President Obama and his predecessor differ significantly in their approach to America's wars. They differ at least as much in their relationship with their top battlefield commander. During the Bush administration, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the then-ground commander in Iraq, assumed the role of a trusted advisor who frequently visited the White House or talked to the president by phone. But Obama's commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, occupies a defined place in the chain of command. The two have met face-to-face twice - and one of those was after the general infuriated the White House by discussing US strategy in an overseas speech. The reasons for the marked contrasts run deeper than personal preferences. Under Obama, top Pentagon officials have worked to keep McChrystal out of the spotlight, in part to avoid creating "another celebrity general" as the White House debates its Afghan strategy.
AFGHANISTAN
Bombings Kill 8 US Soldiers in Afghanistan - Joshua Partlow, Washington Post. October became the deadliest month for US troops in the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan when two powerful bombs killed eight soldiers and an interpreter in separate attacks Tuesday. This time of year typically brings a decline in violence as insurgents regroup as cold weather approaches. Instead, the bloodiest days this month have displayed both the range of threats American soldiers face and the persistent danger of the most basic weapons. Soldiers have died in a lone outpost in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan that was nearly overrun by more than 100 insurgents firing rockets and grenades. They have been killed in gun battles and in crashing helicopters. And they died Tuesday in Kandahar province in a dismayingly familiar way: by homemade bombs buried in the road. The significance of Tuesday's violence was that it again showed an inability to protect against the type of explosives that killed the most Americans in Iraq and are killing the most here, too. This year has already surpassed any other in Afghanistan in US military deaths, and the rising toll poses urgent problems for the Obama administration as it attempts to fashion a new war strategy. Fifty-four US troops died in October, surpassing the previous high of 51 in August, according to iCasualties.org.
Militants Attack UN Guest House in Kabul, Killing Nine - Sabrina Tavernese and Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times. Taliban gunmen stormed a guest house in central Kabul on Wednesday morning, killing nine people, including six United Nations employees, two Afghan security officials and an Afghan civilian, according to police and UN officials. Three attackers wearing suicide vests also were killed by the police, said Syed Abdul Ghafar, head of the criminal department of the Kabul police department. Through a spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban took responsibility for the attack on the guest house, known as Bakhtar, which is often used by foreigners working for various United Nations agencies. “This was a very serious incident against us this morning,” said a UN spokesman, Adrian Edwards, adding that the death toll from the attack could rise. Mr. Mujahid said the attack was meant to warn people not to help in the Nov. 7 runoff presidential election between the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. “We have already informed that anyone who works for the second round will be targeted,” he said. “This is one of the attacks.”
Insurgents Attack Hotels Housing UN Workers in Kabul - Yaroslav Trofimov and Anand Gopal, Wall Street Journal. Insurgents Wednesday morning attacked two guesthouses and a hotel in downtown Kabul that housed United Nations staff and other international visitors, in one of their most daring attacks on the Afghan capital. The assailants managed to take over one of the guesthouses, Bakhtar, but were repelled by security guards at another, the Imperial. They also fired several rockets at Kabul's largest hotel, Serena, that hosts many foreign diplomats, senior UN officials and journalists. "We woke up at 5:45 am to explosions and shooting, and then heard women screaming and crying," said Mohammad Jan, a 48-year-old tailor who lives next door to Bakhtar. A UN spokesman said that six UN personnel were killed at the Bakhtar guesthouse and that the toll may rise in coming hours because several guests had life-threatening injuries. A number of Afghans were also killed there. There were no reports of casualties at the Serena. By midmorning the hostage crisis at the Bakhtar was over and the building secured, with firemen trying to extinguish fire amid billowing smoke on the roof. The Taliban attack on the Imperial also began at 5:45 am, the same time that Bakhtiar was hit. "I woke up to volleys of gunfire in my garden. It was scary," said Maite Carrasco, a journalist with Spain's Telecinco TV who stayed at the Imperial. Most of the Imperial's guests were UN personnel, and they huddled in the restaurant as security guards fired at the assailants.
