What actually happened early on Nov. 26 is increasingly irrelevant; it is merely a symptom of larger issues that remain unresolved ...
"Our troops are leaving Iraq, and we are working on a new path together, a new face of this partnership," he added. "This is marking a new beginning of the relationship that will not only benefit the United States of America and Iraq. I believe it will benefit the region and will benefit the world."
Biden said that people in both countries have had to overcome misperceptions about the relationship. He said people in the U.S. still ask whether it is worth it to spend so much energy and money in Iraq, a country where 4,485 American military personnel have died and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.
"We have jointly demonstrated, it is worth it, it is worth it — as costly and as difficult and sometimes as controversial as it is," he said.
Seeking to counter skepticism about why the U.S. will still have such a large presence in Iraq — the largest American embassy in the world — Biden said the U.S. needs to have experts in a wide range of areas "on hand, in country." The U.S. will also have thousands of security contractors to protect the embassy's facilities in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Irbil and Basra and diplomatic personnel.
Followers of al-Sadr rallied in Basra and Baghdad on Wednesday, chanting "Biden get out of Iraq," and "No to America."
AN IRANIAN nuclear facility has been hit by a huge explosion, the second such blast in a month, prompting speculation that Tehran's military and atomic sites are under attack.
Satellite imagery seen by The Times confirmed that a blast that rocked the city of Isfahan on Monday struck the uranium enrichment facility there, despite denials by Tehran.
China's first aircraft carrier began its second sea trial on Tuesday after undergoing refurbishments and testing, the government said, as tensions over maritime territorial disputes in the region ran high.
The deployment, to Yonaguni Island, is part of a general trend of transferring forces from Japan's northern flank to the extreme southern flank. Aside from a small contingent on Miyako Island, the southern islands have been totally demilitarized and vulnerable. The establishment of a so-called coastal monitoring unit can be seen as a means of asserting Japanese sovereignty over islands in a region of conflicting claims.
The decision to install a 100-man unit, estimated to cost ¥1.5 billion (US$20 million) and expected to be completed by 2015, is part of a growing trend by the nations that surround China to tighten up their defenses as they increasingly side against what they perceive as the growing belligerence of the region’s biggest country.
Yonaguni, only 28.8 sq. km in size and with a population of 1,700, overlooks the 300-km gap in the so-called First Island Chain, a maritime line running between Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia – all of which would potentially side with the US in case of war with China. If the situation were to turn sour in the West Pacific, it's the Miyako Channel where the US, Chinese and Japanese navies would likely grind together.
Italy auctioned €7.49bn of three and ten year bonds this morning. It had hoped to sell between €5bn and €8bn.
Yields on three-year bonds rose to 7.89pc, up 2.96pc on last month.
The results place further pressure on Mario Monti, the technocrat prime minister, to drive through austerity measures.
It was the third time in a week that Italy had to pay more than 7pc to auction debt.
President Barack Obama said Monday the United States stands ready to do its part to help Europe with its deepening debt crisis, even as the White House ruled out any financial contributions from U.S. taxpayers.
In an opinion piece in Monday's edition of The Washington Post, Gass, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, said: "The Taliban have taken a ferocious beating over the past year" in their former strongholds in the southern and southwestern regions.
"They are demoralized and finding it harder to resupply with men, money and weapons. The fighting campaign they boasted of this summer has been a flop."
For those of us who are sick of Pakistan in general, it would nevertheless be necessary to explain what might be a better strategy than the present one, or why our present requirements are not really that important: It is easy to mock the present diplomacy, but far harder to come up with one better as long as we are in Afghanistan, and Pakistan uses fears about its nuclear arsenal for all sorts of advantage. For the present, then, we will probably try to mend fences, continue the pretense, and rack our brains for a better strategy that does not subsidize those who are helping to kill American soldiers.
Dozens of hard-line Iranian students stormed the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against Western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The mob moved into the diplomatic compound two days after Iran's parliament approved a bill that reduces diplomatic relations with Britain following London's support of recently upgraded Western sanctions on Tehran over its disputed nuclear program.
The protesters broke through after clashing with anti-riot police and chanting for its takeover. "Death to England," some cried in the first significant assault of a foreign diplomatic area in Iran in years.
Iranian protesters briefly took six British embassy staff hostage on Tuesday when they stormed two diplomatic compounds in Tehran, smashing windows, hurling petrol bombs and burning the British flag in a protest against sanctions imposed by Britain.
The sources told Kuwait's al Rai daily that the no fly ban will include a ban on the movement of Syrian military vehicles, including tanks, personnel carriers and artillery, adding that this move would aim at curbing the movement of Assad forces, and cripple their ability to bomb cities.
In Geneva, a United Nations commission of inquiry said Syrian military and security forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, torture and rape, for which Assad and his government bore direct responsibility.
It demanded an end to "gross human rights violations" and the release of those rounded up in mass arrests since March by Syrian forces quashing pro-democracy demonstrations.
Over 3,500 people were killed in 8 months, the UN says.
Davutoglu said the possible scenarios included setting up a buffer zone to contain any mass influx of Syrian refugees.
