-- 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.

-- Washington Post

UNITED STATES

Lethal Rampage at Fort Hood - Yochi Dreazen and Ana Campoy, Wall Street Journal. A US Army major allegedly opened fire Thursday on fellow troops in the heart of the giant army base here, killing 12 people and wounding at least 31 in one of the worst incidents of soldier-on-soldier violence in US military history. The shooting rampage by Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan was halted by a female civilian police officer who shot him, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the top military commander on the base. The woman is expected to recover from wounds sustained in the gun battle, he said. Maj. Hasan, 39 years old, also was hospitalized after the shooting, Lt. Gen. Cone said, and "his death is not imminent." Names of the victims were not released. The alleged shooter is a psychiatrist, originally from Virginia, who had been recently promoted to major and transferred to Fort Hood from the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. His professional specialties include post-traumatic stress disorder, combat stress and other emotional issues common to the troops implicated in earlier incidents of military fratricide. Maj. Hasan was slated to serve for the first time in Iraq in coming weeks, military officials said. An official at the Pentagon added there were indications that Maj. Hasan was deeply upset about the pending assignment. Maj. Hasan's cousin, Nader Hasan, told Fox News that his cousin was deeply traumatized about seeing wartime service.

Rampage Kills 12, Wounds 31 - Peter Slevin, Washington Post. The gunshots came out of the blue. An Army psychiatrist, trained to treat soldiers under stress, allegedly opened fire Thursday in a crowded medical building at Fort Hood, Tex. When the assault ended minutes later, the attack had become what is believed to be the largest mass shooting ever to occur on a US military base. Twelve were killed, 31 wounded. Nidal M. Hasan, 39, a major who had made a career in the military, fired a pair of pistols, one of them semiautomatic, in the soldier readiness facility, dropping and scattering people as they waited to see doctors, according to authorities. Hasan and a civilian policewoman exchanged fire, they said. Both were hit. Both survived. When the gunfire stopped, soldiers schooled in battlefield medicine ripped their clothes to make tourniquets and bandages. Someone hustled to seal off an auditorium in the same building where 138 troops were marking their graduation from college. Sirens typically used to warn of tornados sweeping across the plains alerted residents, schools locked down and the Fort Hood community struggled to understand what had just happened. In the aftermath, a string of unanswered questions remained about the shooter's motives, his background and whether the military was aware that he posed a risk to his colleagues.

Army Doctor Held in Fort Hood Rampage - Robert D. McFadden, New York Times. An Army psychiatrist facing deployment to one of America’s war zones killed 12 people and wounded 31 others on Thursday in a shooting rampage with two handguns at the sprawling Fort Hood Army post in central Texas, military officials said. It was one of the worst mass shootings ever at a military base in the United States. The gunman, who was still alive after being shot four times, was identified by law enforcement authorities as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, who had been in the service since 1995. Major Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas. Clad in a military uniform and firing an automatic pistol and another weapon, Major Hasan, a balding, chubby-faced man with heavy eyebrows, sprayed bullets inside a crowded medical processing center for soldiers returning from or about to be sent overseas, military officials said. The victims, nearly all military personnel but including two civilians, were cut down in clusters, the officials said. Witnesses told military investigators that medics working at the center tore open the clothing of the dead and wounded to get at the wounds and administer first aid. As the shooting unfolded, military police and civilian officers of the Department of the Army responded and returned the gunman’s fire, officials said, adding that Major Hasan was shot by a first-responder, who was herself wounded in the exchange.

13 Killed at Texas Army Base; Psychiatrist Accused - Ben Conery, Washington Times. An Army officer opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, killing 13 and injuring 30, authorities said. The massacre left investigators scrambling to figure out what may have driven a mental health professional to go on such a rampage. Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, the commanding officer at Fort Hood, identified the shooter as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who had lived in Virginia and Maryland. Gen. Cone had said shortly after the shooting that Maj. Hasan was killed by a police officer at the scene, but late Thursday said that turned out not to be the case. "Preliminary reports indicate there was a single shooter that was shot multiple times at the scene. However, he was not killed as previously reported," Gen. Cone said. "He is currently in custody and in stable condition." Initial information that a female civilian police officer who had shot Maj. Hasan was also killed similarly turned out not to be the case, Gen. Cone said. That officer also survived the attack, he said. Gen. Cone said most of those injured and killed were soldiers. He said the seriousness of the injuries varied significantly.

Army Psychiatrist Blamed in Fort Hood Shooting Rampage - Robin Abcarian, Ashley Powers and Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times. An Army psychiatrist who was about to be deployed to Iraq allegedly armed himself with two guns and opened fire Thursday afternoon on the grounds of Ft. Hood, the country's largest military base, killing 12 people and injuring 31 others. Officials said that soldiers and civilians ripped apart their clothes to make bandages for fallen colleagues, many of whom were waiting at the base's Soldier Readiness Center for medical and dental exams before deployment. The attack shocked the country and raised questions about base security. The suspected gunman, who initially was thought to have died, was wounded and in stable condition under guard at a hospital. Identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, he worked at the Darnall Army Medical Center, Ft. Hood's hospital. The facility has an extensive program to help soldiers deal with the stress of returning from war. Base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said at a news conference Thursday evening that Hasan was shot multiple times by a female civilian Army police officer, who was also injured. The suspect reportedly had not spoken with investigators, and Cone would not say anything more about him. A senior US counter-terrorism official said Thursday night that the Army and FBI were looking into whether Hasan, who is Muslim, had previously come to the attention of federal law enforcement officials as the suspected author of inflammatory Internet comments likening suicide bombers to heroic soldiers who give their lives to save others.

Suspect, Devout Muslim from Va., Wanted Army Discharge, Aunt Said - Mary Pat Flaherty, William Wan and Christian Davenport, Washington Post. He prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, a devout Muslim who, despite asking to be discharged from the US Army, was on the eve of his first deployment to war. Yesterday, authorities said Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, a 39-year-old Arlington-born psychiatrist, shot and killed at least 12 people at Fort Hood, Tex. In an interview, his aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, said he had endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and had sought for several years to be discharged from the military. "I know what that is like," she said. "Some people can take it, and some cannot. He had listened to all of that, and he wanted out of the military, and they would not let him leave even after he offered to repay" for his medical training. An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. George Wright, said he could not confirm that Hasan requested a discharge. As authorities scrambled to figure out what happened at Fort Hood, a hazy and contradictory picture emerged of a man who received his medical training from the military and spent his career in the Army, yet allegedly turned so violently against his own. Hasan spent nearly all of his professional life at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District, caring for the victims of trauma, yet he spoke openly of his deep opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hasan, who was shot while being taken into custody, was reported in stable condition at a hospital Thursday night, authorities said.

Suspect Was ‘Mortified’ About Deployment to War - James Dao, New York Times. Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist. But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., began having second thoughts about a military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia. He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan. “He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier became aware of Internet postings by a man calling himself Nidal Hasan, a law enforcement official said. The postings discussed suicide bombings favorably, but the investigators were not clear whether the writer was Major Hasan. In one posting on the Web site Scribd, a man named Nidal Hasan compared the heroism of a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to protect fellow soldiers to suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves to protect Muslims.

Web Post by Fort Hood Gunman Major Nidal Malik Hasan Could Shed Light on Motives - Philippe Naughton and Chris Ayres, The Times. Investigators trying to understand why a US army psychiatrist launched into a shooting spree on a military base in Texas will be poring over an internet posting he is thought to have made comparing the sacrifice of Islamist suicide bombers and American military heroes. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 were injured when Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood yesterday afternoon in a part of the base where soldiers are prepared for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. The gunman himself was shot four times and was reported last night to be unconscious and on a ventilator in a nearby hospital. The female officer said to have shot him is also in hospital. Major Hasan, 39, whose job involved counselling soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after overseas tours, had himself fought a long and unsuccessful campaign against deployment to Iraq - which a cousin described as "his worst nightmare". As President Obama said in his first statement on the slaughter, the killings were all the more "horrifying" for having happened at an army base on American soil. But Major Hasan's background - he is a Muslim of Palestinian descent - prompted immediate speculation that the attack was a premeditated act of terror. It was reported that Major Hasan had come to the attention of the FBI after a user named NidalHasan posted on the Scribd.com website in May, comparing the actions of an American soldier who threw himself on a grenade in Iraq with those of Islamist suicide bombers. No action was taken against him.

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

Obama Faces Competing Demands on Afghanistan Strategy - Greg Miller and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times. As President Obama struggles over a new military strategy for Afghanistan, his advisors are trying to satisfy sharply divergent demands: assuring Americans that any military buildup will be limited while convincing Pakistan and other wary allies that the US presence is substantial and not about to end. The difficulty in determining a strategy that can mollify both these conflicting constituencies helps to explain why the administration's months-long search for a new approach to Afghanistan remains unresolved. On the domestic front, Obama risks alienating a political base that has become increasingly impatient with the 8-year-old war. At the same time, the president faces potentially serious setbacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan if the heads of those governments - not to mention the leaders of the Taliban insurgency - see any indication of a wavering US commitment. "This is precisely what muddles their strategic discussion," said Juan Zarate, who served as deputy national security advisor in the George W. Bush administration. "They have to thread a needle here. [Obama] can't be seen domestically to be articulating a 20-year commitment to Afghanistan, while at the same time, he can't be signaling a quick exit to our allies and enemies on the ground and in the region." Pakistan is key to the debate because of concerns that its powerful intelligence service would ramp up support for Afghan Taliban militants as part of a hedge strategy aimed at preserving Pakistani influence next door in the event of a US exit from the region.

Going Tribal in Afghanistan - James Dao, New York Times. In Washington, the debate over Afghanistan seems to center around two broad ideas: counterinsurgency versus counterterrorism. Should the United States add troops for a more population-centric strategy, as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal advocates? Or should it use a less ground-heavy approach, disrupting Al Qaeda with Special Operation Forces and unmanned drones, as Vice President Joseph Biden argues? There is, of course, no shortage of other ideas, many of them afloat in the blogosphere. Among the more provocative ones has been posted on Steven Pressfield’s blog, It’s the Tribes, Stupid, and it comes from an Army Special Forces major who has spent much time in both Afghanistan and Iraq training indigenous fighters. The 45-page paper, “One Tribe at a Time” by Maj. Jim Gant, argues that one way to undermine the insurgency is to return, in part, to the strategy that ousted the Taliban to begin with: Embed small, highly skilled and almost completely autonomous units with tribes across Afghanistan. Much like the Green Berets who worked with the Northern Alliance to drive out the Taliban in 2001 and 2002, the units, which Major Gant calls Tribal Engagement Teams, would wear Afghan garb and live in Afghan villages for extended periods, training, equipping and fighting alongside tribal militias.

Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces - Thom Shanker and John H. Cushman Jr., New York Times. A series of internal government reviews have presented the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy - to speed up their training and send many more Afghans to the fight. As President Obama considers his top commander’s call to rapidly double Afghanistan’s security forces, the internal reviews, written by officials directly involved in the training program or charged with keeping it on track, describe an overstretched enterprise struggling to nurse along the poorly led, largely illiterate and often corrupt Afghan forces. In September, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, recommended increasing the Afghan Army as quickly as possible - to 134,000 in a year from the current force of more than 90,000, instead of taking two years, and perhaps eventually to 240,000. He would also expand the police force to 160,000. The acceleration is vital to General McChrystal’s overall counterinsurgency plan, which also calls for more American troops but seeks more protection against the Taliban for the Afghan population than the Pentagon could ever supply. While General McChrystal knew of the latest assessments when he wrote his plan, their completion just as President Obama considers the general’s proposal has given fresh ammunition to doubters.

Brown Stands Firm on Afghanistan - Associated Press. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday that Afghanistan's government is corrupt and he will not risk more British lives there unless it reforms. Mr. Brown said in a speech that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had assured him "that the first priority of his new government would be to take decisive action against corruption." Mr. Brown said the government of Afghanistan has become a by-word for corruption, "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." Britain has promised to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan. But Mr. Brown said it was dependent upon progress in governance. Seven British soldiers have died in Afghanistan in the past week, including five shot by an Afghan police officer. Despite increasing doubt over the country's involvement in the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Brown links military action there to safety on Britain's streets. "We will not be deterred, dissuaded or diverted from taking whatever measures are necessary to protect our security," Mr. Brown said.

UN Official Admonishes Karzai to Enact Reforms - Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times. The top United Nations official in Afghanistan on Thursday issued an unusually pointed warning to President Hamid Karzai to enact major political reforms or risk losing the support of the international community. "There is a belief among some that the international commitment to Afghanistan will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan," Kai Eide, the UN special representative, said at a news conference. "I would like to emphasize that this is not correct. "It is public opinion in donor countries and in troop-contributing countries that decides the strength of that commitment," Eide said, "and the debate we have seen over the last few weeks and months underlines that we are at a critical juncture." Underscoring the fragility of that commitment, UN officials said the world body was temporarily pulling hundreds of staff members out of Afghanistan while it reviews security arrangements after an attack last week on a guesthouse in Kabul, the capital, that killed five UN employees and three Afghans.

Keep Us Safe or We’re Off for Good - Tom Coghlan, The Times. The head of the United Nations in Afghanistan threatened a complete pullout yesterday after half of his staff were evacuated following last week’s terrorist attack, in which five UN personnel died. In a blunt message to the newly re-elected President Karzai, Kai Eide, the UN Special Representative, said: “There is a belief that the international community [presence] will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan. I would like to emphasise that that’s not true.” The Afghan Government must show a willingness to reform and address rampant corruption, he said. “We cannot afford any longer a situation where warlords and powerbrokers are playing their own game.” The UN temporarily pulled out 600 of its 1,100 foreign staff yesterday. The move was prompted by the attack on the Bakhtar guesthouse on October 28, in which five UN personnel were killed by gunmen and suicide bombers in police uniforms. Security forces in Kabul remain on high alert as intelligence “chatter” has suggested that militants linked to the Taleban and al-Qaeda will try more attacks soon.

UN's Afghanistan Mission Moving Workers for Safety - Joshua Partlow, Washington Post. The UN mission in Afghanistan is relocating hundreds of staff members, including sending many outside the country, after an attack last week on a UN guesthouse in Kabul that killed five members of its international staff. The UN decision was another sign of the Taliban's ability to use violence against civilians to curtail humanitarian and development work in Afghanistan and Pakistan. International staff members from many aid organizations, both public and private, have limited their movements and activities as attacks on civilians have increased in the region. The United Nations has about 1,100 international staff members in Afghanistan, and about 600 of them will be moved to more-secure locations, said Aleem Siddique, a UN spokesman. Some will be moved from their homes to fortified UN compounds, provincial offices or a hotel in Kabul, while others are being sent elsewhere in Central Asia or to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. "There's going to be a lot of upheaval, but the priority has to be the safety of the staff," Siddique said.

UN Relocates Foreign Staff in Afghanistan - Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan announced plans on Thursday to relocate hundreds of foreign staff members, sending some out of the country, in the wake of a lethal attack on its workers at a guesthouse last week. The relocation of its workers here, while temporary, is one more signal of mounting pressure on United Nations operations as security deteriorates around the region. The move comes four days after the United Nations announced that it was withdrawing its international workers from northwestern Pakistan, where insurgents are fighting Pakistani troops and have carried out a string of attacks. In recent weeks, United Nations workers on both sides of the border have been singled out in deadly attacks, in what appears to be a deliberate campaign by insurgents to undercut international support for the embattled Afghan and Pakistani governments. Five United Nations workers for the World Food Program were killed in a suicide attack at the program’s offices in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, in early October. Last week in Kabul three insurgents dressed in police uniforms scaled the front gate of a guesthouse where United Nations staff members were staying to mount a terrifying two-hour siege. Five of the United Nations’ staff members were killed, along with two Afghan security officials and the brother-in-law of a prominent Afghan politician, before the attackers were shot and killed. The strike was the biggest on the United Nations in Afghanistan in its half-century of work here and forced the organization to lock down its operations as it reviewed security nationwide.

Powerful Afghan Governor Challenges President - Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal. An escalating quarrel between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a powerful governor is stoking fears of bloodshed in one of the country's more peaceful and prosperous provinces. During this year's presidential election, Balkh Gov. Atta Mohammad Noor was alone among Afghanistan's 34 governors - all of whom were appointed by Mr. Karzai - to openly back challenger Abdullah Abdullah. Mr. Karzai's victory last week, declared by an election commission after months of controversy, has Mr. Atta steaming, and tensions rising over the prospect that Kabul will try to reassert central authority in this province of two million people. "Karzai is a thief of people's votes. Democracy has been buried in Afghanistan. He's not a lawful president," Mr. Atta said in an interview in his vast rococo-styled office, as turbaned supplicants lined up to petition for his help in resolving court cases and disputes with local authorities. Mr. Karzai was declared the winner after Dr. Abdullah withdrew from the race, claiming that the election commission was biased. Dr. Abdullah has yet to concede defeat, and is seeking a broad say in policy making.

Rare Virus Poses New Threat to Troops - Sara A. Carter, Washington Times. US military officials sent a medical team to a remote outpost in southern Afghanistan this week to take blood samples from members of an Army unit after a soldier in the unit died from an Ebola-like virus. Dr. Jim Radike, an expert in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Role 3 Trauma Hospital at Kandahar Air Field, told The Washington Times that Sgt. Robert David Gordon, 22, from River Falls, Ala., died Sept. 16 from what turned out to be Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever after he was bitten by a tick. The virus is transmitted by infected blood and can be carried by ticks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Radike, who is with the Navy, said the medical team "will be taking blood samples and the results may take several weeks to get back." He called it "a precautionary measure." Dr. Radike did not say how many individuals would be tested or why the military had waited until now to act. The unit involved is the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry division, A-Company 2-1 Infantry. The news comes as the Pentagon disclosed that it has sent 150,000 doses of vaccine for the H1N1 swine flu virus to Qatar for distribution to US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan - half of what US Central Command has requested. More than a half dozen Afghans have died of the disease, which apparently was transmitted to the country by foreigners.

Obama's Unrealistic Afghan Assumptions - Elise Jordan, Wall Street Journal opinion. 'The proof is not going to be in words, it's going to be in deeds." That is how the White House summed up what Barack Obama told Afghan President Hamid Karzai after a runoff election was called off recently, handing the Afghan leader a new term in office. That's an interesting marker and one Mr. Obama would do well to heed himself. The surest path to better governance in Afghanistan is a US military strategy that gives Mr. Karzai's government a little breathing room. Instead, Mr. Obama's words and deeds have revealed a profound misunderstanding of both our Afghan partners and the on-the-ground realities of holding elections in a war zone. They have also undermined Mr. Karzai and led allies to wonder if the US was willing to stand by Afghanistan in its war against radical extremists. In a speech in March detailing his thinking on Afghanistan, Mr. Obama mentioned democracy only in reference to Pakistan and never spoke of victory in Afghanistan. Soon after the speech, senior administration officials were talking about the need to find a "credible partner" in Afghanistan. The implication - that Mr. Karzai was not a credible partner - was damaging, especially because Mr. Karzai eventually won another five-year term. The US questioning the legitimacy of Afghanistan's fledgling democracy does as much to weaken that democracy as any instance of corruption. In the end, much of what the Obama administration has complained about is based on unrealistic assumptions. Some degree of electoral fraud is pretty much the norm in underdeveloped countries.

IRAQ

Iraqis Again Fail to Approve Election Law - Timothy Williams and Sa'ad Izzi, New York Times. The Iraqi Parliament failed again on Thursday to approve a law to regulate a national election in January, deepening doubts about whether the nation can hold the vote on schedule. American military officials have said a postponement of the country’s Jan. 16 parliamentary election could delay the withdrawal of American troops out of fear for Iraq’s political stability. Hamdia al-Hussaini, a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission, which organizes elections here, said she would wait until Parliament met Sunday to decide whether to postpone the election. Earlier in the week, Faraj al-Haideri, the head of the electoral commission, warned that if a law was not passed by Thursday, he would recommend a delay because there would be insufficient time to print ballots and make other preparations. The stalemate continued to be caused by one of the most thorny of Iraq’s problems: the divided city of Kirkuk in the north. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens are all seeking control of the surrounding province, which sits atop billions of barrels of oil. For a short time on Thursday, it appeared as if Parliament had found a solution. The chairman of the body’s legal committee, Bahaa al-Araji, briefed reporters on a complex, if tentative, deal that included awarding Turkmens and Arabs one extra legislative seat each. And as a benefit to Kurds in the province, 2009 voter registrations would be used to determine eligibility.

