"Based in part on the experiences of the Two-Seven and the grit of its individual members, Marine Corps officials are planning to greatly expand their numbers here -- an unexpected result of a deployment that wasn't even supposed to be.
A replacement task force will consist of about 2,300 troops, more than double the size of the Two-Seven's initial deployment...
Like the Army, the Marine Corps was already stretched thin on equipment and manpower. The Two-Seven's basic mission -- mentoring the Afghan national police in sprawling Helmand -- was not expected to involve continuous combat.
But the Marines were repeatedly attacked as they established forward bases in the region and began to make contact with local villagers. Before long, the fighting overshadowed the mentoring. Though they had expected to be tested by the Taliban in an area where much of the poppy crop that funds the insurgents is grown, they had not anticipated the intensity of the conflict.
For six months, the Two-Seven had more members killed and wounded -- about 150 -- than did the 20,000 Marines deployed in Iraq. It also did its share of killing...
Meanwhile, the efforts to recruit and train Afghan police officers were beset by corruption and narcotics. In one class of 100 recruits, 35 were dismissed because of drug use. Some recruits showed up for training with the red-rimmed eyes of chronic hashish users, Hall said...
"This is where it all started," Waldhauser told the troops at Delaram. "We're just starting over again. We're going to be at this a long time."
After routing the Taliban, the Marines were largely redeployed to Iraq. A special operations unit arrived in early 2007 but was sent home amid controversy over civilian deaths."
WP: legislators 'dumbfounded' by Pentagon's policy banning masks of Iraqi interpreters
Slate: Obama's national security transition team
WP: General Jim Jones slated for national security advisor
Gdn: an interview with a Somali pirate / tax collector
"We give priority to ships from Europe because we get bigger ransoms. To get their attention we shoot near the ship. If it does not stop we use a rope ladder to get on board. We count the crew and find out their nationalities. After checking the cargo we ask the captain to phone the owner and say that have seized the ship and will keep it until the ransom is paid.
We make friends with the hostages, telling them that we only want money, not to kill them. Sometimes we even eat rice, fish, pasta with them. When the money is delivered to our ship we count the dollars and let the hostages go.
Then our friends come to welcome us back in Eyl and we go to Garowe in Land Cruisers. We split the money. For example, if we get $1.8m, we would send $380,000 to the investment man who gives us cash to fund the missions, and then divide the rest between us.
Our community thinks we are pirates getting illegal money. But we consider ourselves heroes running away from poverty. We don't see the hijacking as a criminal act but as a road tax because we have no central government to control our sea. With foreign warships now on patrol we have difficulties.
But we are getting new boats and weapons. We will not stop until we have a central government that can control our sea."
BBC: Islamists pursuing pirates, either for a cut or to punish them for hijacking a Muslim ship
BBC: NATO warships escorting food aid in the region
WP: state tries to manage protests in China
"The meeting Thursday between the governor of the northwestern province of Gansu and more than a dozen people was billed in the official state media as an example of a high-level politician reaching out to hear the concerns of ordinary Chinese.
But two of the people who attended the meeting said Friday that they were the only ones present who had participated in the protest against a government resettlement plan and that the rest were local officials...
The discrepancy between the protesters' accounts of the meeting and the media account raised questions about whether the Chinese government was newly committed to addressing and solving local unrest or more concerned with projecting a positive image to the public at a time when officials fear that the economic downturn is fueling protests that are taxing China's security services."I didn't dare mention in that meeting that everyone in this town wants Wang Yi to be fired," Wang said Friday, referring to the local party secretary. "We heard he has a good relationship with the provincial party secretary. If I'd said that, I'd be arrested just like all those other people yesterday."
But the New China News Agency quoted her as saying, "Now I know better the government's policy, and I will tell the others."
NYT: Tibetans stick with the middle wayWP: inter-caste marriages still taboo in India
"Even though India legalized inter-caste marriage more than 50 years ago, newlyweds are still threatened by violence, most often from their families. As more young urban and small-town Indians start to rebel and choose mates outside of arranged marriages and caste commandments, killings of inter-caste couples have increased, according to a recent study by the All India Democratic Women's Association.
In the past month, seven so-called honor killings have targeted inter-caste couples. In the latest incident, a Hindu youth in Bihar was beaten by villagers this week and thrown under an oncoming train because he sent a love letter to a girl of a different caste. The attacks continue despite decades of government decrees intended to dismantle the bulwark of caste, which is widely seen as the glue of traditional Indian society but is considered among the most corrosive features of the emerging new India."
LAT: the Obama family in Kenya deals with conflicts, presents security challenges
LAT: making music and citizens in Venezuela
"In the poor hillside neighborhood of Chapellín and at nearly 250 other locales throughout this nation, tens of thousands of young Venezuelans are learning to play classical music and to make art a permanent cornerstone of their lives. They're the latest recruits of El Sistema, or the System, a 34-year-old program that many regard as a model not only for music instruction but for helping children develop into productive, responsible citizens."
Econ: the secret tunnels of MI-6 in London (made the short list for Dick Cheney's future lair)
"A lift takes us down 100 feet, deeper than the London Underground, which we can hear rumbling above us. A set of atom-bomb-proof doors are swung open and we step out into the secret of Furnival Street: the Kingsway tunnels, a miniature city beneath a city.
Dug in 1940 as London was blitzed by German bombers, the tunnels were designed as a air-raid shelter for up to 8,000 people, and as a possible last-ditch base for the government in the event of an invasion. They were never used as a shelter; instead, towards the end of the war they were taken over by the “Inter Services Research Bureau”, a shady outfit that was in fact a front for the research and development arm of MI6 (perhaps better known as Q branch in the James Bond novels).
After the war, the tunnels were passed to the Post Office and then to British Telecom, which hopes to sell the warren for £5m now that it is surplus to requirements. “I think it would make a great disco, personally,” says Ray Gapes, a former switch-maintenance engineer who came to work in the tunnels as an 18-year-old apprentice and is now showing us around."
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NYT: SV sees more uncertainty in your future
“My Web traffic is up and up and up,” said Aurora Tower, a New Yorker who constructs spidery star charts for her growing clientele. “People will entertain the irrational when what they consider rational collapses.”
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