"If tens, hundreds of thousands of people start advancing toward the Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey borders, not only Turkey but the international community may be required to take some steps such as buffer zone. We don't want that to happen but we must consider and work on that scenario," he said.
The Turkish army set up a security buffer zone inside northern Iraq during in 1991 and has maintained small detachments there ever since.
This is the real significance of the climategate emails. They show that major scientists who inform the IPCC can't be trusted to stick to the science and avoid political activism. This, in turn, has very worrying implications for the major international policy decisions adopted on the basis of their research.
Here’s my problem with all of this, Dr. Jones. You tried out a variety of claimed reasons for not responding to a request for your data. None of them were even remotely true. They were all intended to hide the fact that you didn’t know where the data was. Dave clearly spelled out the problem: “we don’t know which data belongs to which stations, right?”
You claimed that the data was out there on the web somewhere. You claimed you couldn’t send any of it because of restrictions on a few datasets. You claimed it came from GHCN, then you said from NCAR, but you couldn’t say exactly where.
You gave lots and lots of explanations to me, everything except the truth—that your records were in such disarray that you could not fulfill my request. It is clear now from the Climategate emails that some records were there, some were missing, the lists were not up to date, there was orphan data, some stations had multiple sets of data, some data was only identified by folder not by filename, you didn’t know which data might have been covered by confidentiality agreements, and the provenance of some datasets could not be established. The unfortunate reality was that you simply couldn’t do what I asked.
Doctors were left astounded after a gigantic baby set a new record for Germany’s heaviest-ever naturally born newborn Friday. The boy was named Jihad.
Why did observers of the PLA want to study what Chinese military analysts might learned about non-Chinese wars? The answer is twofold. First, the PLA has not fought an actual war since 1979. Yet, during the last 3 decades, fundamental changes have taken place on the battlefield and in the conduct of war. Since the PLA has not fought since 1979, it had no experience in the changing face of war, and thus could not follow Mao Zedong’s admonition to “learn by doing (在战争ä¸å¦ä¹ 战争)”; instead, it must look abroad for ways to discern the new pattern of warfare in the evolving information age. Studying Chinese military analysts’ observations of non-Chinese wars therefore provides us a glimpse of what the PLA takes from others’ experience to improve its capability and to prepare itself for dealing with China’s national security issues, such as Taiwan, the South and East China Sea disputes, and internal unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, to name the most obvious ones.
Second, Chinese military analysts have noticeably more freedom in assessing and commenting on the strength and weakness as well as the success and failures of other countries’ wars. Indeed, for political reasons, Chinese military analysts have to emphasize the heroics and triumphs of the PLA’s war experience and downplay setbacks and failures.2 While there is certainly recognition of the daunting challenges—in Korea, for example, accounts readily acknowledge that the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) were totally unprepared logistically and devastated by airpower—there are limits to the levels of candor. To date, there is no critical analysis of the PLA’s claimed success or dismissed failure in the Sino-Vietnamese Border War of 1979 by Chinese military analysts (however, there are a few studies done by scholars outside of China3). Studying Chinese military analysts’ observation of other people’s wars, therefore, provide us key hints as to what Chinese military analysts consider important aspects of current and future military operational success and failure.
State-controlled media portray China's leaders as living by the austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.
China’s Ministry of Education announced this week plans to phase out majors producing unemployable graduates, according to state-run media Xinhua. The government will soon start evaluating college majors by their employment rates, downsizing or cutting those studies in which less than 60% of graduates fail for two consecutive years to find work.
Todd Staples, the Texas agriculture commissioner and a candidate for lieutenant governor, argued that many leaders in Washington, D.C., continue to ignore the violence along the border. In a recent article he wrote, "A Webb County rancher checking his cattle is shot at and barely escapes with his life; the suspects are linked to drug cartels. Workers in a Hidalgo County sugarcane field are told by cartel members to stop harvesting the crop 'or else," because the sugarcane provides coverage for cartel coyotes smuggling drugs."
Vickers said he knows ranchers who have moved their families into nearby cities for their protection and have taken other safety measures. "Everyone is packing a weapon and carrying a cell phone with them. and they're crazy if they don't," he said. "This is happening on American soil; this is a war zone here, there's no question about it."
The use of the phrase "war zone" to describe the U.S. side of the border is controversial. The report to the agriculture commissioner states, "Living and conducting business in a Texas border county is tantamount to living in a war zone in which civil authorities, law enforcement agencies as well as citizens are under attack around the clock."
Iran will target NATO's missile defense installations in Turkey if the U.S. or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic, a senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saturday.
Allen said Afghan security forces, often criticized for weak battlefield performance, desertion and a lack of will, are closer to being ready to assume lead responsibility for their nation's defense than many people believe.
"The Afghan national security forces are better than they thought they were, and they're better than we thought they were," Allen said.
That is why he thinks it's safe to lessen the Marine's combat role in Helmand, reduce their numbers and put the Afghans in charge.
That approach also allows Allen to build up elsewhere. He said that in 2012 he will put more U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, increase the number of U.S. special operations forces who are playing an important role in developing Afghan forces, and add intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources. He said he plans to add "several battalions" of U.S. forces in the east. He gave no specific troop number, but a battalion usually totals about 750.