Exxon Mobil-led Consortium to Develop Major Iraqi Oil Field - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. The Iraqi government Thursday signed a deal with a consortium led by US oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. to develop a major oil field in southern Iraq, marking the first entry by an American-dominated group into Iraq's oil industry since it was nationalized in 1972. The deal coincides with a flurry of activity this week that suggests major oil companies are finally poised to return to Iraq, more than six years after the US-led military invasion raised firms' hopes of gaining access to some of the world's largest and most underdeveloped oil reserves. This week, a group led by Italy's Eni that includes the US company Occidental Petroleum Corp. initialed a preliminary agreement, and China National Petroleum Corp. and Britain's BP finalized an accord to develop oil fields in the south. The deals are service contracts. That means the consortia will invest money to improve the yields of the fields and receive in return a fixed fee. The agreements came after the oil companies dramatically lowered their fees to match those offered by the Iraqi government at a public auction in June. The Exxon Mobil-led consortium, which includes Royal Dutch Shell, will receive $1.90 per barrel of extra oil produced, down from the $4 it asked for in June. The consortium, 80% controlled by Exxon Mobil, will invest $25 billion to improve the yield of the West Qurna 1 field from 290,000 barrels a day to 2.3 million barrels a day, Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani said at the signing ceremony.

IRAN

Iran Holding Up Nuclear Deal with Demand for Reactor Fuel, Diplomat Says - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. Iran is demanding full delivery of reactor fuel before it gives up its stash of low-enriched uranium and has balked at further efforts to hold international talks on its nuclear program, according to a senior European diplomat. The diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive diplomacy involved, said prospects for a breakthrough with Iran have narrowed dramatically since a high-level meeting in Geneva on Oct. 1, when Iran tentatively approved a deal to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium and agreed to hold another set of talks by the end of October. Instead, the reactor deal appears to be falling apart, and there are no prospects for talks before the governing body of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets this month to consider whether Iran violated international obligations by building a nuclear facility near the city of Qom. Such a finding would probably result in yet another referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, the diplomat said.

Tehran Gains Time - Washington Post editorial. It's been five weeks since the Obama administration announced that Iran had agreed to ship most of its enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for fuel rods for a research reactor - a deal that promised to delay Tehran's nuclear program by a year or so. But there have been no shipments; instead, Iran rejected the technical terms proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is trying to change the deal in a way that would remove the slight benefit it offered to the West. And it is continuing its refusal even to discuss the central demand of the UN Security Council, which is that it suspend uranium enrichment. So far there has been no visible reaction to Tehran's stance from the Obama administration, other than statements insisting that Iran go through with the uranium swap as originally agreed. The administration appears to be hoping that what officials believe is a debate inside the regime will be won by proponents of a rapprochement with the West. They also want to ensure that, if there is a breakdown in the negotiations, Iran is blamed by all concerned - including Russia and China, whose support would be needed for new UN sanctions.

THE LONG WAR

The War Against the War on Terrorism - Wall Street Journal editorial. Armando Spataro cut his teeth as a prosecutor hunting down Red Brigade terrorists in Italy. But Wednesday in Milan he secured the conviction of 23 Americans charged with kidnapping and spiriting out of the country Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr in 2003. Their conviction and sentencing - in absentia - is one more dubious milestone in the legal war against the war on terror. In 2005, Mr. Spataro secured an arrest warrant for Mr. Nasr, charging him with running a terrorist-recruitment network in Europe. Mr. Nasr had been under surveillance by the Italian authorities since 9/11. We recount this history to underscore that Mr. Spataro is no naif when it comes to terrorism cases, nor does he harbor any illusions about Mr. Nasr. He also knows, from his involvement in the Madrid case, that Americans are not the only targets of Islamist terror. And yet Mr. Spataro now insists that Mr. Nasr's rendition - to Germany and later to Egypt, where Mr. Nasr claims he was tortured - was a crime against Italian sovereignty. No matter that the Americans convicted this week were, by Mr. Spataro's own account, working in active and close cooperation with Italian intelligence officers. Mr. Spataro had originally charged five Italians in the case as well, but they were either acquitted or had the charges dropped. The Italian Supreme Court ruled that the bulk of the evidence against them were state secrets and so inadmissable in court. The prosecution argued, in fact, that the decision to spirit Mr. Nasr out of the country was made at the highest levels of the Italian government, and at one point threatened to call Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a witness.

The Right Place to Try Terrorists - Michael B. Mukasey, Washington Post opinion. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who by his own account came to this country most recently in 2001 to help organize a second wave of attacks after the Sept. 11 atrocities, received a jail sentence on Oct. 29 that could free him within six years. This again prompts the question of whether it is wise for the administration to cancel the military trials of those held at Guantanamo Bay and charged with planning the Sept. 11 attacks and, instead, to bring them to the United States to be charged anew and tried in civilian courts. Marri acted on the direct order of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11 among other accomplishments, to enter the United States not later than Sept. 10, 2001. He entered on a student visa and stayed in touch with his mentor, Mohammed, by cellphone and through coded messages sent via e-mail accounts in fictitious names. Marri used his computer to research the toxicity, availability and price of various cyanide compounds, as well as the location of dams, waterways and tunnels where such compounds could be used with lethal effect.

AFRICA

International Prosecutor to Seek Inquiry Into Kenya Violence - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times. Members of the political elite in Kenya, a nation where top leaders have long escaped prosecution for corruption and other crimes, could now face an international investigation into the violence that shook the country after disputed elections last year. After months of stonewalling by Kenyan politicians, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced Thursday that crimes against humanity had been committed during the postelection period and that he would seek a formal investigation into them. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor, flew into Kenya on Thursday and met with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whose intense rivalry set the stage for a wave of neighbor-on-neighbor killings that left more than 1,000 dead. A vast majority of Kenyans support his involvement because they had little faith that Kenya’s leaders would ever go after their own, despite pressure from major allies like the United States. No top politician has ever been prosecuted for corruption in Kenya, although it is one of Africa’s most notoriously corrupt nations. Few, if any, culprits from last year’s bloodbath have been convicted of murder, even though many of the killings happened in front of police officers. Several of the prime suspects, accused by human rights groups of masterminding the violence, are high-ranking government ministers.

Tsvangirai Calls Off Cabinet-Meetings Boycott - Celia W. Dugger, New York Times. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe announced at the conclusion of a gathering of southern African leaders late Thursday night that his party had called off its boycott of cabinet meetings with President Robert Mugabe, but it was unclear what Mr. Tsvangirai received in return for backing down. His spokesman, James Maridadi, said in an interview that leaders from the Southern African Development Community, meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, had agreed to monitor progress in resolving bitter disputes between Mr. Tsvangirai and Mr. Mugabe over crucial appointments in the government, with the aim of settling them within 30 days. Mr. Tsvangirai was also encouraged by the personal involvement of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, the region’s richest, most powerful nation, in seeking to resolve the problems in Zimbabwe, Mr. Maridadi said. Mr. Zuma, in office six months, attended the meeting in Mozambique and will visit Zimbabwe within 15 days to follow up on negotiations, Mr. Maridadi said. “Now there are time frames, and Jacob Zuma has said when he comes to Zimbabwe it will not be business as usual,” Mr. Maridadi said. He added, “Look, he’s a fresh pair of hands with a fresh perspective on the issue.”

AMERICAS

Amid Rising Violence, Mexicans Fight Back - David Luhnow and Jose de Cordoba, Wall Street Journal. Mexico's war on drugs took a grim twist this week, as a prominent mayor said he had created an undercover group of operatives to "clean up" criminal elements - even if it had to act outside the law. Underscoring why the mayor may have felt compelled to take such steps, the new police chief in a neighboring town, a retired brigadier general, was shot and killed Wednesday, four days after taking up his post. The events shed light on the state of Mexico's battle to try to control powerful drug cartels and stop the turf wars between rival gangs that have killed an estimated 14,000 people since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006. Frustrated with the government's approach, Mexicans are searching for other solutions. Mayors and state governors across the country say they feel powerless to control the traffickers, who have corrupted local and state police to such a degree that they are considered part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. Mr. Calderón has sent 45,000 army troops to various Mexican states to try to stem the violence, but the killings have continued, with more than 6,300 people dead in drug-related violence so far this year, according to Mexican newspaper estimates.

Ideologues Hijack a Compromise - Edward Schumacher-Matos, Washington Post opinion. Adults learn that human conflicts are seldom black and white. So the way the international community jumped to punish tiny Honduras for the ouster of its president, without knowing the facts, was foolish. That some Senate Republicans have been extremist in the other direction borders on galling. Opposing a US-brokered agreement reached a week ago by Hondurans to defuse the crisis, the senators, led by South Carolina's Jim DeMint, have been grandstanding on principles that have little to do with reality, contributing to looming chaos in that Central American country and undermining US policy in the region. In this, the age of fundamentalist ayatollahs, the knee-jerk cold warriors among the Senate Republicans are no better than the knee-jerk anti-military officials in the Organization of American States. The compromise leaves egg on the face of the OAS and an intelligentsia that refused to see Honduras as more than a banana republic that somehow could infect the region, only to be confronted by a Senate cabal that treats Honduras as ... a banana republic that somehow could infect the rest of the region.

ASIA PACIFIC

Scant Details on Reaction to US Envoys' Burma Visit - Tim Johnston, Washington Post. After a rare trip by high-level US diplomats to Burma, there was little indication from either nation Thursday about how the Obama administration's overture of engagment had been received. Burmese state media merely noted that Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Kurt Campbell and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel met with Prime Minister Thein Sein during the visit on Tuesday and Wednesday. The pair are the highest-level US officials to visit Burma, also known as Myanmar, in 14 years. Marciel declined to say how the government, the opposition or Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader they also met with, received their visit. "The main purpose of the visit was to explain to the key parties there - the government, political parties, the opposition, ethnic minorities - the context of our recently completed policy review, but also to hear from them their views and their ideas," Marciel told a seminar on his return to Thailand. The policy review left US sanctions in place while promoting engagement with the prospect that progress toward democratic principles would be rewarded.

