1. The Saudi-Iranian proxy war escalates: good news for the U.S.,
2. Sri Lanka's civil war is not really over.
The Saudi-Iranian proxy war escalates: good news for the U.S.
A sectarian rebellion in northern Yemen has now become an open contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran for influence over Yemen and the Gulf of Aden region. This week the Saudis brought their air and naval power to bear against Yemen's Houthi rebels -- Shiite insurgents very likely supported by Iran -- after a Houthi incursion into Saudi territory. Iran responded by warning Saudi Arabia to stay out of the conflict. What remains to be seen is whether this conflict will create and harden a Sunni-Arab alliance that might someday effectively contain Iran.
According to the New York Times, the Houthis captured a strategic mountain near the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border and clashed with a Saudi border patrol on Nov. 3. The Saudi response was a sustained air and artillery campaign against Houthi positions inside Yemen. On Nov 10 Saudi naval forces began a blockade of Yemen's coast in order to cut the Houthis off from resupply. The Saudi and Yemeni governments believe that Iran is supplying the rebels with weapons, though Tehran denies it.
Why has Saudi Arabia felt the need to overtly intervene in what was previously an internal Yemeni dispute? According to the United Nations, the latest flare-up in the Houthi insurrection has created 175,000 refugees. Breaking the insurgency might curtail the refugee crisis and prevent it from spilling over into Saudi Arabia.
At the geostrategic level, Saudi leaders might fear the creation of a pro-Iranian Shiite enclave adjacent to the Red Sea shipping lane, similar to what Iran has achieved with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. From the Saudi perspective, it would be best to strangle that possibility immediately.
Other players are taking note of the escalation in the Houthi conflict and making their own arrangements. On Nov. 11 Yemen disclosed that it had signed a military cooperation deal with the United States; the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Separately, the growing friction between Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-Arab states in the Gulf region on the other seems to be good news for arms exporters. According to Bloomberg News, major U.S. and European defense contractors expect $40 billion in sales over the next five years to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to upgrade aircraft, missile, and naval systems.
Aside from the stimulus such spending would provide to U.S. manufacturing, U.S. officials should be pleased by this reaction. Any stable end-state to possible Iranian ambitions will require Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states to balance Iranian power. Accomplishing that will require more resolve and teamwork than the Sunni Arab states have demonstrated so far. If the proxy war generated by the Houthi rebellion achieves this response from the gulf countries, it would greatly serve U.S. interests in the region.
Sri Lanka's civil war is not really over
When does a war really end? Last May, the Sri Lankan army overran the last holdout of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the insurgent group that for 26 years had battled for a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north. The final, bloody battle seemed decisive -- the Tigers' founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran, his son, and many other top leaders of the LTTE were killed. The Tigers' sanctuary was vanquished. The army herded the LTTE's remaining foot-soldiers, along with the population that supported them, into razor-wire encampments.
Six months later, the guarded refugee camps remain. Might the embryo of a new Tamil insurgency be growing inside the camps? On the one hand, Sri Lanka's leaders likely understand that the longer the refugee situation remains unresolved, the higher the probability rises for another Tamil insurgency. On the other hand, after experiencing a long, bitter, and extremely violent civil war, these leaders are in no mind to gamble with their recent victory.
In The Utility of Force, his brilliant analysis of modern war, Rupert Smith asserted that today's conflicts, especially the ethnic variety, are never actually resolved. The best a policymaker can hope for, wrote Smith, is to contain over time their intensity and consequences. This is exactly the situation Sri Lanka now faces.
Sri Lanka's leaders are apparently hoping to prove Smith wrong. According to a recent Washington Post story, the government is using its lock-down of the Tamils to sift through the population of military-aged males in search of suspected Tiger sympathizers. By separating possible insurgent organizers from the rest of the Tamil population, the government hopes to permanently end Tamil resistance.
The Sri Lankan government may need to hurry up its search for potential troublemakers. It faces the possibility of a United Nations war crimes investigation and is under increasing pressure from the European Union and the United States to explain its resettlement policies.
Sri Lanka's leaders are likely counting on diplomatic contact with the West, combined with some well-publicized initial resettlement efforts, to remove the internment camp story from the news. This would provide the Sri Lanka security services with more time to track down and isolate potential insurgents who might be lurking in the camps.
