Richard Holbrooke has been called many things in his long career: diplomat, peacemaker, bruiser and, in the court of President Hamid Karzai, “the Devil”. In Kabul a week after it became clear that President Karzai would win a second term without a second round of voting, the most conspicuous truth about President Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is his absence.

-- The Times

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

Prospect of More US Troops Worries Afghan Public - Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times. As Americans, including President Obama’s top advisers, tensely debate whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, Afghans themselves are having a similar discussion and voicing serious doubts. In bazaars and university corridors across the country, eight years of war have left people exhausted and impatient. They are increasingly skeptical that the Taliban can be defeated. Nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents. If more American forces do arrive, many here say, they should come to train Afghans to take over the fight, so the foreigners can leave. “What have the Americans done in eight years?” asked Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, a market town about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. “Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?” Such sentiments were repeated in conversation after conversation with more than 30 Afghans in Kabul and nearby rural areas and with local officials in outlying provinces. The comments point to the difficulties that American and Afghan officials face if they choose to add more foreign troops.

British PM Brown Vows to Fight On in Afghanistan - Voice of America. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says his government remains committed to the mission in Afghanistan as public support for the war falls in Britain. In a speech in London in Friday, Mr. Brown said the main terrorist threats facing his country originate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and said Britain "will not walk away." The prime minister also said he told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that British support depends on the Afghan leader's ability to combat corruption. The increasing number of British casualties in Afghanistan has eroded support for the war in Britain. In a shocking incident earlier this week, five British soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman. There are about 9,000 British soldiers serving in Afghanistan. A total of 230 have died since 2001.

Brown Warns Afghan Leader on Corruption - John F. Burns and Alan Cowell, New York Times. In unusually harsh terms reflecting international frustration with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday that the government in Kabul would forfeit its right to international support against the Taliban insurgency if it failed to root out corruption. “Sadly, the government of Afghanistan had become a byword for corruption,” Mr. Brown said in a speech to defense experts. “And I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption.” His words were regarded by some analysts as the toughest by a Western leader since Mr. Karzai was declared the winner this week of Afghanistan’s flawed elections. The timing of Mr. Brown’s warning was particularly significant, with the Obama administration under domestic and international pressure to decide whether to commit up to 40,000 more American troops to Afghanistan at a time when international appetite for the conflict seems to be receding.

Brown Rebukes Karzai's Government on Corruption - Anthony Faiola, Washington Post. Facing a sudden surge in public opposition to the war in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the government in Kabul, threatening to withhold additional British troops if it did not act swiftly to combat widespread corruption. Brown called on the administration of President Hamid Karzai to take dramatic steps to clean up government in the wake of flawed elections, including the creation of a new, independent anticorruption commission with investigative and prosecutorial powers. Brown's comments came as the British were jolted this week by a string of new causalities in Afghanistan. "I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption," Brown said. It marked the most direct threat yet from the British - who maintain the largest number of troops in Afghanistan after the United States - to reconsider their support for Karzai. As the Obama administration seeks to recalibrate the war effort, the British are also contemplating sending an additional 500 troops there, bringing their total to 9,500.

Brown Blasts Karzai on Corruption - Alistair MacDonald, Wall Street Journal. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the Afghan government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai a "byword for corruption" and said he wouldn't continue to risk British lives if it doesn't make changes. Mr. Brown's strongly worded criticisms come as some British officials are growing irritated at what is seen as the slow pace of President Barack Obama's review of the US's Afghan war strategy, a person familiar with the matter said. Mr. Brown's statement on Mr. Karzai followed the killing of five British troops this week by an Afghan policeman, an incident that raised questions about Mr. Brown's central strategy of training Afghan civil and military forces to provide security and allow British troops to exit. Mr. Brown said international support for Mr. Karzai depends on his ambitions and achievements in five areas: security, governance, reconciliation, economic development and engagement with its neighbors. Mr. Brown's words echoed statements Thursday by Kai Eide, the head of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, who called for Mr. Karzai to cleanse his government, and said the relationship between Kabul and the international community was at a "critical juncture." Late Friday, the UN Security Council, instead of congratulating the election winner, as it often does, merely "acknowleged the conclusion of the electoral process following the decision ... to declare President Karzai elected president."

Armed Forces Reputation is at Risk in Afghanistan, MoD Chiefs Warn - Michael Evans and Philip Webster, The Times. The long-term future and reputation of Britain’s Armed Forces is at risk unless progress is made in Afghanistan, the two most senior officials at the Ministry of Defence warn in an internal document seen by The Times. The pronouncement by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and Sir Bill Jeffrey, the Permanent Secretary, leaves no room for the possibility of early withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Planning within Defence should be based on the assumption of a rolling three-year military commitment to Afghanistan, reviewed annually,” they say in a jointly signed document circulated as guidance to MoD staff preparing for next year’s defence review. Their unequivocal statement of commitment appeared out of step with a more conditional speech on Afghanistan given by Gordon Brown yesterday. He was accused by the Opposition of sending out mixed messages and making empty threats after warning President Karzai, the Afghan leader, that he was not prepared to put the lives of soldiers “in harm’s way” for a government that did not stand up to corruption. Mr Brown emphasised the importance of keeping the international alliance together in Afghanistan but then said: “We will succeed or fail together.” While insisting that British troops must stay, he said he had told President Karzai that he would forfeit the right to international support if he failed to root out corruption and improve his governance of the country. Downing Street said Mr Brown’s words did not mean that British troops would be withdrawn if Mr Karzai failed. But they were a warning that the West’s patience with him was limited and that personal backing would be withdrawn if he did not meet the tests being set by Mr Brown and President Obama.