Afghanistan Attack Kills 6 UN Workers - Alexandra Zavis and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times. An early morning assault on a Kabul guest house by attackers armed with suicide vests and assault rifles killed six UN workers today, just a day after eight US troops died in a pair of roadside bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, making October the deadliest month of the eight-year war for American forces. The campaign of violence foreshadowed an effort by the Taliban to disrupt a presidential runoff election that is less than two weeks away and came as a consensus is emerging within the Obama administration that more US troops are needed in the country. The deaths of the US troops Tuesday brought the total number of US service members killed during the month to at least 53, according to the independent website icasualties.org. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top US commander there, has reportedly requested 40,000 additional troops to pursue insurgents in Taliban strongholds, protect civilians and promote development to build support for the government.
Obama Redefines White House Relationship with Top Field Commander - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times. President Obama and his predecessor differ significantly in their approach to America's wars. They differ at least as much in their relationship with their top battlefield commander. During the Bush administration, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the then-ground commander in Iraq, assumed the role of a trusted advisor who frequently visited the White House or talked to the president by phone. But Obama's commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, occupies a defined place in the chain of command. The two have met face-to-face twice -- and one of those was after the general infuriated the White House by discussing U.S. strategy in an overseas speech. The reasons for the marked contrasts run deeper than personal preferences. Under Obama, top Pentagon officials have worked to keep McChrystal out of the spotlight, in part to avoid creating "another celebrity general" as the White House debates its Afghan strategy. Senior military officials have pushed for a more traditional relationship between Obama and his field commander than existed between President Bush and his field commanders, in particular Petraeus. Whether that approach will succeed in persuading the White House to endorse McChrystal's plan for Afghanistan is not yet clear.
US to Protect Populous Afghan Areas, Officials Say - Thom Shanker, Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, New York Times. President Obama’s advisers are focusing on a strategy for Afghanistan aimed at protecting about 10 top population centers, administration officials said Tuesday, describing an approach that would stop short of an all-out assault on the Taliban while still seeking to nurture long-term stability. Mr. Obama has yet to make a decision and has other options available to him, but as officials described it, the debate is no longer over whether to send more troops, but how many more will be needed. The question of how much of the country should fall under the direct protection of American and NATO forces will be central to deciding how many troops will be sent. At the moment, the administration is looking at protecting Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters, officials said. The first of any new troops sent to Afghanistan would be assigned to Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, seen as a center of gravity in pushing back insurgent advances. But military planners are also pressing for enough troops to safeguard major agricultural areas, like the hotly contested Helmand River valley, as well as regional highways essential to the economy - tasks that would require significantly more reinforcements beyond the 21,000 deployed by Mr. Obama this year.
‘Af-Pak Hands’ Strives for Continuity in US Mission - John J. Kruzel, American Forces Press Service. The US military is building a cadre of officers who each will serve a multi-year assignment dedicated to a narrow piece of the US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Known as “Af-Pak Hands,” the program steeps officers in the language and culture of the region, and limits the range of their duties and focus on a single area for a four-to-five-year cycle. Officers will serve in a similar job at home and downrange, an aspect of the program military officials say will enable them to create and maintain relationships with the local populace abroad, a lynchpin of counterinsurgency doctrine. “They’ll be a group of experts that will learn to speak the local languages, understand the dialects, become attuned to the culture and remain focused on the problem for an extended period, rather than just on a rotation basis,” a military official said, speaking on background. In a normal rotation cycle, troops returning to the United States from deployment would likely occupy a different job from the one they held downrange. But the continuity of Af-Pak Hands would reduce the learning curve usually attendant to fresh boots on the ground, with officers building on their knowledge of local culture, language and tribal dynamics upon each of multiple, relatively short deployments. “The idea is that you’re not reinventing the wheel each time a new servicemember replaces an old one,” another defense official speaking on background said of the program. The department has identified 300 billets that will comprise Af-Pak Hands personnel, including 121 new positions created as part of the initiative. Af-Pak Hands training began recently, with about 30 officers enrolled in courses taught by the Defense Language Institute, the department’s flagship language and cultural training center. Dari, Pashto and Urdu - the region’s three dominant tongues - make up the 16-week language curriculum. The initiative comes to fruition as President Barack Obama and his advisors weigh decisions on the next phase of the Afghan war. The debate is said to cover a spectrum of proposals ranging from deploying more troops to a narrower, scaled-down approach that moves away from the counterinsurgency model.
Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on CIA Payroll - Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, New York Times. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials. The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home. The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House. The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America’s increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The CIA’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
Afghanistan Votes, the UN Dithers - Peter W. Galbraith, New York Times opinion. If the second round of Afghanistan’s presidential elections, now scheduled for Nov. 7, is a rerun of the fraud-stained first round, it will be catastrophic for that country and the allied military mission battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In the next week and a half, the United States and the United Nations, which has a mandate to support Afghanistan’s electoral bodies, must do everything possible to ensure that the election is, in the words of that mandate, “free, fair and transparent.” In spite of the clear connection between successful elections and stability in Afghanistan, the rest of the world largely chose to ignore the obvious risks of fraud before the Aug. 20 polling and the evidence of fraud immediately afterward. As a result, Afghanistan has endured a political crisis that has threatened to divide the country along ethnic lines and undermined domestic support for President Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy. There have been a few recent encouraging signs. After the Electoral Complaints Commission, a United Nations-backed group, threw out more than a million fraudulent votes for the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, the Obama administration asked Senator John Kerry to persuade Mr. Karzai to respect the Afghan Constitution and accept a runoff with his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.
PAKISTAN
Clinton Visits Pakistan in Bid to Improve Ties - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday for a three-day visit aimed at quelling rising anti-Americanism and convincing Pakistanis that the United States wants a relationship based on more than counterterrorism. Her first trip here since becoming secretary comes amid a major Pakistani military offensive against insurgent sanctuaries near the Afghanistan border, and a wave of suicide bombings, assassinations and attacks in Pakistani cities. Details of the visit, which was not publicly announced in advance, have been closely held because of security concerns. Although the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan "remains our highest priority," Clinton told reporters aboard the flight to Islamabad, the United States will move beyond a "lopsided" US-Pakistan relationship weighted toward the "security and the counterterrorism agenda." Clinton touted a $7.5 billion, five-year economic aid package authorized by Congress this month and said she would announce a major investment in Pakistan's domestic energy output while here.
Doubts Abound Among People of S. Waziristan - Haq Nawaz Khan and Karin Brulliard, Washington Post. As Pakistan's army battles with guns and jets to wrest control of the restive South Waziristan region from the Taliban, it remains unclear whether the military will have another kind of ammunition it desperately needs: the support of people who have lived in the militants' grip for years. Among refugees who were jostling for donated blankets last week in this dusty town in North-West Frontier Province, few dared to discuss the Taliban fighters controlling their villages. Several whispered that there was no graver offense than speaking against the Taliban and seemed fearful that breaching that rule would cost them once the offensive - which several referred to as an artificial "drama" cooked up to satisfy the United States - was over. "The operation is a joke just to please the foreign masters," said Saidalam Mehsud, 59, a burly driver. "Whenever the dollars are floating into Pakistan, such operations are carried out." In the past week, refugees said, their doubts about the offensive have intensified because they have seen little evidence of the ground operation that Pakistan's military says has killed nearly 200 insurgents.
IRAQ
Legislators in Iraq Block a Deal on Election Law - John Leland, New York Times. The country’s political parties failed to agree on election laws on Tuesday, despite a proposed deal put together by the nation’s top political figures the day before. The stalemate was another blockage in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks, threatening national elections scheduled for Jan. 16. The official deadline for passing the election laws was Oct. 15. Elections can still be held on time if the parties agree on terms this week, but not much later, said Said Arikat, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, which proposed guidelines to break the logjam among the parties. “This is really crunch time,” Mr. Arikat said. “We have everything in place to conduct an election on time. With every passing day, it becomes more difficult.” Any postponement in the elections carries the potential for slowing the withdrawal of American troops. Legislators said that they would continue to meet, but that they were far from agreement. “Yes, we’re closer than a week ago,” said Osama Nujaifi, a Parliament member from the Iraqiya bloc, who said he was confident that the elections would go forward as scheduled. Iraq’s top political leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani and their deputies, moved quickly Monday night to agree on a compromise in the wake of coordinated suicide bombings on government buildings on Sunday that appeared intended to stall negotiations.