Will Sri Lanka's government show how to permanently resolve a stubborn ethnic conflict? As Smith explained, modern history provides no good examples. We should bet that the Sri Lankan Way will be no different.
Forget the Vietnam analogies. Influential Australian counterinsurgency adviser, David Kilcullen, says the Obama administration risks a Suez style disaster if it fails to deploy the troop numbers requested by Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
The deep divisions within the administration that have burst into the open in recent weeks along with the long delay in answering McChrystal's plea for more troops has created deep concerns among NATO allies and has presented an exploitable opportunity for the Taliban, Kilcullen tells Britain's Guardian newspaper.
Kilcullen, who is an adviser to the State Department, says it would be irresponsible for the administration to opt for any kind of middle ground option that sends less than the 40,000 troops requested by McChrystal. "Time is running out for us to make a decision. We can either put in enough troops to control the environment or we can credibly communicate our intention to leave. Either could work. Splitting the difference is not the way to go," he is quoted as saying...
A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise. David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy". He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit. Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, he compared the president to someone "pontificating" over whether to send enough firefighters into a burning building to put a fire out.
He was speaking as Obama left Washington for a nine-day trip to Asia without announcing a decision on troop numbers. The options being considered by the US have been narrowed down to four: sending 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000, the latter the figure requested by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. These would be on top of 68,000 US troops already deployed. The deep divisions with the Obama administration were exposed yesterday by leaked diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who urged Obama to ignore McChrystal's request unless the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, cleaned up his corrupt government...
While on his way today to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates revealed to reporters (in the course of blasting anonymous leakers) a few snippets from the Obama administration's review of Afghan policy. According to the AFPS article, Gates said "Obama appears to be leaning toward [a policy option] that combines parts of various alternatives presented so far."
Gates went on to say:
The question, [Gates] said, comes down to "How do we signal resolve, and at the same time, signal to the Afghans and the American people that this is not open-ended?"
If President Obama and his team are waiting until they come up with an answer to that dilemma, it is no longer a mystery why the review is taking so long. Sorry, you can't commit to both the long road and the exit ramp at the same time -- you have to pick one or the other.
The very fact that the administration is still trying to figure out an elegant solution to this insoluble dilemma sends a strong signal, a signal that explains and motivates the behavior of various actors in ways unpleasant to the administration. Examples include:
1. Pakistan hedging its bets by continuing to protect the Afghan Taliban,
2. Providing the Afghan Taliban with an excellent recruiting and motivational tool, and guidance on how to adjust the tempo of their operations,
3. President Hamid Karzai hedging his bets by cutting side deals with Afghanistan's power players,
4. Local Afghans accepting U.S. assistance but also hedging by not resisting the Taliban (as reported by Bing West in his trip report),
5. U.S. conventional combat units doing their own form of hedging by getting passive and increasingly just going through the motions (also reported by West),
6. Anonymous leakers inside the administration attempting to preemptively cripple policy options they don't like.
When Gates said, "signal to the Afghans and the American people that this is not open-ended," I assume the Afghans he had in mind were Karzai, other top officials in the Afghan government, and officers in the army and police. He apparently wants to motivate those particular Afghans to make a better effort defending their country.
I doubt he was referring to the Taliban and the broad civilian population. They too are Afghans and have very likely received the message that "this is not open-ended."
The US ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more US troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is —to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior US officials said. Karl W. Eikenberry's memos, sent as President Obama enters the final stages of his deliberations over a new Afghanistan strategy, illustrated both the difficulty of the decision and the deepening divisions within the administration's national security team. After a top-level meeting on the issue Wednesday afternoon - Obama's eighth since early last month - the White House issued a statement that appeared to reflect Eikenberry's concerns.
"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended," the statement said. "After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time." On the eve of his nine-day trip to Asia, Obama was given a series of options laid out laid out by military planners with differing numbers of new US deployments, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for scaling back the US presence in Afghanistan or delaying the dispatch of additional troops...