A Rebel Stronghold in Myanmar on Alert - International Herald Tribune. Conquering armies of centuries past avoided this remote, mountainous area along the present-day border with China, a place once described by a British colonial official as “an unpenetrated enclave of savage hills.” Inhabited by the Wa, an ethnic group once notorious for headhunting, neither the British colonial overlords nor the Burmese kings who preceded them saw much point in controlling the area. But to Myanmar’s military government this rebel region is an irritating piece of unfinished business and an impediment to the long-cherished goal of national unity. Myanmar’s generals are demanding that the Wa disband their substantial army here and fully subjugate themselves to the central government, a call that has so far gone unheeded. Both sides are bracing for potential conflict. The tensions here might be glossed over by outsiders as yet another arcane dispute in strife-ridden Myanmar between the government and a mistrustful minority, except that the Wa have a well-equipped army of at least 20,000 full-time soldiers - about twice the size of Ireland’s armed forces - and are considered by the United States government as hosts to one of the world’s largest illicit drug operations.

Thailand Recalls Its Ambassador to Cambodia - Thomas Fuller, New York Times. The Thai government announced Thursday that it was recalling its ambassador to Cambodia to protest Cambodia’s appointment of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as Thailand’s prime minister, to a high-profile position. The moves put new strains on already tense relations between the countries. Mr. Thaksin was removed in a coup in September 2006 and now helps lead the Thai opposition movement from abroad. The Thai Foreign Ministry said the appointment of Mr. Thaksin as economic adviser to Cambodia’s prime minister represented a “failure to respect Thailand’s judicial system.” “The Royal Thai Government cannot stand idly by and has to take into consideration the sentiment of its people,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Thai government appears particularly dismayed at the idea that Mr. Thaksin, who now spends much of his time in Dubai, might be able to galvanize his supporters from just across the border. Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister, has offered Mr. Thaksin a residence in Cambodia. Mr. Thaksin, who retains a loyal following here, is wanted in Thailand for a conviction in a politically charged case involving land that his wife purchased while he was prime minister.

What Obama Should Say to North Korea - Melanie Kirkpatrick, Wall Street Journal opinion. Now that the Obama administration is talking directly to the rulers of North Korea, it would be fitting if it also had a message for the people these leaders oppress. Instead, as is the case with human-rights abusers in most of the world's benighted spots - think Tibet, Burma, Vietnam, Iran, Sudan - the administration remains largely silent. President Obama's visit to Seoul this month would be a good moment to speak out. There would be no better advocate to have by his side than South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who, unlike his recent predecessors, has publicly condemned the North for its abusive treatment of its citizens. The atrocities perpetrated by Kim Jong Il's regime are well known. But three reports, all out in recent days, provide a chilling reminder.

EUROPE

Karadzic Gets Delay, and Lawyer, in War Crimes Trial - Marlise Simons, New York Times. Judges ordered Thursday that a lawyer be imposed on Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader on trial in The Hague for war crimes and genocide, but halted the trial until March 1, to give a lawyer time to get ready. Their decision effectively gave Mr. Karadzic, who has insisted on representing himself, almost four additional months to prepare his defense, which is more than an appeals court gave him when it ordered the case to begin. “We need time to digest this decision,” said Marco Sladojevic, one of the lawyers assisting Mr. Karadzic. “We will try to find a constructive answer when the team meets with him tomorrow.” Since his trial before the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague opened Oct. 26, Mr. Karadzic has forced the court’s hand by staying in his cell. He showed up briefly for a procedural hearing on Tuesday, only to argue again that he needed more time to deal with the great load of materials relating to the charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The judges said Mr. Karadzic’s obstruction “has effectively brought the trial to a halt, which is evidently his purpose.” But they said it would not be “in the interest of justice” to continue without the defendant or a counsel representing him, because it would prevent “truth-seeking.”

2 Held in Deaths of Russian Lawyer, Reporter - Philip P. Pan, Washington Post. Russian authorities said Thursday that they had solved one of their country's most notorious crimes, charging two alleged neo-Nazi gang members in the brazen killings of a human rights lawyer and a journalist in central Moscow in January. The arrests, announced by a top law enforcement official in a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, came amid mounting criticism of the government's failure to find and punish culprits in a string of contract-style killings of reporters and human rights activists. Stanislav Markelov, 34, a prominent lawyer who often clashed with the government's security services, and Anastasia Baburova, 25, a student journalist, were fatally shot on a sidewalk not far from the Kremlin after leaving an afternoon news conference. On Thursday, investigators identified Nikita Tikhonov, 29, wanted in connection with the 2006 fatal stabbing of a young anti-fascism campaigner in Moscow, as one of the suspects in the January killings. Markelov had represented the victim's family in court and repeatedly pressed the authorities to find Tikhonov.

MIDDLE EAST

Top Palestinian Rules Out Race for Re-election - Ethan Bronner and Mark Landler, New York Times. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, warned on Thursday that he would not seek re-election, the latest sign that the Obama administration’s drive to broker a Middle East peace accord, one of President Obama’s key foreign policy goals, has fallen into disarray. Mr. Abbas, 74, has threatened to step aside before, but coming immediately after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to the region aimed at reviving a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, his announcement laid bare the deepening tensions over the administration’s failure to extract an Israeli settlement freeze or any concessions from Arab leaders. Mrs. Clinton’s visit, which she characterized as a success, sowed anger and confusion among Palestinians and other Arabs after she praised as “unprecedented” the offer by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to slow down, but not stop, construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. In a televised speech from his office in Ramallah, Mr. Abbas, who replaced Yasir Arafat five years ago as president of the Palestinian Authority, said, “I have told my brethren in the PLO that I have no desire to run in the forthcoming election,” referring to the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Abbas Rejects Reelection Bid - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, citing dismay over the progress of US-brokered peace initiatives, said Thursday that he does not want to run for reelection when his term ends in January, potentially upending the Obama administration's strategy for the region. Abbas's announcement follows months of failed attempts by the United States to restart direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. A weekend trip to the region by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accentuated the impasse, as the Obama administration announced that it was scaling back its expectations and Palestinians charged that there is a growing pro-Israel tilt to US policy. In a 15-minute address on Palestinian television, Abbas remained equivocal as to whether he actually intends to leave office in a matter of weeks. Such a move would throw an already chaotic Palestinian political system into full disarray. But advisers and analysts said it was possible he was merely venting frustration over a dialogue with the United States and Israel that has undercut him politically without any marked progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state. "I do not wish to run for the upcoming presidential elections," the 74-year-old leader said. "This decision is not for negotiation or maneuver.

Saudis Strike Yemeni Rebels Along Border - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. Saudi warplanes bombed a group of Yemeni rebels late Wednesday on the countries’ remote border, a day after the rebels overran a strategic hilltop and killed a Saudi border guard. The airstrikes appeared to signal an expansion of the war against the Houthi rebels, who have been fighting the Yemeni government intermittently for more than five years. In August, the Yemeni government began a renewed offensive against the Houthis, and thousands have been killed in the fighting. The Saudis struck on Wednesday after evacuating several villages along the border, and the Saudi Army began reinforcing its presence in the area, said a Saudi security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. There was no word from either side on deaths or injuries in the strike. Early on Thursday, there were media reports that Saudi fighter jets had struck Houthi forces inside Yemen or had even invaded the country. But Yemeni officials later denied those reports, and suggested that they might have been a deliberate distortion by the Houthis.

Saudi Fighter Jets Reportedly Strike Rebel Targets in Yemen - Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times. Saudi Arabian warplanes attacked Shiite rebel strongholds in northern Yemen on Thursday in a surge of fighting along the border that followed the death of a Saudi security official at the hands of insurgents, according to news reports. Saudi fighter jets targeted as many as six rebel positions in Yemen and along the mountainous border. Saudi troops reportedly were heading toward the region to secure villages and prevent further cross-border incursions by Houthi rebel forces, which have been sporadically battling the Yemeni government since 2004. Saudi airstrikes "began on their [rebel] positions in northern Yemen" late Wednesday afternoon, an advisor to the Saudi government told Reuters. The advisor asked not to be named because operations were still underway. "There have been successive airstrikes, very heavy bombardment of their positions, not just on the border but on" rebel camps around the northern city of Saada. The Yemeni government has not released a statement on the Saudi offensive, but Al Jazeera news channel quoted a Yemeni Defense Ministry official as saying, "Saudi Arabia did not hit targets in Yemen."

Saudi Jets Bomb Rebels in Yemen - Ahmed Al-Ha, Associated Press. Saudi Arabia sent fighter jets and artillery bombardments across the border into northern Yemen on Thursday in a military incursion apparently aimed at helping its troubled southern neighbor control an escalating Shi'ite rebellion, Arab diplomats and the rebels said. The Saudis - owners of a sophisticated air force they rarely use - have been increasingly worried that extremism and instability in Yemen could spill over to their country, the world's largest oil exporter. The offensive came two days after the killing of a Saudi soldier, blamed on the rebels. Yemen denied any military action by Saudi Arabia inside its borders. But Yemen's president is a key ally of the Saudis, making it highly unlikely the kingdom would have launched the offensive without tacit Yemeni agreement. A US government official said the Yemenis were not involved militarily in the fighting. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The offensive immediately raised concerns of another proxy war in the Middle East between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a key US ally. Shi'ite Iran is thought to favor the rebels in Yemen while Saudi Arabia, which is Sunni, is Iran's fiercest regional rival.

SOUTH ASIA

India Restricts Media on Visit by Dalai Lama - Jim Yardley, New York Times. The Indian government moved Thursday to restrict media coverage of the Dalai Lama’s trip next week to a disputed Himalayan region, a visit that has become a sore point between India and China at a time when diplomatic relations are already fraying between the Asian giants. On Thursday, several foreign news organizations planning to cover the Dalai Lama’s visit to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh next week were told that travel permits approved earlier by the state government had been canceled by the central government in New Delhi. They included The New York Times. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia issued a statement saying it was “surprised and disappointed” by the decision and also by the failure of the central government to approve other applications. “Despite numerous requests over the past few weeks, India’s central government has not granted a single foreign journalist permission to travel to the state of Arunachal Pradesh during the Dalai Lama’s visit,” the press club said in a statement released on Thursday evening. For weeks, the Dalai Lama’s trip, which is to begin on Sunday, has caused a diplomatic standoff between New Delhi and Beijing. The two countries have a longstanding border dispute, and China has become increasingly outspoken about its claims to sections of Arunachal Pradesh, a center of Tibetan Buddhism.