Richard Holbrooke’s Future Unclear as Fallout from Karzai Rift Reaches Washington - Giles Whittell, The Times. Richard Holbrooke has been called many things in his long career: diplomat, peacemaker, bruiser and, in the court of President Hamid Karzai, “the Devil”. In Kabul a week after it became clear that President Karzai would win a second term without a second round of voting, the most conspicuous truth about President Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is his absence. The man who forced Slobodan Milosevic to the negotiating table and longed to be rewarded with the job of Secretary of State was instead handed the toughest regional portfolio on the planet at the start of President Obama’s term. He has since hired dozens of advisers and set out goals on reforming everything from Afghanistan’s poppy fields to its notoriously porous prisons. But his critics say he has failed to broker a stable political settlement with President Karzai, largely because relations between the two have broken down. The result is whispering in Washington about how much longer he can retain his job. “It is a typical Washington parlour game about who’s up, who’s down,” a disdainful State Department spokesman said last month. If the game had a name it would be “Where in the world is Holbrooke?”, and the answers are revealing.
When Senator John Kerry was immersed in ultimately successful negotiations with President Karzai in Kabul last month, Mr Holbrooke was in Washington. When Hillary Clinton was in Pakistan last week, Mr Holbrooke was with her. Then, instead of including Kabul in his itinerary, he flew home. Between those trips he held a rare open briefing widely regarded as intended to show that he had not been sidelined by Mr Kerry.

Afghan Police: 2 Missing NATO Soldiers Drowned - Voice of America. Afghan police say the two NATO soldiers reported missing in Afghanistan are Americans believed to have drowned in a river in the western province of Badghis. The province's deputy police chief, Abdul Jabar, said the two soldiers were swept away Wednesday while trying to save supply boxes that fell into the water after being air-dropped. The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said earlier that two service members disappeared Wednesday while on a routine supply mission, but did not identify their nationalities. A NATO spokeswoman said troops were conducting a massive search and rescue operation to locate the missing soldiers. In a separate statement, NATO said two US soldiers were killed Thursday in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan. This year has been the deadliest for international troops in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban-led government in 2001. On Thursday, angry Afghan villagers chanted slogans against foreign troops, protesting an overnight air strike by international forces that they say killed at least nine civilians. The villagers paraded the bodies of the victims in the streets of Lashkar Gah, capital of restive southern Helmand province. Local authorities said only Taliban insurgents died in the attack.

More than 25 Troops Wounded During Search - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post. More than 25 international and Afghan troops were wounded Friday in western Afghanistan - possibly by friendly fire - during a search operation for two US Army paratroopers who had gone missing, according to the military. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan initially said that the troops conducting the search had been injured by insurgents. But a spokesman later said that officials were investigating the incident and had not ruled out the possibility of friendly fire. "With this large number of wounded, we are looking at all possibilities to try to figure out what is going on," said the spokesman, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jerome Baysmore. "We are looking at all sides of this." The two paratroopers, both from the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, went missing during a "routine resupply mission," according to ISAF. News service reports said that the soldiers disappeared in the northwestern province of Badghis and that troops conducting an extensive search for them were then hit by fire from NATO aircraft. The wounded were treated on the scene and flown to a military hospital, according to an ISAF statement.

In Afghanistan, Troops Attacked While Searching for US Soldiers - Alexandra Zavis and Karim Sharifi, Los Angeles Times. More than 25 members of international and Afghan security forces were injured Friday in firefights in northwestern Afghanistan during a large-scale manhunt for two missing American soldiers, military officials said. The two paratroopers with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, disappeared Wednesday during a routine resupply mission, the military said in a statement. The military provided no further details on the disappearances, and neither NATO forces nor Afghan officials immediately explained how the clashes broke out, nor did they provide a breakdown of the casualties. US Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman, said only that the injuries had occurred in "direct engagements with enemy forces in the area." Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman reached by telephone, said the militants ambushed the joint force in the district where the soldiers disappeared and fighting continued throughout the day. Ahmadi said three Taliban insurgents were killed in the clashes. Such disappearances are rare. The last time an American service member went missing in Afghanistan was in June, when Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl was captured after straying from a US base near the eastern border with Pakistan. On July 18, Taliban insurgents released a video of the 23-year-old soldier from Idaho. Bergdahl has not been found.

At Least 25 Hurt in US Troop Search in Afghanistan - Sharafuddin Sharafyar, Reuters. More than 25 NATO and Afghan troops were wounded during a search Friday for two missing US paratroopers in western Afghanistan, the NATO-led force said. The Taliban said the two missing soldiers were dead and it had recovered their bodies. A statement by the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said more than 25 troops were wounded during a search and rescue mission. Lieutenant Darin Russell, a spokesman for NATO forces, said the troops were wounded "by insurgent activity." He declined to give further details of the incident, which he said was under investigation. He was unable to say how many of the wounded were NATO troops and how many were Afghans, or whether any of them had been killed. The chief of police in Badghis province in western Afghanistan, Abdul Jabar, said NATO aircraft had struck their own troops during the search and that several Americans had died in the "friendly fire" air strike. NATO announced earlier Friday that two US paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division had gone missing Wednesday while delivering supplies. Reports of missing troops in Afghanistan are extremely rare and would automatically trigger a large-scale military response.

In Peshawar, State of Denial Over Market Attack Culprits - Pamela Constable, Washington Post. When terrorists last week blew up the Mina Bazaar, a market for women and children, they detonated a car bomb so powerful it left more than 100 people dead and 15 missing in a nightmarish scene of scattered limbs, charred corpses and victims trapped alive under mounds of debris. The bombing crossed a new line of callousness, uniting Peshawar in grief and fear and unleashing a tide of anger. But most of the outrage expressed by survivors, witnesses, religious leaders and other residents this week was not directed at Islamist extremist groups, whom the government has blamed for the attack, but at the countries many Pakistanis see as their true enemies: India, Israel and the United States. In part, this reaction stems from a deep popular conviction that no Muslim could perpetrate such atrocities against other Muslims. The more egregious the attack, the stronger seems the tendency to deny a domestic cause and blame other, more remote culprits. Some religious and political groups are encouraging such responses, eager to whip up xenophobic sentiment for their own ends.