"I'm going to put a lot more forces and capabilities into the east," he said. "The east is going to need some additional forces because our intent is to expand the security zone around Kabul."
Looking back on the five-day war, it is clear that it was a major turning point for all sides involved.
For Russia, it was psychological revenge after 20-year-long geopolitical retreat. It was proof that Moscow can say no. The United States and its allies were shown that Moscow was serious about drawing a line in the sand. They accepted the signal.
I am troubled because it may represent a change in how Russia's leaders sees the former Soviet republics. Russia before the invasion of Georgia may have been the low tide of post-Soviet Russia, angry at their loss of empire but unwilling to do anything about it. And with the invasion, we may be at the starting point of a new Russia built on picking up as much of their loss lands as possible.
NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis.
Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in almost half of the alliance's non-lethal materiel.
Obviously, we have 68,000 Afghan security forces, and we have today just over 29,000 coalition forces.
It's Courtney Kube from NBC News. You mentioned in your opening statement that you believe that the inputs are right in your area over the last year of the increase in U.S. troops there and Afghan troops, but we've been hearing more and more that there will be a third or another increase of U.S. troops into RC East next year and maybe into the middle of the year before the surge starts drawing down.
Do you still anticipate that? Do you anticipate that you'll have an increase in troops and perhaps an increase in operations in your area coming early 2012?
GEN. ALLYN: Well, thanks, Courtney. And I know you're well aware that this was really the first full fighting season with all the surge forces on the ground. And I think we can clearly see the impact that it had on denying the insurgents any opportunity to regain lost ground both in the south, the southwest, and also in the areas that we wrested from their control during the summer campaign.
We are obviously still in the process of the early phase of the 2011 reductions, and we are on track to meet that by the middle of next month. And the resources that we have now are -- have us in good shape for both the winter fighting season and heading into the spring campaign. And I'd say any future decision that General Allen or General Scaparrotti make on resources is something that is probably best addressed to them.
Yemen's autocratic leader agreed Wednesday to step down after months of demonstrations against his 33-year rule, pleasing the U.S. and its Gulf allies who feared that collapsing security in the impoverished nation was allowing an active al-Qaida franchise to step up operations.
With a considerable amount of fanfare, the Obama administration has spent most of the past two weeks “pivoting” our foreign policy toward Asia. This “pivot” is being broadcast as if the current administration was the first to notice Asia’s importance. Never mind that American presidents have been actively involved in Asia at least since Commodore Matthew Perry was sent there to force open Japanese ports for trading. If we forget about the Pacific theater in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Nixon’s trip to China, etc., then maybe it is possible to believe that this administration is the first one to take note of Asia’s importance. Of course, Presidents Clinton and Bush visited Asia over a half-dozen times each. So there is a chance the region was relatively high on their agendas.
"Despite all this the Baath regime continues to use oppression and violence on its own people. Violence breeds violence. Now, unfortunately, Syria has come to a point of no return," he said.
The growing number of attacks by former army men is causing the government to be careful which army units go where. This is because most of the troops are from religious groups that benefit little from the Assad dictatorship, and are suffering most from the current violence. The deserters have organized themselves, rather loosely, into the FSA (Free Syrian Army) and are carrying out more and more guerilla attacks. These are beginning to include assassinations of pro-Assad army and political leaders. Attacks on military bases are occurring, and desertions are increasing.
Some of the other minorities (Christians, Druze and so on) who have long been the Alawite Assad's allies are openly questioning who they should be backing. If these groups wait until the end, they will suffer enormous retribution. But if these groups switch sides at the right time, they will suffer less, and be able to remain in Syria. The timing of such defections is critical. If you turn too soon, the government forces will hurt you badly. If you go over to the rebels too late, you will still be seen as part of the Assad dictatorship.
The revolution is spilling over into Lebanon. There, Hezbollah is rumored to be planning a coup to install a Shia dictatorship.
The U.S. navy said the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush arrived this week in the Mediterranean. It made no reference to the unrest in Syria and said the ship would continue through the Mediterranean en route home to the United States.
A Western diplomat in the region said about the U.S. aircraft carrier: "It is probably routine movement but it is going to put psychological pressure on the regime, and the Americans do not mind that."
The U.S. and the Philippines signed a new defense agreement that provides more training and equipment for Filipino forces, and assurances of American support if the Philippines is threatened by China. This is a serious matter, as China is claiming areas, 80 kilometers off the Philippines coast, where oil exploration is going on.
Wednesday's drills involving aircraft, rocket launchers and artillery guns took place off Baengnyeong Island, another front-line territory near the disputed maritime border, and were meant to send a strong message to North Korean rivals stationed within sight just miles (kilometers) away.
The exercises represent far greater firepower than the South Korean military mounted last year in response to the artillery shells showered on military garrisons and fishing villages on nearby Yeonpyeong, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Bung-woo said.
North Korea threatened Thursday to turn Seoul’s presidential palace into a “sea of fire,” stepping up its rhetoric one day after South Korea conducted large-scale military drills near a front-line island attacked by the North last year.
