Iraqis know they are in a position to show the way, to an era of better government, and the freedoms and prosperity that flows from that. Iraqis know they have problems with religion, tribalism and corruption. Iraqis know what they are up against. Do you?
Israeli military and intelligence officials talk openly of "finishing" the military operations against Hamas. The January 18 ceasefire is considered just that, and it's expected that Hamas intransigence during any negotiations will result in a deadlock and the resumption of fighting. The second round is expected to be a death match, with no end until the Hamas leadership is captured or killed, and Hamas weapons (especially the thousands of rockers) captured or destroyed.
Its core, the Moscow region, boasts no geographic barriers to invasion. Russia must thus expand its borders to create the largest possible buffer for its core, which requires forcibly incorporating legions of minorities who do not see themselves as Russian. The Russian government estimates that about 80 percent of Russia’s approximately 140 million people are actually ethnically Russian, but this number is somewhat suspect, as many minorities define themselves based on their use of the Russian language, just as many Hispanics in the United States define themselves by their use of English as their primary language. Thus, ironically, attaining security by creating a strategic buffer creates a new chronic security problem in the form of new populations hostile t o Moscow’s rule. The need to deal with the latter problem explains the development of Russia’s elite intelligence services, which are primarily designed for and tasked with monitoring the country’s multiethnic population.
The Army this summer will start cutting back on use of the unpopular practice of holding troops beyond their enlistment dates and hopes to almost completely eliminate it in two years.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, though, that it may never be possible to completely get rid of the policy called "stop-loss," under which some 13,000 soldiers whose time is already up are still being forced to continue serving.
"I believe that when somebody's end date of service comes, to hold them against their will, if you will, is just not the right thing to do," he said, noting that officials will still retain the legal power to involuntarily extend soldiers' service if needed.
"I felt, particularly in these numbers, that it was breaking faith," Gates told a Pentagon news conference.
He said that he hoped any future use after 2011 would only be in "scores, not thousands."Critics have called "stop-loss" a backdoor draft because it keeps troops in the military beyond the end of their enlistment or retirement dates. But the military has said it's a necessary tool to keep unit cohesion in times of war and to keep soldiers with certain skills needed in those units.
It wasn't a violation of the enlistment contract. But I believe that when somebody's end date of service comes up, to hold them against their will, if you will, is just not the right thing to do. And so it has been a focus, for most of the time that I've been here. And I get regular reports on it. And all the arrows were pointing in the wrong direction for a long time.
But I just felt that there will always, probably always be a need to do this with a relatively small number of people who have special skills. But I would like to get it down to scores, not thousands.
In addition, the Army will begin a number of incentive programs to encourage additional soldiers to voluntarily extend their enlistments and thus mitigate the impact this change may have on unit strength and unit cohesion.
China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Beijing has vowed to bring the island under mainland rule, by force if necessary, but ties have improved vastly since China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou came to power in May.
China has sought to win hearts in Taiwan, a strategy for eventual unification, by helping Ma honour a campaign pledge to revitalise his economy by letting in a daily maximum of 3,000 visitors from China.
President Ma Ying-jeou's efforts to build a diverse communal coalition have taken a hit after an official was alleged to have called Taiwan's majority population "primitive" and suggested China should use force to seize the island.
The affair is a huge embarrassment to Ma, who has worked hard to unite Taiwan's fractious communal groups to support his ambitious China engagement program, despite continuing Chinese threats to take over democratic Taiwan by force.
SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?
Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that he is preparing plenty of verbal "artillery" for his first encounter with President Barack Obama at an upcoming summit.
Chavez — long a fierce critic of Washington — said he expects that the future of U.S. relations with Latin America will begin to take shape at April's summit of leaders from across the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
"Our artillery is being prepared. There's going to be good artillery," Chavez said during a televised Cabinet meeting.
It was probably inevitable that the American left would turn sharply against the war in Afghanistan the moment it was politically opportune. Still, the speed with which it has done so has been breathtaking.
Time was when the received bipartisan and trans-Atlantic wisdom about Afghanistan was that it was the necessary war, the good war, the no-choice-but-to-fight and can't-afford-to-lose war, and that not least of everything that made the invasion and occupation of Iraq such arrant folly was that it distracted us from "finishing the job" in the place where the attacks of 9/11 were conceived and planned.
"He is a war criminal who fought an illegal war, and there are some who say he was never elected democratically, so there are some who say he should be arrested as soon as he comes here," said a woman dressed as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, who called herself Ivana Nomobush.
She had brought with her a makeshift "shoe cannon" that catapulted footwear, but complained that security personnel were not letting her use it.
The shoe theme is an homage to Iraqi reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi, who was sentenced last week to three years in prison for hurling his shoes at Bush in December.
The Great Depression fed dangerous new autocratic ideologies like fascism and communism; a second Great Depression could destroy them. While the economic crisis will cause untold human suffering in these and other countries, it is quite possible that, on the other side of it, we will see the end of that distinctive phenomenon of the late 1990s and early 21st century: the growth autocracy. And that, at least, would bring some light to a financial dark age.
The U.S. government is working on an integrated plan to address Mexico's escalating war with drug traffickers and could complete work on the initiative as early as this week, a top U.S. military official said on Tuesday.
Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who oversees U.S. military interests on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border as the head of Northern Command, told the Senate that the plan would likely involve all agencies of government including law enforcement and the military.