Extremist Group Claims Responsibility for Baghdad Bombs - Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post. The Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni extremist group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for twin bombings Sunday that targeted key government buildings and killed nearly 160 Iraqis, according to a claim posted online. The group called the targeted sites "dens of infidelity," according to a statement posted on a Web site used by extremists to make such claims. Its authenticity could not be independently verified. The group also claimed responsibility for similar bombings that killed more than 100 people in August. The devastating bombings at the Justice Ministry, the Baghdad Provincial Council and the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works appeared designed to portray the Shiite-led government as feeble and rudderless ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for January. They are expected to cripple key government agencies for months. The aftermath of bombing appeared to break a deadlock in negotiations over an election law, a necessary step in organizing the January vote. There were few details, but an official said a proposal would go to political leaders Tuesday and then on to Parliament.
IRAN
Iran Hints at Uranium Plan Changes - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. A high-ranking Iranian official said Tuesday that even if the country agreed to a United Nations-sponsored plan to ship its enriched uranium abroad for further processing, it would not ship it all at once, Iranian news media reported. That position, if maintained, could undermine the entire plan. The French government, a party to the deal, has made it clear that the uranium must be shipped all at once before the end of the year. Iran has said it will formally respond on Friday to the proposal, which is intended to delay the country’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon for about a year and buy time for a broader diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff. On Tuesday, Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said that if Iran agreed to ship its uranium abroad, to be further enriched for use to produce electricity, “this must not happen in one go,” and that the fuel must be shipped in installments, according to the semiofficial ISNA news agency. Mr. Borujerdi also said “our basic opinion” was that Iran preferred to purchase processed nuclear fuel rather than send its uranium abroad for processing. Other officials have made similar comments in recent days, and the Iranian reaction so far appears to reflect Iran’s complex internal politics rather than any clear indication of what the decision will be.
Iran Reportedly to Seek to Alter Nuclear Plan - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. will seek to amend a proposed deal it reached with the US and other major powers to ship the bulk of its nuclear material overseas, state television reported Tuesday. Tehran will respond by Thursday to the plan for it to transfer most of its nuclear stockpile to Russia and France to be turned into fuel for an Iranian medical reactor, but its counteroffer will include "important adjustments," said Iran's state-controlled Al Alam, citing unnamed sources. The Arabic-language television news channel often broadcasts official news or floats trial balloons before other state-controlled networks. The US, Russia, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, last week signed off on the proposal to transport the bulk of Iran's enriched uranium to Russia and France to be further refined and shaped into fuel plates for the medical reactor, which produces isotopes for cancer diagnoses and treatment. Though the proposed deal would not fully allay international concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions, it would temporarily reduce the country's stockpile and dampen fears that Tehran could suddenly break out of treaty obligations and make a quick sprint toward developing a nuclear weapon. And diplomats said the deal could also lay the groundwork for broader negotiations.
