(not so) novel incentives [using their heads]

WP: Israel continues to bomb Gaza; moves 6,500 reserve forces to border
"While Israel claims the vast majority of those killed [estimated over 280] were active in Hamas's military operations, Palestinian medical officials in Gaza say that women and children have also been among the dead."
CSM: tunnels are targeted
"Israeli helicopters and combat jets struck the Hamas' main prison compound in Gaza city and, in a simultaneous strike, pounded about 40 supply tunnels leading under the Egyptian border on Sunday. Israel said the tunnels are the main artery of Hamas' improved arsenal of missiles. Palestinians say the tunnels are the only route for imported consumer goods after an Israeli blockade sealed commercial crossings."
NYT: it's Hamas's fault, according to Israel (and the US)
Gdn: Arab states unconvinced
Gdn: photos of the destruction

CSM: UN peacekeeping in South Lebanon

CSM: military officers reluctant to engage in drug interdiction in Afghanistan
"NATO commanders in Afghanistan say they are holding back because of concerns over the legality of drug operations. But they may also be unwilling to conduct what is seen as a politically unpopular mission that could endanger their troops."

WP: CIA gains allies in Afghanistan with Viagra
"The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills...

While the CIA has a long history of buying information with cash, the growing Taliban insurgency has prompted the use of novel incentives and creative bargaining to gain support in some of the country's roughest neighborhoods, according to officials directly involved in such operations...

Not everyone in Afghanistan's hinterlands had heard of the drug, leading to some awkward encounters when Americans delicately attempted to explain its effects, taking care not to offend their hosts' religious sensitivities.

Such was the case with the 60-year-old chieftain who received the four pills from a U.S. operative. According to the retired operative who was there, the man was a clan leader in southern Afghanistan who had been wary of Americans -- neither supportive nor actively opposed.

The man had extensive knowledge of the region and his village controlled key passages through the area. U.S. forces needed his cooperation and worked hard to win it, the retired operative said. After a long conversation through an interpreter, the retired operator began to probe for ways to win the man's loyalty. A discussion of the man's family and many wives provided inspiration. Once it was established that the man was in good health, the pills were offered and accepted."

Slate: Kaplan says it's part of a plan, sort of
"The biggest problem is that the country's fate ultimately lies outside its borders. As long as Pakistan's northwest territories remain a lawless free-for-all, with Taliban and al-Qaida fighters crossing the border at will, Afghanistan will never be stable. And as long as Pakistan faces a threat from India to the east, its leaders will never deploy enough troops to quash the insurgents in the northwest territories."

WP: what's that, you say? Pakistan moves troops from Afghan to Indian border
"The Pakistani security official said the additional troops were deployed near the cities of Kasur and Sialkot in Punjab province as well as the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir, a region that has been claimed by both countries since the bloody partition of the subcontinent in 1947. The official said the troops were removed from areas where insurgents were inactive because of the snowy winter...
Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, welcomed the government's decision to withdraw some troops from the tribal areas. "We will not attack the convoys of army withdrawing from tribal areas as it is a good development," he said, adding that the Taliban would help defend Pakistan against any aggression."

NYT: the Taliban takes opportunity for retribution
Four months ago, the people of the Pakistani mountain village of Shalbandi gained national repute after a village posse hunted down and killed six Taliban fighters who had tied up and killed eight local policemen. The posse displayed the Taliban corpses like trophies for other locals to see, and the village was celebrated as a courageous sign that the Taliban could be repelled.

On Sunday morning the Taliban struck back.

A suicide car bomber exploded at a school in Shalbandi that was serving as a polling place, as voters lined up to elect a representative to the national assembly. More than 30 people were killed and more than two dozen wounded, according to local political and security officials. Children and several policemen were among the dead...Shalbandi had received constant threats after the posse hunted down the Taliban. 'Disrupting elections is a general strategy for these elements,' Mr. Khattak [head of the Awami National Party in the province] said, 'but there was a reason for choosing this specific village.'..