In Pakistan's South Waziristan, Hopes that Taliban's Exit Will Bring Progress - Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times. The Mahsud tribesmen of South Waziristan don't hate the Taliban. But they hate what having Taliban fighters living among them has done to life in their mud-hut hamlets. The Taliban presence has made their villages frequent targets for US missile strikes. It has prevented schools and hospitals from opening and roads from being built. Many villages still do not have electricity or phone lines. As people stream out of South Waziristan to escape the all-out blitz against the Taliban, they say they back the offensive, if only because it represents their best - and only - hope for a clean break from the misery of isolation. "Though we weren't directly threatened by the Taliban, all of the hardship and suffering we face is because of the militants," says Ali Khan, 33, a shopkeeper from the Taliban-ridden village of Makeen. "When these militants go, we expect schools to start up. We want to live the life that's led elsewhere in Pakistan." As many as 155,000 people in South Waziristan have fled the fighting as 30,000 Pakistani troops take on an estimated 10,000 Taliban militants entrenched in concrete bunkers and networks of caves and tunnels built into the region's desolate plateaus and mountainsides.

IRAQ

Adversities Await Iraqis Who Return Home - John Leland, New York Times. As Iraqis who fled their homes to escape sectarian violence are returning, many face high unemployment and poor access to electricity and water, according to a new report by the International Organization of Migration, a nongovernmental group operating in more than 100 countries. In the worst cases, families return to discover that their homes are gone or have been significantly damaged. One-third of returnees interviewed by the group said they felt unsafe some of the time. More than half a million families have left their homes since the war began in 2003, moving to other parts of Iraq or abroad, according to the group. The displacement accelerated after sectarian bloodshed escalated in 2006. The researchers have identified 58,110 families who have returned, though some families have probably gone home without being counted by the organization’s monitors. Most returned from other parts of the country rather than from abroad. The returnees account for less than 10 percent of those displaced. Others said they wanted to return to their homes if conditions continued to improve. The International Organization of Migration interviewed more than 4,000 families for the report.

IRAN

Three Foreign Journalists Reported Detained in Iran - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. Iranian officials arrested a Japanese and two Canadian reporters during anti-government demonstrations this week and charged them with "unauthorized reporting," the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported Friday. It did not identify the reporters or their news organizations. The three reporters join two others whose agencies said they were arrested during Wednesday's protests on the 30th anniversary of the US Embassy siege here. Agence France-Presse said its local reporter Farhad Pouladi was detained, and the International Federation of Journalists said a Danish journalist, Niels Krogsgaard, was arrested in connection with the demonstration. "The claim about the arrest of the AFP journalist is under investigation," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi as saying. Iranian media gave no further details on the other arrested foreigners. All are still thought to be in custody. On Wednesday, authorities temporarily blocked all access to e-mail programs such as Gmail and Yahoo during the demonstrations to prevent people from sending images to foreign media organizations. Still, many managed to upload cellphone clips to video sites, which were widely broadcast by foreign-based Farsi-language satellite channels.

UNITED STATES

Obama Warns Against 'Jumping to Conclusions' in Fort Hood Massacre - Al Pessin, Voice of America. The US Army is dispatching dozens of trauma and grief counselors and military chaplains to Fort Hood in Texas, where a gunman killed 13 people in a shooting rampage on Thursday. The alleged shooter was an Army officer, a psychiatrist and a Muslim, but officials, including President Barack Obama, are cautioning against jumping to conclusions about the motive for the shooting. President Obama met with the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other senior officials Friday morning to discuss the case. Then he stepped into the White House Rose Garden, to again express condolences to the families of those killed in the attack, and to urge people to wait for the results of the investigation. "We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," said President Obama. "What we do know is that there are families, friends and an entire nation grieving right now for the valiant men and women who came under attack yesterday, in one of the worst mass shootings ever to take place on an American military base." The president ordered US flags to be flown at half staff as what he called "a modest tribute" to people who he said lost their lives as they were preparing to risk their lives for their country.

Army Tests Sole-Killer Theory as Details Emerge - Clifford Krauss and James Dao, New York Times. On Wednesday and Thursday, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan seemed in a hurry to give his worldly belongings to a neighbor. First a Koran. Then bags of vegetables. Finally a mattress, clothing and odds and ends from his bare one-room flat. “I’m not going to need them,” he told the neighbor, Patricia Villa. He was going to Iraq, he said, or maybe to Afghanistan. That was just one of many small and enigmatic details to emerge Friday about Major Hasan, the 39-year-old Army psychiatrist accused of a shooting spree at Fort Hood that killed 13 people Thursday and wounded at least 30 others. An American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, he was deeply dismayed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but proud of his Army job. He wore Middle Eastern clothes to the convenience store and his battle fatigues to the mosque. He was trained to counsel troubled soldiers, but bottled up his own distress about deploying. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, and John M. McHugh, the Army secretary, traveled Friday to Fort Hood, the Army’s largest post, as a widespread investigation into the shooting began. “This is a tough one,” General Casey said at a news conference. “It’s a kick in the gut. There’s no doubt about that.” The local police said that ballistics tests showed there was only one gunman and that none of the casualties had been hit by bullets fired by the police.

A Story of Shock, Chaos and Bravery Unfolds in Ft. Hood Shooting - Ashley Powers, Los Angeles Times. In the end, the shooting rampage at Ft. Hood came down to a gunfight between two civilian base police officers toting standard sidearms and a 39-year-old psychiatrist armed with .357 Magnum and a pistol equipped with laser sighting and extra bullets, officials said. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, disturbed about his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan (not Iraq, contrary to earlier reports), reportedly entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center just before 1:30 p.m. Thursday. He took a seat at a table. It seemed as if he was there to help soldiers who were undergoing medical exams and finishing paperwork before shipping out to war. Hasan, who had prayed at his mosque that morning, allegedly mumbled something to himself - it may have been a prayer - then jumped up. Witnesses reported that he said: "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great." After that, the blood began to flow. Thirteen people would die; 38 others were injured. As investigators began their probe into the motivations of the gunman, President Obama urged people Friday to reserve judgment until more is known. Base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said that Hasan remained hospitalized, unconscious and on a ventilator.