The Kremlin has fiercely opposed NATO's plans to put Ukraine and Georgia on a track to membership. Russian officials have voiced hope that the Obama administration would drop the alliance's expansion plans and also cancel the previous administration's plan to deploy missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech republic.
Russia's windfall oil wealth over the last decade allowed the Kremlin to nearly quadruple its defense spending and start upgrading aging arsenals. The financial crisis has raised doubts about the government's ability to meet the military modernization goals, but Medvedev pledged that weapons orders won't be cut.
Military officials have said the government budgeted 1.5 trillion rubles ($43 billion) for weapons purchases this year, about 25 percent of it to be spent on upgrading the nation's aging, Soviet-era nuclear force.
"Let me mention the top priorities. The main one is a qualitative increase in the troops readiness, primarily of strategic nuclear forces. They must guarantee the fulfillment of all tasks of ensuring Russia's security," Medvedev said.
The military has said it will use the money to put more than 10 new intercontinental ballistic missiles on duty by year's end — a much faster pace of deployment than in previous years. It also intends to complete tests of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile and put it into service by the year's end.
Russian leaders have boasted of the submarine-launched missile's capability to penetrate missile defenses and have described it as the core of the military's future nuclear arsenal. But the Bulava has failed in five of its 10 test launches. Some experts blamed the failures on manufacturing flaws.
Medvedev encouraged the military Tuesday to focus more on new weapons purchases than repairs of the existing arsenals, saying that new orders were essential for keeping the nation's military industries afloat during the financial crisis.
The fortunes of the Russian defense industrial sector at present make AIG and Bank of America look like the financial picture of health. The Russian industrial conglomerate umbrella company, Rostekhnologia (ROT) that has monopoly control over the entirety of the nation's defense industry is headed by Sergei Chemezov. He is also a life-long--and perhaps the number one--FOV (Friend of Vladimir Putin) in the Russian government, the two having first befriended one another when they served together in the former East German Democratic Republic (GDR) as KGB officers during the waning days of the Cold War. ...
A long-time Moscow colleague who has analyzed Russia's defense industry for the last three decades commented this month on these consequences of the Russian government's many years of post-Soviet, chronic neglect of the need for technology investment in the defense sector. "Very simply," he said, "we are now moving to the point where there will be no Russian defense industry that is on par with the front-line nations of the west that have a sizeable industry, and in some sectors or technologies Russian industry will even be inferior to Chinese industry."
The 1,600 Amway workers were the first batch of over 12,000 Chinese Amway employees expected to visit Taiwan on nine separate cruises between March 16 and May 10, on incentive sightseeing tours arranged by Chinese Amway (China) Co., Limited for its outstanding workers.
This will be the largest ever contingent from China to visit Taiwan since last June, when Taiwan increased its daily quota of Chinese tourists to 3,000.
To expedite entry procedures at the Keelung Harbor for the Amway groups, five officials with Keelung's Boarder Affairs Corps under the National Immigration Agency went to Shanghai over the weekend where they boarded the cruise ship, Legend of the Seas, to check the travel documents of the passengers heading for Taiwan.
Upon arrival in Keelung, the 1,600 Chinese Amway workers boarded 40 tourism buses that took them to Taipei City, where they were scheduled to visit the famous National Palace Museum and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and then go shopping in the upscale Hsinyi District.
Before returning to the Legend of the Seas for the night, they are scheduled to visit the Keelung night market, where they will sample typical Taiwanese snacks and spend coupons given to them by Amway Taiwan.
The tourists are expected to go on sightseeing tours to Hualien Harbor in eastern Taiwan Tuesday and to Taichung Harbor in central Taiwan Wednesday.
President Hugo Chavez on Sunday dispatched the navy to Venezuela's seaports, warning that state governors who challenge a new law bringing transportation hubs under federal control could end up in prison.
Speaking during his weekly television and radio program, Chavez ordered naval vessels to seize control this week of Port Cabello in Carabobo state and Maracaibo Port in Zulia state — two of Venezuela's largest seaports.
Up to 50 militants attacked a terminal for trucks carrying supplies to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan early Monday, in the second such assault in northwest Pakistan in two days.
U.S. and NATO officials insist the attacks have little impact on their operations, but are looking at ways to bring more supplies into Afghanistan through Central Asia.
Obama has made striking moves to fix U.S. foreign policy—and that has set off a chorus of criticism.
Dramatic advances in public attitudes are sweeping Iraq, with declining violence, rising economic well-being and improved services lifting optimism, fueling confidence in public institutions and bolstering support for democracy.
But with 75 percent of the earth's population living within 200 miles of the sea, the world's military future may well be dominated by naval (and air) forces operating over vast regions. And to a greater extent than the other armed services, navies exist to protect economic interests and the system in which these interests operate.
While the North Korean special operations troops are grumbling, and not getting all the training resources (ammo and fuel) they need, they remain a highly motivated, and generally loyal, force. The government uses these troops to insure the loyalty of the other 85 percent of the military, and more and more elite troops are being used to assist the secret police in going after dissidents and corrupt officials. This is probably hurting the North Korean special operations forces more than anything else. The troops are getting a close look at the corruption and contradictions in North
Korea. The troops generally lived in closed bases and don't get out much. But now that they do, they see a North Korea that is unpleasant, and not as swell as their commanders told them it was. It turns out those letters they were getting from home were not exaggerating how bad things were. And the trend has been down for so long, it's hard to assure the troops that there's any way up.
