biblical Temples and holiest place of all. Riot police carrying plexiglass shields closed in on the crowd and made arrests. Some Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the mosque, but police did not go in. There have been sporadic clashes at the site over the past three weeks, amid unsubstantiated rumors that Jewish militants plan to seize control of the Al Aksa compound. Israeli police commissioner Dudi Cohen blamed Islamic leaders in Israel for fomenting the violence. Cohen said he saw many Israeli Arab leaders of the Islamic Movement in the area of the Temple Mount. He called on them to keep the peace and avoid incitement.

Israeli Police Clash With Palestinians at Sacred Compound in Jerusalem - Isabel Kershner, New York Times. Israeli police officers clashed Sunday with stone-throwing Palestinians at a site sacred to Muslims and Jews, in the latest sign of tension in this volatile city. The police said that their forces had entered the Temple Mount compound twice after Palestinians hurled rocks at officers patrolling there, and that they dispersed rioters with stun grenades. Palestinian medics at the scene said at least 17 Muslims were wounded. Nine police officers were slightly hurt by rocks, a police spokesman said. The Temple Mount, revered by Jews as the site of two ancient temples and by Muslims as the site of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aksa Mosque, has been the focus of simmering unrest recently. The compound sits in contested territory that Israel took from Jordan in the 1967 war. The Israeli police chief, David Cohen, said the disturbances were precipitated by calls from right-wing Jewish activists and an Islamist group, the Islamic Movement, for their supporters to ascend the mount on Sunday. Anticipating violence, hundreds of riot police officers took up positions in and around the Old City, prompting Muslims to accuse Israel of provocation.

Palestinians Clash with Israeli Police at Mosque - Matti Friedman, Washington Post. Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land's most volatile shrine, where past violence has escalated into prolonged conflict. A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many of them running for cover into the al-Aqsa mosque, one of the Islamic structures in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. They remained holed up in the mosque with police outside for several hours until dispersing before nightfall. Eighteen protesters were arrested, and no serious injuries were reported. But even mild troubles at the disputed compound in Jerusalem's Old City can quickly ignite widespread unrest, and police remained on high alert. "Jerusalem is a red line that Israel should not cross," said Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh, condemning the Israeli police action. A visit to the site in 2000 by Ariel Sharon, then an Israeli opposition leader and later prime minister, helped ignite deadly clashes that escalated into violence that engulfed Israel and the Palestinian territories for several years.

Israeli Police, Palestinian Protesters Clash - Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times. Israeli police stormed the grounds of Al Aqsa mosque Sunday, using clubs and stun grenades to subdue hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinians in the worst clashes in a month of unrest in and around Jerusalem's Old City. The rioting, which caused no fatalities and subsided after a few hours, did not appear to portend a large-scale Palestinian uprising. But it sprang from increasing tensions stoked by Jewish and Islamic extremists that could keep Jerusalem and its contested holy sites on edge for weeks to come. It also is expected to keep Israel on the defensive against international criticism like the sharp protests registered Sunday by Egypt, Jordan and the 22-member Arab League over what their officials called Israeli provocations at Islam's third-holiest shrine. The black-domed mosque is enclosed in a compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Israel denied starting the trouble. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police on routine early morning patrol came under attack by about 50 Muslim protesters. The group had been summoned by Islamic political and religious leaders to "protect" the compound against what it claimed was a planned demonstration Sunday by religious Jews.

Clashes Erupt at Temple Mount after 'Jewish Conquest' Rumour - Sheera Frenkel, The Times. Clashes erupted anew at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site today as Israeli security forces stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and fired stun grenades at Palestinians hurling rocks. There were tense stand-offs in the narrow alleyways that snake around the compound, as Israeli security forces took up positions to try to prevent Palestinians from reaching the mosque. In a crossroads popularly known as the "point of conflict" Palestinian teenagers taunted police by throwing rocks and ducking into deserted shops as they chanted "God is great, the mosque is ours". Israeli police retaliated with stun grenades and formed barricades to disperse hundreds of protesters from trying to push their way towards the mosque. A 22-year-old who gave his name as Amar said that he had been detained last week for hurling stones at a passing Israeli patrol, but returned again today. "They start this. They incite this and then we respond and they make it look like we are the bad guys," he told The Times. "We are protecting something very important to us and they know that this is important and that's why they try to make us angry by sending their settlers there." He gathered with the rest of the protesters, largely young males, and discussed how they could thwart the Israeli police stationed at the bottom of the alleyway. Dressed in jeans and T-shirts, many of the boys - including Amar - wrapped fabric around their faces to avoid identification by the police.

SOUTH ASIA

UN Calls for War Crimes Investigation in Sri Lanka - Lisa Schlein, Voice of America. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is calling for an independent, international investigation of possible war crimes committed during the last few months of the war in Sri Lanka. The UN agency says there should be a full inquiry into what did or did not happen during the final stages of the country's long-lasting civil war. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says too many questions related to the last stages of the war between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels remain unanswered. UN Human Rights Spokesman Rupert Colville says something like the Gaza Fact-Finding Mission is warranted, given the wide spread concerns about the conduct of the war between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels. "It seems that more clarity is likely to emerge about who did what to whom and whether or not war crimes, crimes against humanity and other very serious human rights abuses were committed by one or both sides," say Colville. Tens of thousands of people were killed during Sri Lanka's 25 year-long civil war. An estimated 6500 people were reportedly killed and 14,000 wounded during the last few months of the war earlier this year.

EVENTS

The US Military Academy’s Department of History is pleased to invite you to a West Point Symposium on the History of Irregular Warfare, 18-20 November 2009. The symposium will feature the scholarship of five cadet panel presenters with commentary by distinguished guest scholars, including: Dr. Stephen Biddle as our keynote speaker, Dr. Jeremy Black, Col. Robert Cassidy, Dr. Conrad Crane, Dr. George Herring, Dr. Brian Linn, and Dr. Peter Mansoor. Additionally, Dr. James Le Sueur (Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics, 2005) will present a special lecture on Algerian society since 1963. Col. Gian Gentile, a History faculty member, will participate as part of the “Visiting Scholars Panel” with Dr. Crane, Dr. Mansoor, and Col. Cassidy. (Invitation and POC Information) (History of IW Symposium Agenda)

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 US 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.