'I Could Hear the Bullets Going Past Me' - Greg Jaffe and Philip Rucker, Washington Post. The first frantic 911 calls had come just four minutes earlier. Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer for the Army, rounded the corner of a squat, one-story building at 1:27 p.m. Thursday and came face to face with Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, had already killed or wounded dozens of soldiers, having fired more than 100 rounds, according to Army officials. He was still shooting at unarmed troops who were dragging away their bleeding colleagues when he locked his eyes on Munley, raised his pistols, and charged her. The petite officer dropped to the ground for protection and fired back. Bullets struck Munley, 35, in both thighs and one wrist. At least one of Munley's rounds hit Hasan in the chest, knocking him to the ground, witnesses said, although the details of what happened are still unclear. "She moved to the threat and eliminated it," said Chuck Medley, director of emergency services at Fort Hood, Tex. As she fired off her rounds, a few other officers also closed in on Hasan, who lay bloody and unconscious. The police officer's heroics ended a horrific rampage for Fort Hood soldiers, who had already experienced years of deployments, bloodshed and memorial services in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials said Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 38. Hasan's family members said he was upset about his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

Hash Browns, Then 4 Minutes of Chaos - Ana Campoy, Peter Sanders and Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal. On Thursday morning, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan gave a key to his apartment manager, lined up some cleaning supplies under his sink and asked Patricia Villa if he could pay her $60 to tidy up his one-bedroom place. He was shipping out to Afghanistan on Friday, he told her. I asked him, 'Are you afraid of going over there?'" Ms. Villa recalls. "He said, 'I'm ready for it." Then, authorities said, he packed two handguns, drove to this bustling military base, and opened fire on a brigade of young engineers prepping to deploy to Afghanistan after Christmas. In a matter of about four minutes - before he himself was taken down in a face-to-face shootout with a female police officer - he killed 13 people and wounded 30. As victims and witnesses came forward to describe the worst soldier-on-soldier violence in US military history, authorities worked Friday to learn more about the alleged shooter, Maj. Hasan. They seized his home computer in hopes of trying to discern a motive. Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the top commander at Fort Hood, said soldiers at the base have told investigators Maj. Hasan, a Muslim, shouted "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," in the attack. One military official at the Pentagon who has been briefed on the investigation said officials are "close to 100%" certain Maj. Hasan authored an Internet posting defending suicide bombings.

Details of the Victims Emerge; an Idealistic Group - Ilan Brat, Rachel Emma Silverman and Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal. They were soldiers preparing to go to war, sometimes for the second or third time. They were also sons, daughters, fathers and a mother-to-be. They were 21-year-old Jason Dean Hunt, who his sister said was proudest behind the wheel of his Bradley Armored Vehicle, from rural Oklahoma; Francheska Velez, 21, who was looking forward to the birth of her first child, from Chicago; and Amy Krueger, 29, a sports and outdoors enthusiast, from tiny Kiel, Wis. These were three of the 13 people - a dozen soldiers and a civilian Defense Department police officer - killed Thursday when an Army major on the Fort Hood base in Texas fired guns into a crowded area where soldiers were being readied for assignments overseas. The Pentagon Friday afternoon was still contacting families and hadn't released the names of the victims. Dozens more soldiers were wounded when the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist, opened fire with two handguns, one of them a semi-automatic weapon. Maj. Hasan was shot four times by a police officer and was in stable condition in a military hospital Friday. Interviews with relatives and friends of the victims paint a portrait of an idealistic group, energized by military service. Mr. Hunt had signed a six-year extension while in Iraq last year, said his sister, Leila Willingham. "When he got into the military, he realized that was for him," she said. In August, he married while on leave. He planned to make the military his career.

'Gentle' Army Psychiatrist Displayed Worrisome Signs - Ben Conery, Washington Times. Investigators worked doggedly Friday to piece together what apparently drove an Army psychiatrist to open fire on his comrades at Fort Hood in Texas. While they searched for clues, a conflicting portrait of the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Arlington native, has continued to emerge. On the one hand, he has been described by some as a gentle man who was involved in his mosque's charitable endeavors and spoke little of America's conflicts abroad; but there also seemed to be worrisome signs. A neighbor said Maj. Hasan, who on Friday night remained hospitalized and unconscious, recently had given away his possessions. Maj. Hasan also may have written an Internet post that praised the heroism of Muslim suicide bombers; and he also was apparently sharply critical of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and dreading his upcoming deployment, which reportedly was set for Friday. Whether any of those elements played a role in Thursday's shooting, which left 13 dead and 31 wounded, remains a mystery. There were unconfirmed reports from witnesses that the gunman shouted "Allahu akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great" - before opening fire. Whether he actually said that is still under investigation, officials said.

Kimberly Munley Ended Fort Hood Rampage Using Virginia Tech Lessons - Patrik Jonsson, Christian Science Monitor. learned from the horrific Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 are credited with averting an even bigger massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, Thursday afternoon when police officer Kimberly Munley confronted the gunman without waiting for backup and took him down with four shots. Reviews in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech, where 32 died, found that first responders' decision to be careful and wait for backup probably cost lives as that gunman moved unchecked from classroom to classroom as law enforcement massed outside. Those findings had found their way to Fort Hood's Special Reaction Team, which had practiced an entirely new protocol for at least a year before Thursday afternoon's rampage here, in which 13 were killed and at least 28 wounded. "The lesson from Virginia Tech was, don't wait for backup but move to the target and eliminate the shooter," says Chuck Medley, chief of Fort Hood's emergency services. "It requires courage and it requires skill." The task on Thursday fell to the petite Ms. Munley, a civilian police officer employed by the Army at Fort Hood. Munley had taken part in intensive active-shooter training during the past year. One of the first responders, she exited her car and entered the building as shots rang out. She rounded a corner, identified the shooter, and fired four times. He returned fire and hit her at least twice in the legs and once in the arm. She underwent surgery Friday but is said to be in good condition. It's unclear how many other responders were present and firing, but Munley's shots are believed to be the ones that stopped the alleged gunman, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

In Base's Town, Lots of Anger Over 'Evil' Act - William Booth, Washington Post. They started lowering the flags to half-mast here before the Army had even finished counting the dead. Home to Fort Hood, Killeen is a tough Texas town, and soldiers and civilians here expressed all the emotions felt by the rest of the country - shock, sadness, anger - but more so. It was raw, and it was personal. At the hard-scrabble apartment complex where Maj. Nidal M. Hasan lived in Number 9, the $350-a-month one-bedroom on the second floor, some of his neighbors were sorry to learn that the 39-year-old Army psychiatrist had survived Thursday's rampage that left 13 dead and 38 wounded. Inside the cozy, dark and smoky American Legion Post 573, Richard Beach was sipping an afternoon beer Friday when he said, "We all have a lot of anger. Anger because the base is supposed to be the safe zone, you know, and here is a guy, a doctor, and he shoots our people?" The commander of the American Legion Post, Kervin Bradford, said "people hope he lives long enough to tell us why he did it. Then he can die." Bradford said, "I am not a racist, but I say send them all back to a Muslim country." Hasan, who was born in the United States, is a devout Muslim.