...the efforts of villagers in northwest Pakistan have proved little deterrent to the Taliban, who continue to take over more territory despite major Pakistani military campaigns. In the latest sign of Taliban domination of Swat, militants announced last week that by Jan. 15 no girls would allowed to attend school in the valley."

CSM: voting mostly peaceful in Kashmir
"Instead of picking up a gun, Bashir, who asked that his real name not be used due to his political activities, has used text messages to create "flash mob" protests – instant rallies organized through cellphone messages – and posted videos on YouTube of unarmed protesters being shot, allegedly by Indian forces. Even as India and Pakistan rattle sabers after last month's massacre in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the 20-something's generation has helped Kashmir – the contested state at the heart of the two countries' enmity – take a historic step back from violence."

LAT: fissures and alliances in Basra as elections approach
"The last provincial elections, in 2005, sparked an ugly cycle of assassinations and political violence, in which most political parties were implicated. The next elections could either shatter or bolster the stability established since March, when Maliki ordered the Iraqi army and national police to crack down on armed groups...

As the election nears, Maliki is busy maneuvering. He has tapped local leaders to organize tribes in support of the central government. And under Maliki's direction, the national government has funded $100 million worth of reconstruction projects in Basra, bypassing the provincial council. The national government also has started paying unemployment benefits in the province...

But other factions also are maneuvering. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Maliki's main partner in the national government but also his party's main rival, wants Basra to serve as an anchor of a Shiite-majority nine-state federal region in the south. Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's followers wish to reclaim their influence in the port city, which they dominated before the springtime military offensive. The Al Fadila al Islamiya party of Gov. Mohammed Waeli wishes to hold on to privileges accrued in the last four years, notably its influence in the oil industry."

Reuters: US sends Ambassador to Libya for first time in 36 years

Chris Blattman: while SV was celebrating the season, there was a coup in Guinea
(alas, SV is more pessimistic about the relevance of the coup's lack of popular support)
BBC: generals move to consolidate power - and those people? fickle.
"The junta, which took over in a bloodless coup, has said it wishes to "reassure the international community" of its commitment to stamping out corruption and holding elections in 2010.

Its seizure of power was condemned internationally but Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has urged the world community to recognise the new leadership.

Correspondents say the coup appears to have been welcomed by many people within the country who were tired of despotic rule under the former president and his corrupt government."

Ind: Mauritanian president released from house arrest after August coup

NYT: white dispossessed farmers win ruling against Mugabe, but are unlikely to see enforcement
"The case is rooted in one of the most fraught issues facing not just Zimbabwe, but other nations in the region, especially South Africa: the unjust division of land between whites and blacks that is a legacy of colonialism and white minority rule...

Zimbabwe’s handling of the land issue has had disastrous consequences. Since 2000, when Mr. Mugabe began encouraging the violent invasion of the country’s large, white-owned commercial farms — once the country’s largest employers — food production has collapsed, hunger has afflicted millions and the economy has never recovered.

Mr. Mugabe presents this redistribution as a triumph over greedy whites. But it set off a scramble for the best farms among the country’s ruling elite, who often had little knowledge or interest in farming, and became a potent source of patronage for Mr. Mugabe. His own relatives, as well as generals, judges, ministers and members of Parliament, were beneficiaries, farmer and human rights groups say.

By this year, the number of white-owned commercial farms dwindled to about 300 from 4,500. Even many of the remaining ones came under assault in this year’s bloodstained election season."

LAT: land is problematic in Kenya as well

BBC: war games in Mogadishu

NYT: post-war, less secular Bosnia
"Before the war, fully covered women and men with long beards were almost unheard of. Today, they are common. Many here welcome the Muslim revival as a healthy assertion of identity in a multiethnic country where Muslims make up close to half the population. But others warn of a growing culture clash between conservative Islam and Bosnia’s avowed secularism in an already fragile state...

Bosnia’s Muslims have practiced a moderate Islam that stretches back to the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century. Sociologists and political leaders say the religious awakening is partly an outgrowth of the war and the American-brokered Dayton agreement that ended it, dividing the country into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb Republic.