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.

-- The Times

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

Mullen Urges Afghan President to Stop Corruption - John J. Kruzel, American Forces Press Service. Newly re-elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai must take significant measures to cut government corruption and establish its legitimacy, the top US military officer said today. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed concern about the government under Karzai, who was re-elected following a national election fraught with allegations of fraud. “We are extremely concerned about the level of corruption and the legitimacy of this government,” Mullen said at the National Press Club today. “It's far too much endemic.” Karzai, who sealed a victory this week after his opponent dropped out of a runoff election, “has got to take significant steps to eliminate corruption,” Mullen said. “That means that you have to rid yourself of those who are corrupt; you have to actually arrest and prosecute them,” he said. “You have to show those visible signs.” The chairman added that “it will be evident pretty quickly” whether Karzai is serious about improving government legitimacy.

Afghanistan's Abdullah Says Karzai Re-election Lacks Legitimacy - Sean Maroney, Voice of America. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's election rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, told reporters Wednesday that he believes the country's current government lacks legitimacy and will not be able to combat corruption. Abdullah Abdullah says the country's election commission did not have the legal authority or the credibility to declare Mr. Karzai the default winner of Afghanistan's presidential race. "I think that any government which is formed on that basis and then claim that [it] will bring the rule of law in this country and promote the ideals of the people of Afghanistan, a government which is derived on such an illegal decision will not be able to deliver," he said. The Independent Election Commission declared Mr. Karzai winner a day after Abdullah withdrew his name from the runoff election scheduled for Saturday. The former foreign minister said he had no confidence the vote would be any more fair than the flawed general election. Election monitors spent two months throwing out fraudulent ballots before declaring Mr. Karzai had failed to secure enough votes to win the August 20th poll. Most of the fraud benefited Mr. Karzai, and Abdullah objected that the Afghan president - who appointed the election commission leadership - refused to change it for the second round.

Karzai’s Top Rival Denounces Afghanistan’s New Government - Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times. The erstwhile rival to President Hamid Karzai in the presidential election’s second round held a news conference on Wednesday in which he denounced Mr. Karzai’s newly anointed administration as illegal and said that the government would be unable to cope with the problems facing Afghanistan, including security and corruption. “Eight years of golden opportunity we have missed,” said the former presidential candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, referring to the money and lives spent by international forces. Although his words were sharp, they were delivered in a measured tone with little rancor. At the news conference, held at his home, Mr. Abdullah said that he saw the flawed Aug. 20 election as finished and that he did not plan to continue his efforts to challenge the results. “The process has completed itself with that final, illegal decision,” he said, referring to the ruling of the Independent Election Commission, which declared Mr. Karzai the winner of the election on Monday, a day after Mr. Abdullah withdrew from the runoff. “I leave it to the people of Afghanistan to judge.” Mr. Abdullah announced Sunday that he would not participate in the runoff, which had been set for this Saturday, because his demands had not been met for ensuring a fair election, including the removal of the top figures in the election commission, who had been appointed by Mr. Karzai.

5 British Soldiers Slain by Afghan Policeman - Joshua Partlow, Washington Post. Five British soldiers were shot and killed Tuesday by an Afghan policeman while they were working together in southern Afghanistan, British officials said. The shooting occurred in the Nad e-Ali district of Helmand province, one of the most violent areas of the country. The British soldiers were working with Afghan National Police at a checkpoint when one policeman opened fire, military officials said. The gunfire wounded six other British soldiers and two Afghan policemen. Officials said the shooter fled the scene, but it was unclear whether he was arrested later. Deaths among British troops, the second-largest contingent in Afghanistan after the US military, have risen in recent months, mirroring the growing rate of American fatalities. At least 92 British soldiers have died this year, the deadliest of the war. Tuesday's attack follows a shooting a month ago in which an Afghan police officer killed two US soldiers while they were patrolling together. The ongoing violence comes amid the conclusion of Afghanistan's troubled presidential election. Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who withdrew this week from a runoff vote, said Wednesday that he had no interest in joining President Hamid Karzai's second-term cabinet, which will be chosen in coming weeks.

Troop Deaths in Afghanistan Stir Outcry in Britain - Alissa J. Rubin, John F. Burns and Taimoor Shah, New York Times. The deaths of five British soldiers at the hands of an Afghan policeman with whom they were working have unleashed an outcry in Britain and highlighted the vulnerability of Western troops as they carry out a key part of the counterinsurgency strategy to train more members of the Afghan Army and the police. The attack occurred at midday on Tuesday in Helmand Province as the soldiers relaxed in the still-warm autumn sun on the roof of the joint checkpoint overlooking a shared British-Afghan compound. They were so much at ease that they had shed their body armor and helmets, never thinking that they would be attacked by one of the men they lived and worked with, said a local provincial official. Afterward, the attacker fled, setting off a manhunt. The attack came as public support for the war in many NATO countries, including critical allies like Britain and Germany, has grown increasingly shaky. For Britain, it was one of the most deadly single attacks since the Afghanistan invasion eight years ago, bringing to 92 the number of British troops killed so far this year. It also came one month after an Afghan policeman fired on American soldiers during a joint patrol in Wardak Province, killing two, and immediately intensified concerns about Taliban infiltration of the Afghan security forces, in particular the police, who are supposed to be preparing to take a broader role in combating the Taliban insurgency.

Bloody Betrayal Raises Fresh Doubts About Britain's Campaign in Afghanistan - Philip Webster and Michael Evans, The Times. The killing of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman raised fresh doubts yesterday about Britain’s mission in Helmand. Senior political, diplomatic and military figures warned that public support for the British presence was in danger of collapse without a clear and freshly defined strategy. The deaths of the soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, came when a policeman trained by British forces opened fire at Shin Kalay base in southern Afghanistan. Building up the expertise of the Afghan army and police force is key to the British and American forces eventually leaving the country, and that may now be far more difficult to achieve. The shootings exposed cracks in the military alliance and domestic political unity. Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader, and Lord Powell of Bayswater, Margaret Thatcher’s former foreign policy adviser, warned of the dangers of ebbing public support.

British Leader Vows Afghan Mission Unchanged - Tom Rivers, Voice of America, While calling the deaths of five British soldiers gunned down in Afghanistan a tragic loss, Prime Minister Gordon Brown underlined Wednesday that British forces remain committed to their difficult mission there. The British leader was speaking during his weekly parliamentary question session. The killing of the British personnel by a lone Afghan policeman at a military compound in Helmand province has raised more questions in Britain about the deployment. It is the latest bad news for the Brown government that already has faced strong criticism here about the war. Addressing fellow politicians in the House of Commons Wednesday, a somber Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid tribute to the fallen. "I'm sure the whole House will wish to join me in sending our condolences to the families and friends of the five soldiers who have died in Afghanistan yesterday," he said. [edit] "The death of five brave soldiers in a single incident is a terrible and tragic loss and I want to pay tribute, as the whole House will, to their professionalism and to their courage and service," he said. While he says the deadly incident is being thoroughly investigated, Mr. Brown said the so-called partnering program of training Afghan police and soldiers will go on.

Armored Troop Carriers Unsafe for Afghan Duty - Sara A. Carter, Washington Times. Staff Sgt. Daniel Paul Rabidou nervously rubbed the sweat from his palms onto his Army fatigues. The tall, well-built 24-year-old from San Bernardino, Calif., had already survived two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on convoys in the past six weeks, including one on the same road he was getting ready to traverse again from Forward Operating Base Ramrod near Kandahar to a small outpost in the heart of Taliban territory. Since they arrived at the outpost on Sept. 13, the Blackwatch unit - Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, with the 5th Stryker Brigade - had lost three soldiers and two civil affairs officers. IEDs had destroyed three of their four Stryker vehicles. Overall, 21 of 350 Strykers have been destroyed since the 5th Brigade deployed in southern Afghanistan in July; more than two dozen Americans have been killed and nearly 70 wounded. Soldiers call the Strykers "Kevlar coffins," Sgt. Rabidou said. "Lead vehicle always sucks," he said, as the convoy set off with a reporter and photographer from The Washington Times in the first Stryker. "It's usually the one to go first if there's a pressure plate bomb. Sure you don't want to get out now? It may be your last chance," he asked half-jokingly. The eight-wheeled Stryker, introduced a decade ago as a faster, more mobile alternative to tanks and other tracked vehicles, has had a controversial history. In theory, the Stryker's speed and capacity - it can carry 11 plus a crew of two - makes up for its lighter armor. But critics say its vulnerability to IEDs make it unsuitable for duty in southern Afghanistan.

Hundreds of UN Staffers Temporarily Leaving Afghanistan - Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times. The United Nations is temporarily pulling hundreds of staff members out of Afghanistan while it reviews security arrangements in the wake of an attack by militants on a Kabul guesthouse last week that killed five UN employees, officials said today. UN officials said staff members, scattered in dozens of dwellings in Kabul and around the country, were in many cases protected only by a few Afghan security guards. Taliban spokesmen said the UN was specifically targeted in the Oct. 28 attack because of its involvement in plans for a Nov. 7 presidential runoff election, which has since been canceled. Officials have conducted a security review since the attack and have determined that arrangements for many staffers are inadequate. The UN has about 5,600 employees in Afghanistan, about 80% of them Afghan citizens. Roughly 12% of the total, or about 672 employees, are being moved in what officials characterized as a "limited, short-term" relocation. In many cases, staffers will be back in a matter of weeks, said Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the UN mission in Afghanistan.