President Barack Obama expressed fresh doubts about the credibility of Afghanistan's government in high-level discussions Wednesday over what troops to send there, after his ambassador to Kabul warned against any reinforcements until the Afghan regime cracks down on corruption. US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent two classified cables to Washington in recent days raising serious concerns about the military's recommendation to increase troop levels, according to three US officials. Mr. Eikenberry criticized Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent behavior as well as corruption in the top ranks of his administration, according to an official who saw the memos. Mr. Karzai has in recent interviews lashed out at the US and blamed corruption on international organizations working in his country.
In Wednesday's meeting, which Mr. Eikenberry attended via videoconference, Mr. Obama discussed options for adding troops for nearly 2½ hours. Two of the options were previously proposed by his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. A new "hybrid" option has recently gained momentum at the Pentagon, combining significant numbers of troops with trainers to improve Afghan forces' capability to secure the country themselves. A White House official said Mr. Obama made requests that could lead to significantly altering any or all of the choices, changing the number of troops involved and the length of their deployment. The official said Mr. Obama asked for specific timelines in each scenario for when US troops would turn over security to Afghan forces. In the past, senior military officials have resisted such timelines...
The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday. The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.
General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, the officials said. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces. This low-end option was one of four alternatives under consideration by Mr. Obama and his war council at a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon. The other three options call for troop levels of around 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000, the three officials said...
I wrote this essay a little more than five years ago, back in April 2004. The story, however, is not dated. Like most soldiers, I've lost some of those I was connected to in these wars we have been fighting. Double digits now, and who knows how many WIA. This is what happens after a decade of combat. Some losses, however, strike closer to home. On this day, we shall remember. This is about one of those whom I will remember.
A Soldier's Soldier
By Robert L. Bateman
On Friday morning we heard the news of the death of Pat Tillman, formerly of the NFL, but most recently of the 75th Ranger Regiment. After September 11 Tillman turned down a renewal of his NFL contract, a contract worth $3.6 million. Instead he joined the Army and became a Soldier.
America will continue to mourn Tillman. There will be numerous tributes in his honor. Already countless sportswriters have expounded on his truncated career. I would be surprised if the NFL does not trot out some memorial to him come the beginning of the season.
This is all well and good. His was honorable service. He placed his life on the line when he did not have to, for reasons wholly unselfish. That is something I respect. Tillman had it all, the American Dream, and he chose to join those of us serving on the ramparts. He did so solely because that was what he thought was the right thing to do. I did not know him.
I did know Bradley Fox.
Bradley Fox was about five foot six. He probably weighed 140 pounds soaking wet. He was raised by his mother alone, his father was not around. He was a high-school dropout. He had dark brown hair which he wore fairly long for an infantryman. But then infantrymen often shave down to the skin on their scalps, so even an inch of hair looks shaggy to us. Fox was his own man.
His grin was infectious. He had this tightly compressed smile, even when he was pissed. You could tell when he was mad because the grin expanded a tad and tightened at the edges. Almost a grimace, but not quite. But even that usually passed quickly. Fox was irrepressible.
Tillman might have been a millionaire. He was probably a good soldier too. There are no bad soldiers in the Ranger Regiment. But Bradley Fox, well, he was the best infantryman I ever saw.
Once upon a time I was his commander.
Fox was a buck sergeant and I was a brand new Captain when we first met. We were both new to our unit, the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, part of the First Cavalry Division. At the time I was waiting for a company command and Fox was the vehicle commander of a Bradley in one of the line companies.
I met him on a freezing day in the field at Fort Hood, Texas. It was the winter of 1993/4. Fox had one Bradley M2 and a few dismounted infantrymen with him. That day he was the "Opposing Force" working against a platoon of four Bradleys about to "attack" his position in training. Using lasers and receptors we would replicate combat. I was the evaluator.
From a distance I watched him do the most incredible things with his Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and his crew. I watched, and that day I learned, quietly. There was nothing I could do to make him better. He was a natural. Fifteen minutes after the start of the exercise all four of the vehicles attacking Fox's outgunned OPFOR were "destroyed" and their dismounted infantry were pinned down. Fox was preparing a counter-attack. I had to stop it there. There was nobody left to continue the attack against this dynamo.
It was 4-1 odds. He was not supposed to be able to win.