'The Serbs committed genocide against us, raped our women, made us refugees in our own country,' said Mustafa Efendi Ceric, the grand mufti and main spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Muslim community.

'And now we have a tribal constitution that says we have to share political power and land with our killers,' he said. 'We Bosnian Muslims still feel besieged in the city of Sarajevo.'...

Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs, meanwhile, cleave to their own religious and cultural identities. Church attendance is on the rise; in the Serb Republic, even ministries and police departments have their own Orthodox patron saints."

BBC: elections set for Monday in Bangladesh
"For Bangladesh's eunuchs, river gypsies and prisoners, Monday's general elections will be a unique experience. It is the first time any will be allowed to vote.
But for the vast majority of the country's 81 million voters, the elections will mark a return to Bangladeshi politics as normal, after two years of emergency rule when an army-backed caretaker government tried to rewrite how things are done here."

NYT: Moro Islamic Liberation Front attacks kill 9 in the Philippines
"In recent months, fighting between the separatists and the government has killed dozens from each side and displaced more than half a million Filipinos from their homes. Tens of thousands are in refugee camps in several provinces.

Many Filipinos, particularly Christian politicians and local officials, opposed the agreement with the insurgents that would have created an enlarged Muslim autonomous region. The issue went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the pact was unconstitutional.

Since the agreement was rescinded in August, the government has been trying to repair the situation, and last week it announced a new negotiating panel in the hope that talks with the rebels could be restarted. But rebel leaders say any negotiations will have to resume where they left off: with the territorial agreement the Supreme Court found unconstitutional."

BBC: the Communist Party of the Philippines celebrates its 40th anniversary
"The CPP's armed wing, the New Peoples' Army (NPA), has an estimated 5,000 members and has been fighting the government since 1969 in one of Asia's longest-running insurgencies."

BBC: recovering from natural and human disaster in Aceh, Indonesia


war on drugs
WP: kidnapping of negotiator in Mexico draws attention to a trend
"Independent organizations say Mexico has one of the world's highest kidnapping rates, competing with Colombia, where kidnap crews tied to anti-government guerrillas perfected the art. About 70 abductions are officially reported each month in Mexico, although even the federal attorney general says the true number is far higher. Independent groups say about 500 people a month are abducted in Mexico. Many kidnap crews have been found to include police officers."

WP: Miss Sinaloa busted
"Zúñiga was arrested with a group of seven suspected gunmen and cartel associates, who were riding in a couple of trucks that got stopped at a military checkpoint around midnight Monday just outside the colonial city of Guadalajara. The headline in El Universal almost translates itself: 'Detienen a Miss Sinaloa y 7 narcos.'..The television news flashed back and forth between a beaming Miss Sinaloa clasping a bouquet of red roses and accepting her crown, and images of cartel violence, which has left more than 5,300 people dead this year."

LAT: what's a girl to do?: beauty queens become the girlfriends of capos in places like Sinaloa "This is where narco folklore started, with songs and icons that pay homage to gangsters, and where children want to grow up to be traffickers. How Sinaloa confronts its own divided soul offers insight on where the drug war may be going for Mexico, where more than 5,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence this year...

Political pluralism in Mexico may have made room for more firebrands like [state legislator] Del Rincon, but it also fed a free-for-all among trafficking gangs, which began to splinter and compete.

'The state was no longer the referee, and so the traffickers had to referee among themselves,' Astorga said. And that was not going to be a well-mannered process...

That chaos might make some nostalgic for the old days, when a few Sinaloa dynasties dominated the drug trade, as they had for generations. Amado Carrillo Fuentes branched out from Sinaloa into Chihuahua in the 1980s and '90s and ran the Juarez drug network that made him one of the richest men on the planet, owner of a fleet of jets and vast real estate holdings the world over.

As the centralized system broke down, the Sinaloans met a new challenge: the Gulf cartel.

Based in the state of Tamaulipas, the Gulf gang was reputed to have ties with, and the protection of, Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. After the arrest of its leader, Osiel Cardenas, the Gulf cartel became the first of the drug mafias to introduce a paramilitary army.