Pakistan Army: Troops Reach Key Taliban Strongholds - Voice of America. Pakistan's army says its forces have reached key Taliban strongholds in the region of South Waziristan, as its offensive moves deeper into militant-held territory. The military says troops captured a "major part" of Sararogha and have also entered Ladha. It says "intense fighting" is taking place in the streets of Ladha for control of the town. A military statement says 30 militants have been killed in South Waziristan in the last day. The statement says eight troops have been wounded. The army's casualty claims are rarely independently verified because journalists and aid workers are largely banned from the battle zone. Meanwhile, India is denying Pakistani allegations it is assisting the Taliban and other insurgents during Pakistan's ongoing offensive in South Waziristan. Indian Foreign Secretary Nirumpama Rao says India wants a stable and peaceful Pakistan. Pakistani officials say their forces in South Waziristan have seized Indian-made guns, bombs and medicine.

IRAQ

US Keeps a Low Profile Ahead of Iraq Elections - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. As Iraqi lawmakers repeatedly miss deadlines for writing the new law urgently needed for elections to go ahead in January - and for US troops to go home - America's diminishing role in the political process is very much in evidence. Back in 2005, when Iraq's democracy was being formed, it was common for legislators to meet into the small hours of the morning in the presence of US officials, who shuttled between the feuding camps, mediating disputes and pressuring them to stick to the timetable for a new constitution and for elections to be held. Four years later, elections are due to be held again, and the original deadline for the new law came and went three weeks ago, putting at risk the Jan. 16 vote and potentially delaying the withdrawal of the remaining US combat forces next year. This time around, US diplomats have adopted a noticeably lower profile, ceding the lead mediation role to the United Nations and emphasizing the need for Iraqis to solve their own problems. With the time needed to prepare for the elections ticking away, Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday telephoned Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, and parliamentary speaker Iyad Samarrai, a Sunni Arab, urging them to accept a UN proposal for resolving the deadlock. The men are key players in a dispute over voting procedures in the long-contested province of Kirkuk that is holding up an agreement.

Brigade Tests New Concept in Iraq - Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service. The first new “advise and assist” brigades already in Iraq and others slated to arrive soon have a big leg up on their new mission, thanks to the groundwork laid by the “Highlander” brigade, which provided a test bed for the new concept. The 1st Armored Division’s 4th Brigade has been on the ground in Iraq since April, conducting the initial advise and assist operations to pass on to the first officially designated AAB, explained Army Col. Peter Newell, the brigade commander. The Defense Department announced in July plans to send four of the new brigades to Iraq beginning this fall to train and mentor Iraqi security forces. The brigades will focus less on traditional combat operations and more on advising, assisting and developing capabilities within the Iraqi security forces, Newell said. They also will conduct coordinated counterterrorism missions and support the State Department’s provincial reconstruction teams and other US interagency partners in Iraq. The first units assigned the mission are the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams based at Fort Stewart Ga., and its 3rd BCT at Fort Benning, Ga.; and the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd BCT at Fort Carson, Colo. In addition, the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade, which recently arrived in Iraq, has taken on the AAB mission. Newell’s job has been to help the new brigades determine what specific skills to train for and how to organize themselves to better conduct their new mission, he told American Forces Press Service by phone from Iraq.

IRAN

Iranian Opposition Protesters Hijack Government Rally - Edward Yeranian, Voice of America. Iranian police have clashed with opposition demonstrators who tried to take over a government sanctioned protest organized to mark the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran. A government crackdown on the anti-government demonstrators turned violent in some places. An officially sponsored government rally devolved into rival protests Wednesday as tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of the Iranian capital, some of them renewing opposition protests against the conduct of the recent election campaign. Anti-government protesters were dealt with by force, as a government crackdown turned violent. Government backed demonstrators at the initial rally outside the old US Embassy in Tehran shouted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." A pro-government speaker also addressed the crowd, praising the Islamic Republic, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and it's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Meanwhile, in Tehran's nearby Hafte-Tir Square, thousands of opposition demonstrators shouting anti-government slogans, including "Death to the dictator", and "Down with (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Khamenei" were met by anti-riot police and Basij militiamen waving batons and firing tear gas. Eyewitnesses report numerous injuries and dozens of arrests. Scores of volunteer Basij militiamen also drove their motorbikes into crowds, to disperse them.

In Iran, Rival Rallies Show Rift Endures - Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets Wednesday to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran, but the annual state-sponsored anti-American rally turned into another sign of the deep divisions persisting in this country. As pro-government demonstrators ritually chanted "Death to America!" outside the former US Embassy, opposition protesters used the occasion to vent their anger over a disputed presidential election in June and the harsh crackdown on subsequent protests. Converging on a square about half a mile from the former embassy, the opposition marchers denounced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with shouts of "Death to the dictator!" The rival demonstrations - and ensuing street clashes between protesters and security forces - illustrated the split that has come to define Iran three decades after Islamic revolutionaries overthrew the US-backed shah and branded America "the Great Satan." While Iran's ruling ayatollahs and government leaders maintain their entrenched distrust of and enmity toward the United States, the young people who form the bulk of Iran's population have no memory of those revolutionary days, and many opposition supporters favor a more open society and greater international engagement. The government has struggled to quell protests for five months, deploying security forces on the streets of Tehran and officially banning opposition demonstrations. Yet, on Wednesday, anti-government demonstrators openly defied the ban, even as police fired tear gas and warning shots. In video clips captured by cellphone cameras, helmeted police officers could be seen beating protesters, including women, with batons.

Dissidents Mass in Tehran to Subvert an Anti-US Rally - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. Iran’s beleaguered opposition movement struggled to reassert itself on Wednesday, as tens of thousands of protesters braved police beatings and clouds of tear gas on the sidelines of a major, government-sponsored anti-American rally. The protests - in Tehran and other cities - were the opposition’s largest street showing in almost two months and came on the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the United States Embassy in Iran, an event that was a crucible for both Iran and the United States. Although a huge force of police officers beat back and scattered many of them, the protesters took heart at their ability to openly challenge the government despite a stream of warnings from all levels of Iran’s conservative establishment. Even some government authorities seemed to grudgingly concede that the opposition had - for the first time - disrupted the annual anti-American rally. The official IRNA news agency reported in midafternoon that “rioters,” many wearing the opposition’s signature green color, had gathered in front of its offices on Valiasr Street chanting “Death to the dictator” and other antigovernment slogans. At the same time, a new theme emerged, with many protesters declaring their impatience with President Obama’s policy of dialogue with the Iranian government. Many could be heard chanting, “Obama, Obama - either you’re with them or you’re with us,” witnesses said.

Iranians Stage Major Demonstration - Farnaz Fassihi, Wall Street Journal. Thousands of protesters in Iran took a day of annual anti-American rallies commemorating the siege of the US Embassy and turned it into a major protest against their government. Security forces fired tear gas and clashed violently with opposition protesters in cities across Iran, after demonstrators used the 30th anniversary of the storming of the embassy as cover for their first significant action in weeks. "It has been a good day for the opposition. They have come out in big numbers and succeeded in hijacking what the regime was hoping would be a rally against US foreign policy," said Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Denver. Amateur videos support eyewitness accounts of tens of thousands of people, in scattered clusters, marching in the streets of Tehran as well as in other big cities such as Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz and Rasht. The security presence was strong and organized, witnesses say, and focused on dispersing the crowds. University campuses across Iran also erupted, as students staged sit-ins and protests against the government. n Tehran, security forces attacked opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, firing tear gas at him, according to Mohamad Taghi Karroubi, the cleric's son, on the opposition's "Mowjcamp" Web site. Mr. Karroubi suffered slight skin injuries, but one of his bodyguards was seriously hurt, according to the account. "Today the government of the coup proved once again that it will stop at nothing to crush the massive wave of demonstrations," said a statement by the opposition posted on the site.

In Iran, Anti-government Protests Rival Anti-America Rally - Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times. A cry from the streets of Tehran put Iranian attitudes toward America at the center of a day of violent clashes Wednesday. "Obama, Obama!" protesters chanted on a day marking the 30th anniversary of the United States Embassy takeover. "Either you're with them, or with us." The poignant slogan came in contrast to that of nearby government supporters and schoolchildren draped in Iranian flags, who chanted, "Death to America!" reiterating the rallying cry of the Islamic Revolution, which toppled US-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, establishing Iran as the world's first modern theocracy. Radical students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, holding American personnel hostage for 444 days in a move that severed official ties between Tehran and Washington and ushered in an era of deep hostility between the two countries. The day is traditionally used by the Iranian government to whip up anti-American furor. State television showed thousands of Iranians, mostly schoolchildren, carrying placards and chanting near the site of the former embassy. "The Americans are scared of religious democracy in our country more than anything else," lawmaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said at the official rally. "This is because Iran's religious democracy could turn into a role model in other countries." But protesters who claim that the June 12 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was fraudulent subverted the event, battling security forces into the night and turning large stretches of the Iranian capital into scenes of chaos and violence.

Protesters Attacked by Militiamen as Iranian Regime Faces Revolt on Anti-US Day - Martin Fletcher, The Times. Violence erupted in Tehran yesterday as tens of thousands took to the streets to attack the regime on a day that was supposed to be dedicated to condemning America. The regime marked the 30th anniversary of the storming of the US Embassy with an official rally outside the former diplomatic compound - but elsewhere, security forces fought running battles with protesters who packed the streets of the capital in defiance of regime warnings. Opposition videos showed riot police and Basij militiamen clubbing men and women and charging into crowds of demonstrators, leaving many with bloody head wounds. The protests were smaller than in the immediate aftermath of June’s disputed presidential election, but were matched by demonstrations in several other Iranian cities. Opposition figures said that they were large enough to make the point: despite five months of brutal suppression, the opposition had not been crushed.

Iran's Nuclear Diversion - Ray Takeyh, Washington Post opinion. As the Obama administration grapples with the conundrum of Iran, it must balance its proliferation concerns with its moral responsibilities. Iran's post-election tremors have hardly subsided; in fact, the regime is systematically eviscerating its democratic opposition. Amid their merciless efforts to consolidate power, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies see discussion of the nuclear program as a means to silence the criticism that their domestic behavior merits. In the coming months, Iran will no doubt seek to prolong negotiations by accepting and then rejecting agreed-upon compacts and offering countless counterproposals. The United States and its allies must decide how to approach an Iranian diplomatic stratagem born out of cynical desire to clamp down on peaceful dissent with relative impunity. International scrutiny remains trained on Iran's nuclear program, but outside that glare, the structure and orientation of the Revolutionary Guards are changing dramatically. The regime in Tehran is establishing the infrastructure for repression.