Three months later I assumed command of one of the companies. The reconnaissance platoon was part of my company. They were short a sergeant.
Despite the fact that he was the "wrong" specialty for the Scouts I appealed to the battalion commander. I wanted Sergeant Fox in the Scouts, and Sergeant Fox wanted to be a scout. My commander acceded and Fox became one of my soldiers.
Fox was a natural and his soldiers followed him with the sort of devotion that men reserve for true leaders. He was a winner. He was the best this country, or any country, could possibly make.
Bradley Fox and I parted ways, as Soldiers do, when we each moved on to new assignments. We both made the Army our career. I became a Field Grade officer and now work in the Pentagon. Fox climbed the enlisted ranks to Sergeant First Class and was assigned to Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment.
On 14 March Fox was in the turret of his Bradley on a road in Baghdad when an IED went off. It sent shrapnel into his brain stem. He was evacuated to Germany. He never regained consciousness. On 20 April Sergeant First Class Bradley Fox died in the hospital in Germany.
Pat Tillman was a great football player, and he was doubtless a good soldier. I honor his service. But it takes nothing away from him for me to say...he was no Bradley Fox.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday will consider a new compromise plan for adding troops to Afghanistan that would deploy 30,000 to 35,000 new forces, including as many as 10,000 military trainers, over the next year or more. The new scenario combines reinforcements for fighting Taliban insurgents with trainers aimed at rapidly increasing the size and capabilities of Afghan troops to take on more operations themselves. It wouldn't aim to eliminate the Taliban, but weaken it until Afghan forces can secure major population centers themselves.
A senior military official said this hybrid option is now drawing the most attention at the Pentagon. It will be considered along with options already proposed by the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, when President Obama meets Wednesday with his war council at the White House. Officials said Mr. Obama is now expected to unveil his new Afghanistan strategy shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia on Nov. 19. The issue of troop levels has put Mr. Obama in a difficult position. Gen. McChrystal has argued that tens of thousands of additional troops are needed to successfully curb the Taliban's resurgence. But many Democratic lawmakers have signaled they don't support such a buildup, and the American public's support for the war has waned...
In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings, some commentaries have examined the damage to the US Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few have spoken about the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, as an extreme version of what can happen with an overstressed force. This picture of a traumatized military is misleading. Certainly, the Army and the other services are stressed by the demands of combat. But what's striking to me this Veterans Day is how healthy the military is, given all the weight it has been carrying for the country these past eight years. Facing a new and disorienting kind of warfare, the military has learned and adapted. Rather than complain about their problems, soldiers have figured out ways to solve them.
In truth, the US military may be the most resilient part of American society right now. The soldiers are clearly in better shape than the political class that sent them to war and the economic leadership that has mismanaged the economy. (I'd give the same high marks to young civilians who are serving and sacrificing in hard places -- the Peace Corps and medical volunteers I've met abroad and the teachers in tough inner-city schools.) Through all its difficulties, the military has kept its stride. That sense of balance comes partly from the fact that soldiers are anchored to the American bedrock. This includes the stereotypical small towns in the South and Midwest that have military service in their DNA. But it also counts plenty of hardworking, upwardly mobile Hispanic and African American families in urban America that produce some of the best soldiers I know...
World War I -- known at the time as "The Great War" - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of "the war to end all wars."
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations..."
The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.
The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation's history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in its place the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first "Veterans Day Proclamation" which stated: "In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible."
On that same day, President Eisenhower sent a letter to the Honorable Harvey V. Higley, Administrator of Veterans' Affairs (VA), designating him as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee.
In 1958, the White House advised VA's General Counsel that the 1954 designation of the VA Administrator as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee applied to all subsequent VA Administrators. Since March 1989 when VA was elevated to a cabinet level department, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs has served as the committee's chairman.
The Uniform Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) was signed on June 28, 1968, and was intended to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. It was thought that these extended weekends would encourage travel, recreational and cultural activities and stimulate greater industrial and commercial production. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holidays on their original dates.
The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971. It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of our citizens, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978. This action supported the desires of the overwhelming majority of state legislatures, all major veterans service organizations and the American people.
Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.