Muslim Population in the Military Raises Difficult Issue - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. The deadly rampage at Fort Hood is forcing Pentagon officials to confront difficult questions about the military's growing Muslim population. The military has worked hard to recruit more Muslims since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the number of Muslim troops, while still small, has been increasing. There were 3,409 Muslims in the active-duty military as of April 2008, according to Pentagon statistics. Military personnel don't have to disclose their religions, and many officials believe the actual number of Muslim soldiers may be at least 10,000 higher than the Pentagon statistics. For instance, the military "Officer Record Brief" of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings, said he had "no religious preference" and didn't identify him as a Muslim. Even now, Muslim soldiers remain fairly rare in some parts of the military. At West Point, Army officials said there were just 24 Muslim cadets out of a total student body of 4,400. The Muslim cadets worship in an interfaith center on the bucolic New York campus, but don't have a dedicated mosque. The push to boost Muslim representation has proven to be a double-edged sword for the military, which desperately needs the Muslim soldiers for their language skills and cultural knowledge, but also worries that a small percentage of those soldiers might harbor extremist ideologies or choose to turn their guns on their fellow soldiers.

After Fort Hood - Washington Post editorial. President Obama was right to warn on Friday, in the aftermath of the horrific Fort Hood, Tex., slayings, "against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts." It will be too easy for some to make that mistake, given the Arab heritage of alleged gunman Nidal Malik Hasan, his reported daily attendance at a Silver Spring mosque during his years in Washington and the anti-Muslim harassment that a relative said he endured in the Army. In fact, the terrible crime of which Maj. Hasan is accused was not the expression of any faith, nor the work of a terrorist organization, but rather, it appears, the act of an evil or deranged individual. It says nothing about American Muslims - an estimated 3,000 of whom serve honorably in the armed forces. Maj. Hasan's own family issued a statement calling the attack "despicable and deplorable." "Our family loves America," the statement said. One of the most obvious questions as investigations go forward is whether the FBI or military authorities missed an opportunity to prevent Maj. Hasan from acting.

The Horror at Fort Hood - New York Times editorial. It is always a shock - and a cause for deep sadness - when a gunman fires malevolently at crowds of innocent people. We have seen it far too often: at Columbine High School in Colorado a decade ago; on the campus of Virginia Tech two years ago; at a center for immigrants in upstate New York in April; and in downtown Orlando, Fla., where a gunman shot and killed one person and wounded five others on Friday. Still, this week’s rampage at the sprawling Fort Hood Army base in central Texas seems especially shocking. On Thursday, an Army psychiatrist, clad in a military uniform, allegedly sprayed bullets inside a medical building, killing 13 people and wounding at least 30. The suspected gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, has counseled scores of soldiers suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. His victims on Thursday were men and women who were preparing to deploy to the battle zones or had returned from there. Even more shocking, they were attacked on a heavily guarded military installation within the United States where they surely must have felt secure. In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East. President Obama was right when he told Americans, “we don’t know all the answers yet” and cautioned everyone against “jumping to conclusions.”

AFRICA

UN Says US Delays Led to Aid Cuts in Somalia - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times. United Nations officials said Friday that the supply of critical food aid to Somalia had been interrupted and that rations to starving people needed to be cut, partly because the American government had delayed food contributions out of fears that they would be diverted to terrorists. Last month, American officials said they had suspended millions of dollars of food aid because of concerns that Somali contractors working for the United Nations were funneling food and money to the Shabab, an Islamist insurgent group with growing ties to Al Qaeda. American officials played down the impact of the delays and said the food shipments would resume soon, once the United States government was assured that the United Nations was doing more to police the aid deliveries. But on Friday, the World Food Program said, “The food supply line to Somalia is effectively broken.” United Nations officials said that around 40 million pounds of American-donated food was being held up in warehouses in Mombasa, in neighboring Kenya, because American officials were not allowing aid workers to distribute it until a new set of tighter regulations was ironed out.

Spanish Captives in Somali Waters Plead for Help - Andres Cala, New York Times. Pirates on Friday threatened to kill three crew members of a Spanish fishing ship they seized over a month ago if two suspected pirates being held in Spain were not freed, according to news agencies who quoted the captain of the vessel. “They have taken three of our crew and have given a deadline of two days,” the captain, Ricardo Blach, told Spanish television by telephone from the ship. “If in two days there are no signs that those two Somalis are being sent back here, they are going to kill them and immediately take another three hostages. This is a lottery,” he said, according to the reports. Crew members of the ship, the Alakrana, had pleaded with their relatives on Thursday to press the Spanish government to do more to gain their release. The relatives said that during telephone calls placed from the Alakrana, a 100-meter tuna-fishing vessel held off the Somali coast, captives briefly described their plight and said the pirates had followed through on their threat to start taking captives ashore. There are 16 Spaniards among a crew of 36. Family members said the crew spoke at gunpoint, adding that they could hear in the background the explosion of a grenade that had been lobbed at a Spanish Navy frigate and shots fired into the air. The Spanish defense minister, Carme Chacón, confirmed that a grenade had been thrown at the frigate but said that it had caused no damage or injuries. She said the pirates were using the relatives’ anguish to gain the upper hand.