IRAN / SYRIA / HEZBOLLAH

Israel Seizes Ship Loaded With Weapons - Robert Berger, Voice of America. Israel says it has seized an arms shipment on the high seas and it is pointing a finger at Iran. Israeli naval commandos stormed onto a ship loaded with weapons near Cyprus and took it to Israel's southern port of Ashdod. The vessel was flying an Antiguan flag and disguised as an aid ship. The military says 54 metric tons of weapons were on board, including missiles, anti-tank weapons and mortars. Israeli military officials say the weapons were from Iran and the shipment was destined for the Islamic guerrilla group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iranian officials had no immediate comment on the allegations. Shaul Mofaz, an Israeli parliamentarian and former army chief of staff, says a radical axis of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza are trying to destabilize the Middle East. Mofaz told Israel Radio that the ship was carrying weapons with one intention: to harm Israeli civilians. During the month-long Lebanon War in 2006, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets across the border at Israel. Now, Israel says Iran and Syria are rearming Hezbollah in violation of a United Nations ceasefire resolution. Mofaz said it is clear that Hezbollah is arming and preparing for the next war.

Israeli Commandos Seize Ship 'Carrying Arms to Hezbollah' - James Hider, The Times. Israeli special forces have seized a cargo ship carrying 500 tonnes of weapons that military officials said were being delivered from Iran to its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. A squad of small Israeli swift boats sped up to the Francop, an Antiguan-flagged freighter, just before midnight on Tuesday and boarded the craft off the coast of Cyprus. The crew offered no resistance and the charter company insisted that it had no idea there were large amounts of missiles, rockets, shells, grenades and assault rifles hidden in containers in the hull. The haul was by far the largest interception of weapons smuggling since an Israeli raid in the Red Sea in 2002 on the Karine A, a ship carrying arms from Iran to Hamas, another Iranian proxy which now controls the Gaza Strip. Tuesday’s raid comes amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran, whose President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has vowed the wipe the Jewish state off the map. Danny Ayalon, the Israeli deputy Foreign Minister, told The Times that the interception was just the “tip of the iceberg”, adding that Israeli intelligence showed an increasing volume and frequency of Iranian shipments to its militia allies in the region.

Israel Says Seized Ship Contained Iranian Arms - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. The Israeli navy said Wednesday that commandos had seized a container ship carrying a huge cache of weapons that originated in Iran and was ultimately destined for the militia of the Islamist Hezbollah movement. As part of its routine inspection of ships in the Mediterranean Sea, the Israeli navy intercepted the vessel Tuesday night near Cyprus, roughly 100 miles off the Israeli coast. There was no resistance from the ship's crew, and once Israeli special forces boarded, they found an estimated 600 tons of rockets, guns and other munitions, said Rear Adm. Rani Ben-Yehuda, deputy head of the Israeli navy. Flying under an Antiguan flag, the ship, called the Francop, was carrying cargo loaded in Damietta, Egypt, and bound for Latakia in Syria, Israeli defense officials said. Some of the ship's 500 containers were stamped with the insignia of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, and 36 of them were found to contain arms. Other documents found on board identified the cargo as originating in Iran, Ben-Yehuda said. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking from Tehran, denied that Iranian arms were bound for Syria and said "pirates" had disrupted legitimate trade between Syria and Iran, news services reported.

UNITED STATES

Pentagon Expected to Request More War Funding - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times. The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget. The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month. The military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not say how much additional money would be needed, but one figure in circulation within the Pentagon and among outside defense budget analysts is $50 billion. Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House appropriations defense subcommittee, cited $40 billion last week as a hypothetical amount for the supplemental financing request. The number represented a standard calculation of $1 billion for every 1,000 troops deployed. Defense officials said the final request would depend on the number of additional troops Mr. Obama decided to send to Afghanistan.

AMERICAS

Mexican Pot Gangs Infiltrate Indian Reservations in US - Joel Millman, Wall Street Journal. Police Chief Carmen Smith says he knows three things about suspected drug trafficker Artemio Corona: He's from Mexico, prefers a Glock .40-caliber handgun, and is quite possibly growing marijuana on the Indian reservation that Mr. Smith patrols. Last year, Mr. Smith's detectives identified Mr. Corona as the alleged mastermind behind several large marijuana plantations on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon. These "grows," as police call them, had a harvest of 12,000 adult plants, with an estimated street value of $10 million. Five suspects were arrested and pleaded guilty to federal trafficking charges. But their alleged boss, Mr. Corona, who has not been indicted, remains a "person of interest" to federal authorities and hasn't been found. Cultivating marijuana in Indian country represents a new twist in the decades-old illicit drug trade between Mexico and the US, the world's largest drug-consuming market. For decades, Mexican drug gangs grew marijuana in Mexico, smuggled it across the border, and sold it in the US But in the past few years, they have done what any burgeoning business would do: move closer to their customers. Illicit pot farms, the vast majority run by gangs with ties to Mexico, are growing fast across the country. The US Forest Service has discovered pot farms in 61 national forests across 16 states this year, up from 49 forests in 10 states last year. New territories include public land in Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Alabama and Virginia.

Obama Must Stand Firm on Honduras Crisis - Los Angeles Times editorial. The Obama administration last week brokered what looked like a promising deal to end the political crisis in Honduras. Sadly, this week it already is fraying. The de facto leaders of Honduras are foot-dragging, prompting President Manuel Zelaya, whom they ousted in a civilian-military coup four months ago, to issue an ultimatum from his refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. Both sides need to stand down and focus on restoring democracy before the country's Nov. 29 presidential election. The Obama administration, meanwhile, must hold firm to its principles and quit backing away from its stated belief that Zelaya should be allowed to serve out the remaining three months of his term. Under the accord, the two sides were to form a national unity government by today and let the Honduran Congress decide whether to return Zelaya to office. Although the agreement did not set a date for the vote or specifically guarantee Zelaya's restitution, it called for "an end to the situation facing the country." The deposed president signed, in the apparent belief that the vote would be a formality and that he would be back in office within a week. The de facto leader, Roberto Micheletti, seemed to be compromising in order to secure international backing for the next election and an end to the country's isolation. The European Union, the Organization of American States and the US had said they wouldn't recognize the next president if Zelaya weren't returned to office first.

ASIA PACIFIC

US Envoy Urges Burma to Make Concrete Steps Toward Democracy - Voice of America. The most senior US diplomat to visit Burma in 14 years says Washington wants better relations with that Southeast Asian country, if its military government takes concrete steps toward democracy. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell ended a two-day visit to Burma Wednesday, after meeting with members of the government and the opposition. He also met privately in Rangoon with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, following talks with Prime Minister Thein Sein in the administrative capital, Naypyidaw. At the end of his visit, Campbell said in a statement issued by the US embassy in Rangoon he urged Burma's government to open dialogue with its opposition and ethnic groups, and to work toward national reconciliation and a fully inclusive political process in Burma. Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level American officials to visit Burma since 1995. The US delegation held talks with Burma's Cabinet ministers Tuesday. Campbell met with Burma's top diplomats in September in New York, after the Obama administration announced it is reversing the previous US policy of isolating Burma. But Washington has said there will be no easing of sanctions against the regime until it demonstrates tangible progress.

US Officials Meet with Myanmar Activist Aung San Suu Kyi - Charles McDermid, Los Angeles Times. Senior US officials were allowed to meet Wednesday with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement, in a further sign of thawing relations between Washington and the Asian nation's secretive military government. A high-ranking group led by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top American diplomat for East Asia, met privately with the Nobel Peace Prize winner for two hours at a hotel in Yangon, also known as Rangoon. Campbell also held talks with top generals in the government, including Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein and leaders of Suu Kyi's political party. The talks represent the most senior-level exchange since Madeleine Albright visited Myanmar, also known as Burma, in 1995 when she was the chief US representative to the United Nations. In Washington, officials said the visit was designed to explore ways to repair relations between the nations while reassuring democracy activists that the Obama administration remained committed to them. Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said Campbell told Myanmar's rulers that the US was prepared to improve ties, "but it will be a step-by-step process and must be based on reciprocal and concrete efforts by the Burmese government." He also repeated the long-standing US call for the release of Suu Kyi.

US Diplomat Meets Myanmar’s Top Dissident and Urges Junta to Work With Her - Thomas Fuller, New York Times. A senior American diplomat who completed a rare visit to Myanmar on Wednesday said that Washington would improve relations with the nation if its military government embraced reconciliation with Myanmar’s democratic opposition. “We stated clearly that the United States is prepared to take steps to improve the relationship, but that the process must be based on reciprocal and concrete efforts by the Burmese government,” the diplomat, Kurt M. Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said in a statement before boarding a plane for Thailand. Mr. Campbell is the highest-ranking American official to hold substantive talks in Myanmar, formerly Burma, in more than a decade, and he described his trip as an “exploratory mission.” After a two-hour meeting on Wednesday with the leader of the country’s beleaguered democracy movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Mr. Campbell urged the government to allow her “more frequent interactions” with members of her party, the National League for Democracy, which won elections in 1990 that were ignored by the ruling generals. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has been held under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years and is allowed only infrequent meetings with anyone outside her home. Mr. Campbell is the most senior American representative she has met since 1995. Mr. Campbell’s trip is part of a broader policy review announced by the Obama administration to engage Myanmar after years of diplomatic isolation and sanctions. American officials say they have no immediate plans to lift the sanctions, which ban most trade and investment in the country by American companies.

EUROPE

Italian Judge Convicts 23 in CIA Kidnap Case - Voice of America. An Italian judge has convicted 23 Americans of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from Milan in 2003. The landmark case is the first involving the CIA's controversial "extraordinary rendition" program. The Milan judge sentenced the CIA's Milan station chief at the time, Robert Seldon Lady to eight years in prison Wednesday and the 22 others to five years. All of the Americans were tried in absentia, and are not in custody. A US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the Obama administration is disappointed by the verdicts, but he offered no further comment because the judge in Milan did not file a written opinion. The judge also gave three-year prison sentences to two Italians involved in the kidnapping. Three other American defendants and five Italians, including Italy's former military intelligence chief, were acquitted. "Extraordinary rendition," as practiced by the CIA, involved secretly transferring terror suspects between countries, placing them in locations where they could be intensively interrogated. Prosecutors say the Egyptian cleric, suspected terrorist Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr (also known as Abu Omar), was abducted from a Milan street and sent to Egypt, where he was repeatedly tortured. The Italian government has denied any role in the renditions program, which was approved by the administration of former US President George W. Bush.