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Some Troops Have a Sixth Sense for Bombs - Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times. As Marines train to deploy to war zones, there is daily discussion about how to detect and disarm the buried roadside bombs that are the No. 1 killer of Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military researchers have found that two groups of personnel are particularly good at spotting anomalies: those with hunting backgrounds, who traipsed through the woods as youths looking to bag a deer or turkey; and those who grew up in tough urban neighborhoods, where it is often important to know what gang controls which block. Personnel who fit neither category, often young men who grew up in the suburbs and developed a liking for video games, do not seem to have the depth perception and peripheral vision of the others, even if their eyesight is 20/20. The findings do not surprise Army Sgt. Maj. Todd Burnett, the top enlisted man with the Pentagon-based Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, which conducted the study. He's made multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and ridden in more than 1,000 convoys and, on 19 occasions, been in a vehicle hit by a roadside bomb. The best troops he's ever seen when it comes to spotting bombs were soldiers from the South Carolina National Guard, nearly all with rural backgrounds that included hunting. Troops from urban backgrounds also seemed to have developed an innate "threat-assessment" ability. Both groups, said Army research psychologist Steve Burnett, "seem very adaptable to the kinds of environments" seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
UNITED STATES
2 Charged by US with Plotting Attacks - Carrie Johnson, Washington Post. Federal prosecutors unsealed charges Tuesday alleging that two men participated in a terrorism plot that took them from Chicago to Denmark. The case is the latest example of US citizens accused of seeking to travel overseas to carry out violent extremist attacks. Using e-mail messages, recorded conversations and surveillance, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force traced the movements of David C. Headley from his apartment in Chicago to Pakistan, where he met at least once with a top al-Qaeda figure to plan foreign operations, according to court papers. Headley has been in custody since he tried to leave Chicago's O'Hare International Airport three weeks ago, but authorities said they had delayed public notice of the conspiracy charges against him so they could conduct "further investigative activity." Patrick J. Fitzgerald, US attorney in Chicago, assured the public Tuesday that there was no "imminent danger" to the community. The arrests came after a series of unrelated terrorism charges against American citizens in Boston, New York, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas and central Illinois.
UNITED NATIONS
At UN, Contractor's Case Again Raises Questions About Nepotism - Colum Lynch, Washington Post. Nicola Baroncini, a UN contract employee from Italy, was doing a routine review of his boss's correspondence in the summer when he stumbled upon an e-mail that would seal his fate. Baroncini's supervisor had received a message from the United Nations' top envoy in Congo asking her to bend UN rules so that his daughter could be hired - for the very position that Baroncini was holding temporarily and was hoping to keep. What followed was not pretty. After learning that he had been passed over for the job, Baroncini lost his temper and bit the forearm of a security officer who had been called in to remove him from the building, according to U.N. officials. Baroncini says he bit the guard in self-defense after being attacked, beaten and maced. The incident, while unusual, highlighted a phenomenon that Baroncini and others say is common at the United Nations: nepotism. "This way of doing business can't go on," said Baroncini, whose case has triggered an internal UN probe into whether a senior official was trying to manipulate a hiring process. There are no hard figures on nepotism and favoritism at the United Nations, but the ranks of the UN Secretariat and UN agencies include scores of children and grandchildren of the organization's luminaries and foreign diplomats. Many top UN jobs in peacekeeping, political affairs and other areas are reserved for politically connected officials from powerful governments, including the United States.
AFRICA
State Department Official Turned Lobbyist Is Accused of Illegally Working for Sudan - Ginger Thompson, New York Times. A former State Department official who is now a lobbyist was charged Tuesday with earning hundreds of thousands of dollars representing the Sudanese government in violation of United States sanctions. A federal indictment accuses the lobbyist, Robert J. Cabelly, who had worked on Africa issues for the State Department during the 1980s and ’90s, with illegally acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country, money laundering, passport fraud and making false statements. Between 2005 and 2007, the indictment says, Mr. Cabelly violated United States sanctions against Sudan by helping it find international investors to develop that country’s largely untapped oil reserves. Washington imposed a strict trade embargo against Sudan in 1997 to try to press the government to end its support for terrorist groups and its violent repression of its own people, which the United States has described as genocide. In 2005, the United States granted Mr. Cabelly a special waiver to work as a lobbyist for Sudan, saying that “in advising the Sudanese government” he could help resolve the crisis in Darfur, the State Department said at the time.