Thousands Flee Ethnic Violence in Northern DRC - Lisa Schlein, Voice of America. The U.N. refugee agency reports more than 16,000 civilians have fled ethnic violence in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The UNHCR says the refugees crossed the Oubangui River into neighboring Republic of Congo to find safety after their villages were burned. The UN refugee agency reports the mass exodus from the DRC's remote Equateur Province took place last week. It says ethnic clashes broke out between the Enyele and Munzaya tribes over farming and fishing rights in the village of Dongo. UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, says 60 people were killed, and the deadly fighting spread to surrounding villages, several of which were burned. He says 40 other people were seriously injured and some are being treated in hospital. "The 16,000 DRC asylum seekers-who are mainly Munzayas-are staying in public buildings or with host communities across 11 villages alongside the Oubangui River," he said. "A UNHCR team is now visiting them and our initial assessment is that they need proper shelter, food and household items such as blankets, kitchen sets and jerry cans. Since a thorough assessment is made, we will work together with the government to help them. Some are also in need of medical care, but an over-stretched mobile clinic run by a UNHCR partner cannot cope with all their needs at the moment," he added. The first clashes between the Enyele and Munzaya occurred in March. More than 200 houses were burned in the village of Munzaya and more than 1,200 residents fled to safety in the Republic of Congo.

Zimbabwe's Tsvangirai Announces End of Government Boycott - Scott Bobb, Voice of America. Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says his party has ended its partial boycott of the power sharing government and has given President Robert Mugabe one month to resolve outstanding disputes in the coalition. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai made the announcement at the end of a summit of the politics and security organ of the Southern African Development Community. The members of the group, the heads-of-state of Mozambique, Zambia and Swaziland, concluded the summit in Mozambique by urging the parties in Zimbabwe's unity government to reconcile their differences under the mediation of South African President Jacob Zuma. Mr. Tsvangirai said he accepted the SADC resolution. "We have suspended our disengagement in the government to give SADC and the facilitator, who is comrade Zuma, that within the next 15 days the party representatives will meet to look at all the issues and how they should be implemented - and it's all issues - and that within 30 days all issues must be cleared [so] that we don't have to deal with this dispute once and for all. We are satisfied," he said. Mr. Mugabe also attended the summit but made no public comment. Mr. Tsvangirai announced three weeks ago that his Movement for Democratic Change would boycott cabinet meetings and dealings with ministers of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

Group Won’t Suspend Zimbabwe on Mining Abuses - Celia W. Dugger, New York Times. An international body charged with stopping the illicit trade in diamonds that fuel conflict has decided not to suspend Zimbabwe, officials said Friday, though its investigators had concluded that Zimbabwe’s military had organized smuggling syndicates with the government’s permission and used “extreme violence” against illegal miners. Instead, the countries that are part of the body, the United Nations-endorsed Kimberley Process, decided to send a monitor to decide whether future exports of rough diamonds from the troubled Marange fields in eastern Zimbabwe could be certified as not supporting conflicts. Human rights campaigners and nongovernmental organizations immediately denounced the decision, saying that the Kimberley Process had shown it was incapable of stopping gross abuses and the flouting of international standards. Bernhard Esau, the Namibian deputy mining minister who heads the Kimberley Process, said in an interview on Friday that the nations that belong to the body had listened to what Zimbabwe “told us as a Kimberley family” and decided to give the government a chance to come into compliance with international standards under a monitor’s supervision and agreed timelines.

Clinton Stands By UN Mediation for Western Sahara - Scott Stearns, Voice of America. The Obama administration says it continues to support United Nations efforts to resolve the future of the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Morocco's government there will be no change in US policy regarding the rival claims by Morocco and the pro-independence movement POLISARIO. Western Sahara was high on Secretary Clinton's agenda during her meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri this week. Political observers here say Rabat generally believes that US administrations led by the Democratic Party are more sympathetic to the separatist POLISARIO movement and are therefore more likely to push for a vote on self-determination within UN mediation efforts. But Secretary Clinton made clear that President Obama is pursuing the same track as President George W. Bush in setting no preconditions about how UN mediation might best resolve the issue. "I think it is important for me to reaffirm here in Morocco that there has been no change in policy," said Clinton. The coastal region between Morocco, Mauritania, and Algeria was claimed by Morocco shortly after the end of Spanish colonialism in 1975. King Hassan sent 350,000 Moroccan civilians into the territory to back-up his claim in what is called the Green March. But those Moroccans clashed with members of the POLISARIO movement who had been fighting for independence since 1969. A 1991 ceasefire ended the war but has not resolved Western Sahara's status.

Breakdown Looms in Madagascar Political Talks - Peter Heinlein, Voice of America. Madagascar's main political movements have extended talks in Addis Ababa aimed at patching over bitter rivalries preventing the formation of a transitional government. The outlook is uncertain, with feuding factions seemingly unwilling to compromise. The prospect of failure loomed Friday as negotiations aimed at breaking Madagascar's political deadlock went into overtime. Three days of talks had been scheduled, but day three ended in the early hours of Friday with no progress and harsh words suggesting a deal might be out of reach. The country's de facto president, Andry Rajoelina stormed out of the session saying it was impossible to continue. Sources close to the talks say rival factions are refusing to budge on the main issue, the composition of a transitional government.

AMERICAS

Zelaya Aide Says Honduran Agreement Has Failed - Voice of America. An aide to ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says a deal designed to end the country's political crisis has failed, after interim leader Roberto Micheletti announced the formation of a new cabinet. Mr. Micheletti said late Thursday he is installing a national unity government without the participation of Mr. Zelaya, who has declined to name any cabinet members. The two signed an agreement last week to resolve the four-month political standoff. A new government was set to begin Thursday. Mr. Zelaya warned Thursday the accord was at risk of collapsing unless Congress held a vote to restore him to power immediately to serve out his term that ends in January. Honduras elects a new president on November 29. Congress must vote on Mr. Zelaya's restitution and has not yet done so. The recently signed pact does not stipulate a deadline for the Congressional vote. The US, a major broker in the mediation efforts, said this week the next step in the political crisis is up to Honduras.

Honduras' Ousted Leader Declares Pact 'Totally Dead' - Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times. The political crisis in Honduras deepened Friday after ousted President Manuel Zelaya declared "totally dead" a US-brokered agreement that he had believed would restore him to power. Zelaya, deposed in a military-backed coup four months ago after ignoring a court order to stop efforts to hold a referendum on revising the nation's constitution, said the accord collapsed after the de facto rulers formed a new "reconciliation government" without him. The week-old deal had sought to bring representatives of Zelaya and his enemies into a transitional government as a way to ease the crisis and legitimize elections scheduled for Nov. 29. "The accord is a dead letter," Zelaya said on a Honduran radio station. "There is no sense in continuing to fool the Honduran people." He called on supporters to take to the streets and to boycott the vote, which he deemed a "fraud" designed to "whitewash" the coup. In Washington, officials who sponsored what had been hailed as a breakthrough and "victory for democracy" said they were disappointed by the setback.