The narcotics ring recruited from Mexican and Guatemalan army special forces and formed the Zetas, ruthless hit men. The Zetas left one of their earliest calling cards in the town of Uruapan in Michoacan state in September 2006, when they tossed five severed heads onto the floor of a dance hall...

Buscaglia warns against the "Afghanistan-ization" of Mexico, in which rival kingpins gradually take over different states.

"If one criminal organization takes over one state, and another criminal organization takes another, then you have the ingredients of civil war," Buscaglia [an expert on organized crime who advises Mexico's Congress] said. Mexico is not there yet, Buscaglia said, but that breakdown looms as a real danger."

LAT: violence is astronomical in Ciudad Juarez, home of the Juarez cartel and a quarter of all homicides in Mexico in 2008
"The killings here are carried out in a style best described as baroque, with bodies hung headless from bridges, stuffed upside down in giant stew pots, lined up next to a school's playing field. Often, they are accompanied by taunting, handwritten messages, the hit man's equivalent of an end-zone dance."

LAT: money laundering avoids crackdown


modern slavery
WP: enslavement of girls for domestic work in Togo
"The number of girls like Adiza, who leave their communities or even their countries to clean other people's houses, has surged in recent years, according to labor and human rights specialists. The girls in the maid trade, some as young as 5, often go unpaid, and their work in private homes means the abuses they suffer are out of public view."
Ind: and India
"Far from being trained in the skills of acupuncture, for two years she was forced to work as an unpaid domestic help in the home of the "doctor" supposed to be teaching her. She toiled from 5am to midnight, seven days a week. She was abused and mistreated. Almost certainly she was brought to Delhi by a professional trafficker; what is beyond doubt is that once she got here she lived the life of slave."

Harper's: the truly astounding Index dedicated to Mr. Bush
featuring: "Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069...Portion of his presidency he has spent at or en route to vacation spots: 1/3...Estimated number of juveniles whom the United States has detained as enemy combatants since 2002: 2,500"

LAT: on that last point, when can a child be held accountable as a combatant?
" 'Under international law, adults who recruit children for combat are to be prosecuted for that offense. But the children caught up in combat are to be protected, not prosecuted,' said Diane Marie Amann, a UC Davis law professor who observed the latest hearing in Khadr's case for the National Institute of Military Justice...Now 22, Khadr has spent almost a third of his life in U.S. custody. He was raised in a militant Muslim family and was surrounded in his teen years by holy warriors. His lawyers describe him as confused, immature and emotionally damaged."

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Salon: best indie films of 2008
Salon: one that makes the list is Waltz of Bashir
"[The film] invents an ingenious new method of portraying the notoriously untrustworthy realm of memory, which is especially fraught when one is trying to dredge up memories one has worked hard to suppress for 25 years. By his own account, Folman remembered only bits and pieces from his wartime experience before making the film, and remembered them almost as a movie he had seen, or as things that had happened to someone else...

'I think there are a lot of ways to define war. One of them is definitely as a very bad acid trip, and I wanted the audience to go on this sort of trip.'...

...one of those events is the Sabra and Shatila massacre in September 1982, when Christian militias allied with Israel massacred hundreds or perhaps thousands of Palestinian civilians in two refugee camps. It's such an explosive topic, with unresolved questions about how much the Israeli government and military knew, and how much responsibility they bore. Were you hesitant about addressing such a painful and loaded subject?

'No. I don't think the film brings any news with regard to what happened at Sabra and Shatila. There was a government committee that made an inquiry, and top generals were banned from office. Arik Sharon was banned from office as the minister of defense, even though he came back later as prime minister. I think everyone knows what happened in terms of, like, journalistic facts.

I was not interested in that at all, because I thought I had nothing new to say. I was interested in the common soldier, his point of view, and in the chronology of massacre. Meaning, when do you put all the facts you hear and see, and all the hints you get, into one frame that makes you realize there is a mass murder going on just around the corner? I was interested in that -- telling that story through the eyes of a simple soldier.' "

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WP: to take us out on a high note (or something), Dave Barry reviews notable events of 2008 in the US