Lobbyist Charged with Violating Sudan Sanctions - Dan Eggen, Washington Post. A Washington lobbyist is charged with violating US economic sanctions against the outlaw regime in Sudan and using multiple passports, an offshore bank account and other tactics to hide his activities, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday. Robert J. Cabelly, 61, was registered as a foreign agent for Sudan from August 2005 to February 2006, when he dropped formal ties amid a public outcry. The indictment alleges that Cabelly, a State Department official in the 1980s and 1990s, engaged in prohibited commercial activities before, during and after the time he was registered to work for Sudan. The indictment says Cabelly entered into illegal contracts with the Sudanese oil industry; acted as an intermediary between Sudan and a French oil company; and provided sensitive information to Khartoum about the US government. Cabelly also instructed the unidentified French oil company to deposit $180,000 into an account on the Cook Islands, and concealed his travel to Sudan by scheduling out-of-the-way itineraries and using two different US passports bearing his name, the indictment says. Cabelly pleaded not guilty to the charges Tuesday afternoon and was released after he offered his Capitol Hill home as collateral. US Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson ordered Cabelly to stay in the Washington area and to check in each week with pretrial officials; a status hearing is scheduled for Nov. 6.
Couple Feared Captured by Pirates - John F. Burns, New York Times. A British couple sailing from the island nation of Seychelles vanished after their distress signal was picked up Friday, and British officials have warned the couple’s family that they may have been kidnapped by Somali pirates. A man who has acted as a spokesman for the Somali pirates in the past told a Somali-based reporter working for The New York Times that the couple had been seized by pirates on the Indian Ocean. Speaking by telephone from the pirates’ stronghold in the Somali coastal town of Xarardheere, the spokesman, who identifies himself as Farah Abdi, said, “We have them safely in our hands.” He said that the captives and sailboat would be heading to the town “any day soon,” and that the pirates’ practice was to hold off on ransom demands “before the ship arrives at our shores.” A few hours after that call, Mr. Abdi gave a drastically different account in a second call, suggesting that the pirates who hijacked the British sailboat had come under attack from “naval forces” that he was unable to identify. Officials in London were not immediately available to comment on the report.
AMERICAS
Obama's Cuba Policy Faces a World of Expectation - Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times. It is an annual ritual: The United Nations today will vote to condemn the US embargo on Cuba, much as the world organization has done for nearly two decades. This will be the first time, however, that the call to end the policy will come with Barack Obama as president, giving rise to spirited debate on how his administration, having promised a "new beginning" in Latin America, is handling one of Washington's most problematic foreign policies. In recent months the Obama administration has taken steps to ease some of the sanctions that successive US governments employed against Cuba. It removed restrictions on the sending of money and on travel to Cuba by Cuban Americans and opened the way for possible business deals between US telecommunications companies and the island. Officials also opened dialogue with the Cuban government on immigration issues. Cuban President Raul Castro and his ailing brother, Fidel, have generally been conciliatory during public speeches. And Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who arrived in New York on Tuesday, said at a recent news conference in Havana that the UN vote on the embargo should not be viewed as business as usual.
Top US Envoys Set to Visit Honduras - Jose de Cordoba, Wall Street Journal. Three top US officials are expected to travel to Honduras on Wednesday for a last-ditch effort to solve the country's political crisis, just days after ousted President Manuel Zelaya pulled the plug on negotiations with the interim government. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Shannon, his deputy, Craig Kelly and Dan Restrepo, the White House's special assistant for Western Hemisphere affairs, were expected to meet with Mr. Zelaya in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, who has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy for the past month, and interim President Roberto Micheletti. The sudden diplomatic expedition follows the collapse of talks Friday between representatives of Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti, and telephone calls made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Mr. Micheletti and Mr. Zelaya that night. Since Mr. Zelaya's June 28 ouster, condemned as a coup by the international community, Honduras has been suspended from the Organization of American States, and many governments, including the US, have cut aid to the country. The three weeks-long talks collapsed after Mr. Zelaya issued an ultimatum to Mr. Micheletti Thursday that he be reinstated as president by midnight. Mr. Micheletti ignored the ultimatum.