Zelaya Says Honduras Deal Is Off, as Election Nears - Jose de Cordoba, Wall Street Journal. Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Friday pulled out of an agreement that was supposed to solve the country's political crisis, leaving the next moves to voters in a presidential election on Nov. 29 - and to Latin American leaders who will have to decide whether to accept the winner. "This deal is dead. The other side has failed to uphold their end," said Mr. Zelaya in a radio interview Friday. His move followed the Honduran Congress's failure to vote this week on reinstating him. Mr. Zelaya and the interim government, led by President Roberto Micheletti, agreed a week ago to create a government of national unity and let the country's Congress decide on the issue of Mr. Zelaya's return to office, which has been the central issue of the crisis since he was removed on June 28. In return, the US, in what was a policy turnaround, said it would recognize this month's election even if Congress didn't return Mr. Zelaya to power, and would lift economic sanctions Washington had placed on Honduras, one of the hemisphere's poorest countries. After Mr. Zelaya's statement Friday, a US State Department spokesman said the US didn't consider the agreement to be dead. "Both sides need to return to the table and negotiate the formation of a national unity government," the spokesman said.

As Honduran Deal Failed, Split Behind Crisis Grew - Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times. The collapse of an agreement that only a week ago was celebrated in Honduras as bringing the end to a four-month political standoff has only intensified the divisions that have long characterized the crisis: The two sides hew to contradictory interpretations of the agreement, the United States and the rest of the hemisphere are at odds over how to move forward, and the president who was ousted in a coup is holed up in the Brazilian Embassy while his unelected successor seems stronger than ever. With just three weeks to go before a general election, the main presidential candidates have been traveling the tiny mountainous country promising to pave roads and build houses while the rest of the world debates whether the election will be legitimate. Since the United States-mediated accord was signed last Friday, it has been clear that the two men who claim to be president had very different perceptions of what it meant. The ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, focused on what many believed to be the spirit of the agreement, which was his return to office at the head of a unity government. While the agreement allowed Mr. Zelaya’s return, it never guaranteed it, leaving it to a vote by the Honduran Congress. Congressional leaders, who are allies of the acting president, Roberto Micheletti, have stalled on setting a date for such a vote.

Coup, Uninterrupted - New York Times editorial. The Obama administration has worked hard, if somewhat episodically, to try to resolve the political crisis in Honduras. Last week, it looked as if the administration had pulled it off. The deal is now unraveling because of the obstinacy of Honduras’s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, and the man who ousted him, Roberto Micheletti. But we fear Washington also miscalculated that obstinacy. The agreement was brokered by Costa Rica’s president, Óscar Arias, with some strong last-minute arm-twisting from Washington. It was a good one. Mr. Zelaya would be allowed to finish out his term, which ends in January. But he would do nothing to try to hang on to power. He and the coup plotters would be granted amnesty for any previous misdeeds. That would have been good for Honduras. And it would have sent a clear message to all of Latin America that coups are no longer tolerated. But when it came time to implement the deal, it began to fall apart.

Latin American Leaders Seek to Rein in Media, Press Group Says - Associated Press. Populist leaders in Latin America are increasingly making legal and political moves to silence their critics in the media, the president of the Inter American Press Association said Friday. The leaders’ tactics include revoking broadcast licenses, fostering hostility toward journalists and giving a free hand to government supporters who have attacked broadcast stations, newsrooms and printing plants, said the association’s president, Enrique Santos Calderón. “We are extremely concerned at the growing level in recent weeks of harassment and violence in various countries,” Mr. Calderón said in an interview during the regional association’s annual meeting in Buenos Aires. “Democratic systems require a free and unfettered press.” In Argentina, senior editors are criticizing President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who signed a decree this week ordering newspapers and magazines to be sold exclusively in union-run newsstands. Editors fear that the government will now be able to prevent the distribution of newspapers that do not follow the governing party’s line by enlisting pro-government unions to shut them down.

ASIA PACIFIC

China Looks Forward to Hosting President Obama - Stephanie Ho, Voice of America. China says President Obama's visit to will help push Sino-American relations to what a Chinese official described as "a new historical starting point." At the same time, the two countries must deal with disagreements over trade and climate change. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said Friday his government has high hopes for President Obama's visit to China later this month. He says this will be President Obama's first visit to China. He described it as a "big event in Sino-American relations." The vice foreign minister says there is "great scope" for China and the United States to cooperate in areas such as energy conservation and development of new green technologies. He acknowledges, however, the possibility of setbacks to an overall agreement at the Copenhagen global conference on climate change next month. He says China hopes that tackling climate change will be what he calls "a new bright spot in Sino-American cooperation." At the same time, he urges the United States to respect the principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international climate change agreements. He gave no specifics, but he called on developed countries to honor their commitments to provide technological and financial support to poorer developing countries. China has made clear that it will not commit to binding cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, which are thought to contribute to warming temperatures.

US is Reaching Out to East Asia's Powerful Nations - John Pomfret, Washington Post. Ever since taking office, President Obama has signaled that the United States wants to improve relations with the powerhouse nations of East Asia, and he'll put his personal imprint on that when he travels to the region for the first time next week. The new focus underlies the president's view that having influence in the region, especially as China grows as an international economic and military force, is critical to US interests. As Singapore's former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew said in Washington last week: "If you do not hold your ground in the Pacific, you cannot be a world leader." But as the administration tries to put that into practice, officials are finding it easier said than done, especially in key areas such as trade. "We really see this - our engagement with East Asia - to be critical to our own future," Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said Friday at the Center for American Progress in a forum in preparation for Obama's visit.