History of Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day - also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day (the event it commemorates) or Veterans Day - is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.) The day was specifically dedicated by King George V, on 7 November 1919, to the observance of members of the armed forces who were killed during war; this was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.
Common British, Canadian, South African, and ANZAC traditions include two minutes of silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (11:00 am, 11 November), as that marks the time (in the United Kingdom) when armistice became effective.
The Service of Remembrance in many Commonwealth countries generally includes the sounding of "Last Post," followed by the two minutes of silence, followed by the sounding of "Reveille" (or, more commonly, "The Rouse"), and finished by a recitation of the "Ode of Remembrance." The "Flowers of the Forest", "O Valiant Hearts", "I Vow to Thee, My Country" and "Jerusalem" are often played during the service. Services also include wreaths laid to honour the fallen, a blessing, and national anthems.
In the United Kingdom, although two minutes of silence are observed on 11 November itself, the main observance is on the second Sunday of November, Remembrance Sunday. Ceremonies are held at local war memorials, usually organised by local branches of the Royal British Legion - an association for ex-servicemen. Typically, poppy wreaths are laid by representatives of the Crown, the armed forces, and local civic leaders, as well as by local organisations including ex-servicemen organisations, cadet forces, the Scouts, Guides, Boys' Brigade, St John Ambulance and the Salvation Army. The start and end of the silence is often also marked by the firing of a cannon. A minute's or two minutes' silence is also frequently incorporated into church services, and even everyday locations such as supermarkets and banks may invite their customers and staff to fall silent at 11:00 am.
The main national commemoration is held at Whitehall, in Central London, for dignitaries, the public, and ceremonial detachments from the armed forces and civilian uniformed services such as the Merchant Navy, Her Majesty's Coastguard, etc. Members of the British Royal Family walk through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office towards the Cenotaph, assembling to the right of the monument to wait for Big Ben to strike 11:00 am, and for the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery at Horse Guards Parade, to fire the cannon marking the commencement of the two minutes of silence. Following this, "Last Post" is sounded by the buglers of the Royal Marines. "The Rouse" is then sounded by the trumpeters of the Royal Air Force, after which, to "Beethoven's Funeral March" (composed by Johann Heinrich Walch), wreaths are laid by attendees in the following order: the Queen; senior members of the Royal Family attending in military uniform; the Prime Minister; the leaders of the major political parties from all parts of the United Kingdom; Commonwealth High Commissioners to London, on behalf of their respective nations; the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of the British Dependencies; the Chief of the Defence Staff; the First Sea Lord; the Chief of the General Staff; the Chief of the Air Staff; representatives of the merchant navy and Fishing Fleets and the merchant air service. Junior members of the Royal Family usually watch the service from the balcony of the Foreign Office. The service is generally conducted by the Bishop of London, with a choir from the Chapels Royal, in the presence of representatives of all major faiths in the United Kingdom. Before the marching commences, the members of the Royal Family and public sing the national anthem before the Royal Delegation lead out after the main service.
In Canada, Remembrance Day is a public holiday, as well as being a statutory holiday everywhere except Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Northwest Territories. The official national ceremonies are held at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, presided over by the Governor General of Canada, any members of the Canadian Royal Family (such as Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, in 2009), the Prime Minister, and other dignitaries, to the observance of the public. Typically, these events begin with the tolling of the Carillon in the Peace Tower, during which serving members of the Canadian Forces (CF) arrive at Confederation Square, followed by the Ottawa diplomatic corps, Ministers of the Crown, special guests, the Royal Canadian Legion (RCL), the viceregal party, and, if present, the royal party. Before the start of the ceremony, four armed sentries and three sentinels - two flag sentinels and one nursing sister - are posted at the foot of the cenotaph.
In Australia Remembrance Day is always observed on 11 November, although the day is not a public holiday. Services are held at 11am at war memorials and schools in suburbs and towns across the country, at which "Last Post" is sounded by a bugler and a one-minute silence is observed. In recent decades, however, Remembrance Day has been partly eclipsed by ANZAC Day (25 April) as the national day of war commemoration.
New Zealand's national day of remembrance is Anzac Day, 25 April. "Poppy Day" usually occurs on the Friday before Anzac Day. Some services are held on 11 November, which is generally referred to as Armistice Day.