ASIA PACIFIC
Gates Asks Xu to Help Break 'On-Again, Off-Again' Cycle - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service. Breaking the cycle of "on-again, off-again" military-to-military relations between the United States and China is of primary importance to the two nations, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told his Chinese counterpart here today. Gates met with Chinese Gen. Xu Caihou, the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Liberation Army, for more than an hour at the Pentagon. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell called the meetings "good and productive." The two men spoke about the course of US-Chinese relations, the progress made on military-to-military relations and the military-to-military goals for 2010. Gates emphasized that the military-to-military relationship is key to the overall relationship between the two countries, Morrell said. He listed a number of areas where the United States and China cooperate and operate together. These include humanitarian operations, disaster relief, maritime security, counter-piracy, counter-proliferation and counter-narcotics. "[Gates] also said there is a need to break the on-again, off-again cycle of our military-to-military relationship," Morrell said. This often happens as military leaders "make strides, have a good visit, agree to cooperate on certain things and then there will be a hiccup that causes a suspension in mil-to-mil relations,” he continued. “[Gates] said that cycle has to end." Xu said the two countries need to increase cooperation and military exchanges particularly in education opportunities for junior officers and senior noncommissioned officers.
Extremism Spreads Across Indonesian Penal Code - Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times. Under Islamic law, or Shariah, the religious police have administered public canings for such things as gambling, prostitution and illicit affairs. But under a new Islamic criminal code that goes into effect this month, the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers. Most of Indonesia still lives up to its reputation for a moderate, easygoing brand of Islam, and Islamist parties suffered heavy losses in this year’s national elections. But how Aceh went from basic Islamic law to endorsing stoning in a few short years shows how a small, radical minority has successfully pushed its agenda, locally and nationally, by cowing political and religious moderates. Though extreme, Aceh is not an isolated case. In recent years, as part of a decentralization of power away from the capital, Jakarta, at least 50 local governments have used their new authority to pass Shariah-based regulations regarding conduct and dress, though none have gone as far as Aceh to deal with criminal matters. Most experts and human rights advocates believe the regulations discriminate against non-Muslim minorities and contravene the country’s Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. But the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - a moderate former general whose Muslim credentials have often been questioned by political opponents - has not challenged them. In fact, Mr. Yudhoyono has backed morality-based laws that pleased Muslim conservative allies but angered advocates of human rights.
EUROPE
Tensions Between Turkey and the West Increase - Dan Bilefsky, New York Times. With Turkey’s prospects for joining the European Union growing more elusive and the country reaching out to predominantly Muslim countries with a vigor not seen in years, a longstanding question is vexing the United States and Europe: Is this large, secular Muslim country turning East instead of West? When President Obama visited Turkey in April - a symbolic gesture that underlined Turkey’s geostrategic importance - he emphasized the country’s role as a bridge between East and West, acknowledged its mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict and threw his weight solidly behind Turkey becoming a European Union member. Now, six months later, some in Washington and Brussels are questioning Turkey’s dependability as an ally, and many Turks are asking whether they should reject the European Union before the bloc rejects them. Fears that Turkey is abandoning its bridge-building role were fanned this month when it canceled air force exercises with Israel, straining ties that frayed in January when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan castigated Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, over the war in Gaza, in front of world leaders at Davos, Switzerland. Senior Turkish officials say Mr. Erdogan, who was mediating between Israel and Syria just weeks before the conflict in Gaza broke out, felt personally betrayed by Israel’s aggression and what he regarded as the needless killing of innocent Muslims. At the same time, some Western diplomats say, Turkey has made what they consider alarming overtures toward Iran.
Karadzic Trial Resumes Without Defendant - Marlise Simons, New York Times. The judges had given Radovan Karadzic an extra 24 hours to come to court, but when he did not appear on Tuesday they ordered the start of proceedings against the former Bosnian Serb leader, who faced charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and two counts of genocide. As his blue seat remained empty, the panel of international judges quickly ordered the prosecution to begin its case and warned once again that Mr. Karadzic risked losing his right to defend himself. It was a scene now familiar in modern war crimes cases: a former wartime leader, often used to wielding absolute power, trying even while imprisoned to dominate events in court. Mr. Karadzic’s demand for more time to prepare his defense and his refusal to come to court has reminded observers here of the trials of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Charles Taylor of Liberia and Mr. Karadzic’s former ally, the Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. Some lawyers watching the session at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague said they believed that Mr. Karadzic’s boycott of the proceedings was a way to deflect attention from the atrocities being presented in court.
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.