Thailand-Cambodia Tensions Rise Over Appointment of Fugitive Thai Official - Daniel Schearf, Voice of America. Tensions between Southeast Asian neighbors Thailand and Cambodia are high after Cambodia's leader appointed a fugitive former Thai prime minister as an advisor. Both countries have withdrawn their ambassadors and claim interference in their internal affairs. Regional political analysts say relations between Bangkok and Phnom Penh are the worst they have been in several years. On Friday, Cambodia withdrew its ambassador to Thailand, in retaliation for Bangkok's withdrawal of its ambassador the day before. Thailand's action came after the Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen appointed fugitive Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic advisor. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls the appointment interference in its domestic affairs and a failure to respect its judicial system. Thani Thonthongpakdi is a Foreign Ministry spokesman. He says Thai-Cambodia relations have been tested for over a year, and tensions are rising. "We believe that we had to send a strong signal to Cambodia regarding their recent action. I think that the extant to which our bilateral relations will be affected, we will have to see what the reaction on the Cambodian side is," he said.

Thai Border on Guard for Drugs From Myanmar - Thomas Fuller, New York Times. The heroin and methamphetamine traffickers carry assault weapons and walk briskly through the night, crossing the border in small groups and traveling down a spider’s web of footpaths and dirt roads. So says Ja Saw, a wiry man in his 20s who should know: Two years ago, he was one of them. Mr. Ja Saw spent a year in a Thai prison for trafficking. Now he works as an undercover agent for the Thai military. In his native Myanmar, where he travels periodically to glean intelligence, he is known by another name. “They would kill me immediately if they knew I was a spy,” Mr. Ja Saw, who is from the Wa ethnic group, said in an interview at a remote location several kilometers from the Myanmar border. Thailand’s northern borderland region is ground zero in the country’s efforts to interdict the tons of illicit drugs manufactured in the freewheeling northern reaches of Myanmar. Thailand is also the main international gateway for heroin bound for the streets of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney and other major cities in the region, counternarcotics officials said.

MIDDLE EAST

Departure of Mahmoud Abbas Hits Hopes for Peace - John Lyons, The Australian. Barack Obama's push to restart talks in the Middle East was in tatters last night as the man the US had backed to lead a new Palestinian state announced he was walking away from politics. Mahmoud Abbas shocked leaders across the Middle East when he announced he would not contest elections in January. Mr Abbas made clear his anger at Israel's refusal to agree to US calls for a freeze to Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank and last weekend's praise by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Israel's "unprecedented" efforts on the settlement issue. "The problem is Israel and its position," Mr Abbas said. Referring to the US, he said: "We were surprised by their favouring the Israeli position." He also attacked his Palestinian rivals, Hamas, saying the rulers of the Gaza Strip had engaged in "destructive practices". But while he said "many dangers" existed in the two-state solution, he held out hope that this was achievable. He restated the removal of Jewish settlements in the West Bank as a necessary condition for peace. The resignation leaves in disarray Mr Obama's repeatedly stated ambition to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr Abbas was the first world leader he telephoned on taking office this year and he was seen as the only real option as a negotiator. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying last week: "Of the existing alternatives, if we want an agreement with the Palestinians then Abbas is the best partner." Mr Abbas, 74, succeeded Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader five years ago. During his term he has been criticised as a puppet of the US and Israel, as not being tough enough on corruption inside Fatah, on not confronting Hamas and of not being able to unite Fatah.

Israel Rejects UN War Crimes Resolution - Robert Berger, Voice of America. Israel has responded angrily to a United Nations resolution that accuses the Jewish state of war crimes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel says the United Nations General Assembly is "completely detached from reality," after it endorsed the Goldstone Report accusing the Jewish state of war crimes during the Gaza conflict last December and January. The report also accuses the Islamic militant group Hamas that rules Gaza of war crimes, but the international focus has been on Israel. The resolution was approved by 114 countries with 18 opposed and 44 abstentions. It calls on both Israel and Hamas to open credible investigations into the report's charges within three months. Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says the investigation by the UN-appointed Goldstone Commission was one-sided and biased from the beginning. "The mandate of the commission already pre-establishes Israel's guilt; it says clearly that Israel is guilty of massive human rights violations and a number of crimes that are already listed in a mandate," said Palmor. Israel says it will not open an investigation because that would be tantamount to acknowledging guilt and accepting the legitimacy of the Goldstone Commission. "The commission was really a farce of a human rights fact-finding commission; it wasn't a real effort to seek the truth," he said. Israel launched its offensive against Gaza's militant Hamas rulers in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire at Israeli towns. The fighting killed 13 Israelis and nearly 1,400 Palestinians, many of them civilians.

Yemeni Rebels and Saudis Clash at Border - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. As clashes continued Friday between the Saudi military and Yemeni rebels on the remote border between the countries, both sides claimed to have inflicted casualties and captured enemy soldiers. The conflict started early this week when the Houthi rebels - who have been fighting the Yemeni government for more than five years - killed a Saudi border guard and wounded 11 others, bringing Saudi Arabia into the war for the first time. The Houthis said that they were acting in self-defense and that the Saudis had been helping the Yemeni government in its renewed campaign to crush the rebellion. On Friday, Saudi military officials said that they had captured 50 of the rebels and that Houthi shelling of a village near the war zone had killed four women. But the Houthis also claimed to have captured Saudi soldiers. A Houthi spokesman, Muhammad Abdel Salam, told Al Jazeera that the rebels would carry out interviews with the captured soldiers for the news media, but would treat them with respect. Local people in the border area said they had seen and heard Saudi fighter jets bombing rebel positions throughout Thursday and early Friday, in an area just over the Saudi border known as Jebel Dukhan.

Lebanon’s Opposition Said to Agree to Government - Reuters. Lebanon's opposition, including Iranian-backed Hezbollah, agreed on Friday to join a national unity government proposed by Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri, a senior opposition source said. "The Lebanese opposition has approved the proposed unity government," the source told Reuters after opposition leaders held a late-night meeting. The source said the opposition would officially inform Hariri of its decision on Saturday and expected the new government to be formed in the coming two days. Hariri's spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the report. Hariri, who is backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, was nominated as prime minister-designate after he led his anti-Syrian coalition to victory in parliamentary election in June. He has spent more than four months trying to broker a deal with the opposition to join a unity cabinet. A warming of ties between the two sides' main backers Syria and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks helped ease the rift in Beirut and led eventually to the breakthrough.

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.