Italy Convicts 23 Americans for CIA Renditions - Rachel Donadio, New York Times. In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge on Wednesday convicted a base chief for the Central Intelligence Agency and 22 other Americans, almost all CIA operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003. The case was a huge symbolic victory for Italian prosecutors, who drew the first convictions involving the American practice of rendition, in which terrorism suspects are captured in one country and taken for questioning in another, often one more open to coercive interrogation techniques. Critics of the Bush administration have long hailed the case as a repudiation of the tactics it used to fight terrorism. And the fact that Italy would actually convict intelligence agents of an allied country was seen as a bold move that could set a precedent in other cases. Still, the convictions may have little practical effect. They do not seem to change the close relations between the United States and Italy. Nor did they reveal whether the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had approved the kidnapping. And it seemed highly unlikely that anyone, Italian or American, would spend any time in prison.

Italian Court Convicts 23 Americans in CIA Rendition Case; Extradition Undecided - Craig Whitlock, Washington Post. An Italian court convicted 22 CIA operatives and a US Air Force colonel on kidnapping charges Wednesday in a stern rebuke to the US government's long-standing practice of covertly seizing terrorism suspects abroad without a warrant. The guilty verdicts are the only instance in which CIA operatives have faced a criminal trial for the controversial tactic of extraordinary rendition, under which terrorism suspects are abducted in one country and forcibly transported to another. The CIA began carrying out renditions during the Clinton administration but intensified their frequency under orders from the Bush White House after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The Obama administration said in August that it would continue the practice, but pledged to take steps to ensure that rendition targets are not tortured, either by the CIA or by foreign spy agencies. In winning the guilty verdicts, Italian prosecutors took a contrary view, saying they were determined to enforce the law in spite of political pressure from Rome and Washington to drop the case. "This decision sends a clear message to all governments that even in the fight against terrorism you can't forsake the basic rights of our democracies," said Armando Spataro, the deputy Milan public prosecutor. The Americans were charged with snatching a Muslim cleric off the street here in 2003 and covertly flying him to Cairo.

Italy Judge Convicts 23 Americans in 2003 CIA Kidnapping of Egyptian Cleric - Maria De Cristofaro and Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times. An Italian judge on Wednesday convicted 23 Americans of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan in 2003, a sweeping verdict against one of the CIA's most valued anti-terrorism tools - the practice known as extraordinary rendition. The decision was a victory for Italian anti-terrorism prosecutors and police who spent six years building a massive case. The two-year trial exposed details of a secretive world and was the first anywhere to challenge the program under which the CIA abducted suspects and spirited them to other countries for interrogation. A clandestine team of US and Italian operatives abducted Hassan Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, a Muslim cleric suspected of recruiting militants to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. He was flown to Egypt, where he claims to have undergone months of torture and abuse. The case sparked an international uproar, and the governments of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his predecessor tried repeatedly to scuttle the trial. Judge Oscar Magi acquitted three other Americans, including the former CIA station chief in Italy, because they had diplomatic immunity. Magi also set aside charges against five Italian intelligence officials, including the former chief and deputy chief of Italy's spy agency, ruling they were protected by a state secrets law. But he convicted two other Italians.

In Unified Germany, Split Over the Past - Craig Whitlock, Washington Post. As Germans prepare to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - a spontaneous burst of freedom that led to the collapse of communism in Europe - the country remains divided in its memories of the old days. Many residents of the former East Germany resent what they say is an unfair characterization of their country as a "criminal state" by their counterparts in the west. Instead, they say, the German Democratic Republic was a well-intentioned, if flawed, experiment in socialism that denounced the evils of the Nazis. In a survey commissioned by the federal government to assess how Germans feel today about the events of 1989, 57 percent of those in the eastern half of the country said life under communist rule was, on balance, more positive than negative. "What people really are saying is, 'I didn't do everything wrong, I didn't live in vain,' " said Gabriele Haubold, an architect and city planner in Eisenhuettenstadt, which was founded as a model socialist city but has suffered since 1989, losing more than one-third of its population. "People think back to how it was in the GDR, how it was different, how we had work, how there was a safety net so you didn't have to worry about things," she said. "But, of course, you also have to remember that there was a price to pay for all this."

MIDDLE EAST

Clinton Has 'Productive Meeting' with Egypt on Mideast Peace Process - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. After four days of Arab criticism over her efforts to break the impasse in the Mideast peace process, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoyed a respite here Wednesday, as her Egyptian counterpart agreed it was time to "focus on the endgame" of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit made clear he did not share Clinton's positive interpretation of Israel's offer of a partial moratorium on West Bank settlements, which just three days ago he described as "not reasonable or acceptable" as the basis for the Palestinians to return to the bargaining table. "We feel that Israel is hindering the process ... [and] putting on conditions in order to continue settlement activities, even if limited," Gheit said. He spoke at a news conference with Clinton after she met with President Hosni Mubarak. But in the city where President Obama last summer delivered his much-praised outreach speech to the Islamic world, the Egyptians at least appeared disinclined to publicly criticize his secretary of state. While not directly endorsing Clinton's outline for new negotiations, Gheit said he agreed that "we should not waste time."

Clinton Backs Peace Talks Before Israeli Settlement Freeze - Mark Landler and Alan Cowell, New York Times. Winding up a Middle East tour, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeated on Wednesday that while the Obama administration rejects the legitimacy of Israeli settlement expansion, it nonetheless believes that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should precede a permanent freeze on such construction. Her arguments conflicted with Arab and Palestinian demands that all settlement activity be frozen as a precondition for resuming talks with Israel. Mrs. Clinton was speaking to reporters after meetings here with President Hosni Mubarak and other Egyptian officials. During Mrs. Clinton’s regional diplomacy, Arab officials have expressed anger at her readiness to promote a proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel for a moratorium on new housing units in the West Bank that would allow building or finishing about 3,000 more units and exclude East Jerusalem from any construction limits. In a speech Tuesday and in meetings with Arab foreign ministers during a conference of Arab and Western nations in Marrakesh, Morocco, Mrs. Clinton made it clear that the Israeli government would not agree to President Obama’s call for a complete halt to settlement construction. Instead she depicted Mr. Netanyahu’s offer as a reasonable compromise that could still form the basis for progress.

Administration Missteps Hamper Mideast Efforts - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. President Obama came into office insisting that his administration would press hard and fast to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But after nine months, analysts and diplomats say, the administration's efforts have faltered in part because of its own missteps. As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made clear during her Middle East trip, which ended Wednesday, U.S. officials are now promoting new tactics -- what they called the "baby steps" of lower-level talks -- to bring the Israeli and Palestinian leaders together for direct talks. But the dynamics have changed since Obama named a special envoy to the region on his second day in office and tried to make a fresh start. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whom the administration once would have been happy to see undermined, has been strengthened - while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whom the administration had hoped to bolster, has been weakened. "There was an excess of zeal at first," said Edward S. Walker Jr., who was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the Clinton administration. "It is a noble endeavor to try to hammer out peace. But you have to look at the relationships. You have to read the players. They got out in front of studying the problem and were anxious to show progress." Daniel Levy, a veteran Israeli peace negotiator now at the Century Foundation in Washington, summed up the administration's efforts in recent days as "amateur night at the Apollo Theater." He said the administration did not game out the consequences of its demands on the parties - and then flinched. "They just dug deeper and deeper their own grave," he said. "All of this talk of negotiations doesn't cut the mustard in the region."

UN Takes Up Report on Israeli Palestinian War Crimes - Margaret Besheer, Voice of America. The UN General Assembly began discussion Wednesday of a UN report on war crimes allegedly committed by Palestinian militants and the Israeli army during Israel's offensive last December in the Gaza Strip. Arab and non-aligned nations introduced a resolution calling on the two parties to launch credible investigations of alleged war crimes within three months. The report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council found that both sides committed serious human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law. But the council reserved its harshest criticism for Israeli actions, saying Israel used disproportionate force and failed to take adequate measures to protect civilians during its campaign to silence Hamas rocket attacks. Israel has dismissed the report and did not cooperate with the UN fact-finding mission, led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone. Addressing the General Assembly, Israel's Ambassador Gabriela Shalev repeated her government's position that Israel was acting in self-defense. She called the commission's mandate "one-sided" and characterized the Human Rights Council as obsessed with Israel. She said the report was conceived in "hate" and its conclusions "predetermined." "Today's debate is anything but genuine and candid. Rather than discuss how to better stop terrorist groups who deliberately target civilians, this body launches yet another campaign against the victims of terrorism - the people of Israel," said Shalev. Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said the Palestinian authorities take very seriously the allegations in the Goldstone report regarding possible violations by Hamas. But he said there is no comparison between their actions and those of Israel.

The Mideast Impasse - Washington Post editorial. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has participated in peace negotiations with five Israeli governments that refused to halt Jewish settlement construction. Yet Mr. Abbas has rejected an appeal from the Obama administration to start talks with the center-right coalition of Binyamin Netanyahu, putting one of the administration's primary foreign policy goals on indefinite hold. The reason: "America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze," a statement said. Has Mr. Abbas suddenly realized that settlements are the key obstacle to a Palestinian state? Hardly: In private, senior Palestinian officials readily concede that the issue is secondary. Instead, the Palestinian pose is a product of the Obama administration's missteps -- and also of the fact that the opportunity Mr. Obama said he perceived to broker a two-state settlement is not so visible to leaders in the region. The administration set the stage last spring for this diplomatic impasse by demanding "a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth -- any kind of settlement activity," as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it. No Israeli government has agreed to such terms, and the administration's public insistence on them only served to boost Mr. Netanyahu's approval rating with Israelis, while Mr. Obama's plummeted to the single digits. The administration now wants to set the issue aside and move on with the talks; officials say a settlement freeze was never a precondition. But Ms. Clinton is having trouble clambering out of the hole she helped to dig.

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.