fire not ceased

WP: a reporter, trapped on a block in Sadr City, recounts 19 hours of fighting
The clashes "underscor[ed] how quickly order can give way to chaos in Iraq. On this block in Sadr City, the cleric's sprawling stronghold, men and boys came out from nearly every house to fight, using powerful IEDs and rockets...The militiamen were also fighting their Shiite rivals -- the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Dawa party, which run Iraq's government."

BBC: militias continue fight, as Maliki's orders to disarm extended to 10 days plus offer of cash

Ind: Iraqi police refuse to fight against, in some cases defect to, Mahdi Army

the dog in the fight

LAT: Shiites in Baghdad (associated with Sadr) protest the violence in Basra (between Sadr allies, a bunch of other militias, the Iraqi government forces, and the US military)
US officials cite renegade Sadr allies, not the Mahdi army itself, as the problem; they seem to be trying to salvage Sadr's cease-fire, even though for all intents and purposes it already seems irrelevant.
WP: US forces are more than advisers in the fighting in Baghdad; no one knows why Maliki acted now
"Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting...Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that 'we can't quite decipher' what is going on. It's a question, he said, of 'who's got the best conspiracy' theory about why Maliki decided to act now...
Some officials have concluded that Maliki himself is firing 'the first salvo in upcoming elections,' the administration official said.
'His dog in that fight is that he is basically allied with the Badr Corps" against forces loyal to Sadr, the official said. 'It's not a pretty picture.' "
Slate: breaking down the alliances in Basra
"In other words, as with most things about Iraq, it's a more complex case than Bush makes it out to be.
The two Shiite parties—the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi army—have been bitter rivals since the early days of post-Saddam Iraq. And Maliki, from the beginning of his rule, has had delicate relations with both...Late last month, Iraq's three-man presidential council vetoed a bill calling for provincial elections, in large part because ISCI's leaders feared that Sadr's party would win in Basra. The Bush administration, which has (correctly) regarded provincial elections as key to Iraqi reconciliation, pressured Maliki to reverse his stance and let the bill go through. He did—at which point (was this just a coincidence?) planning began for the offensive that's raging now."
Gdn: mass grave found
WP: Bush in his own world - Ohio

BBC: many killed in fighting in the tribal region of Pakistan
"The violence follows rising tensions between the Sunni Muslim Orakzai tribe and the minority Shia Katchai tribe.
Heavy weapons were used in the clashes in the Lautang area of Kohat district, a local official told the BBC."

Reuters: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Egypt talks end without deal

Gdn: Colombia says it will release FARC prisoners in exchange for Betancourt
"President Alvaro Uribe signed a decree last night allowing the massive release of guerrillas from jail if Betancourt, who is French-Colombian and was kidnapped during her 2002 presidential campaign, and suffers from hepatitis B, is set free, according to peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo."

BBC: massive kidnapping in Central Africa Republic, allegedly by LRA members

NYT: Puerto Rico's governor is in trouble

Gdn: opposition in Zimbabwe threatens "Kenya-like" protests if Mugabe rigs the vote

Gdn: Burmese leader asks for solidarity with government, against "destructive elements"

LAT: Arrrr: US Navy fighting pirates off coast of Somalia
" 'We're like a cop walking a beat,' said Capt. David Adler, commander of the guided-missile cruiser Port Royal in the Persian Gulf. 'We haven't had any piracy incidents, but that's because we're here.' "

LAT: brokering a peace deal among youth groups - tribus - in Mexico City

shaking the tree

NYT: targeting the Mahdi army in Basra
"The dominant Shiite groups in Mr. Maliki’s government are political and military rivals of Mr. Sadr, and Mr. Maliki is freer now to move against him because Mr. Sadr’s party is no longer a crucial part of his coalition...
Though American and Iraqi officials have insisted that the operation was not singling out a particular group, fighting appeared to focus on Mahdi-controlled neighborhoods. In fact, some witnesses said, neighborhoods controlled by rival political groups seemed to be giving government forces safe passage, as if they were helping them to strike at the Mahdi Army. Even so, the Mahdi fighters seemed to hold their ground."
USAT: Sadr orders strike, effectively shutting down health system
"...the more immediate threat to Iraq's stability may stem not from al-Sadr's military might, but his political power to shut down the ministries and services essential to day-to-day life."
CSM: residents gearing up for violence in Sadr City

LAT: "odd couple" partnership between US Marine and Iraqi general

Slate: Iraqi refugees remain in Damascus

Gdn: new coalition gov't in Pakistan charts different path with US; Sharif says it will no longer be US "killing field"
WP: naturally, US continues to "shake the tree," launch attacks in tribal region until further notice

WP: meanwhile, militants in western Afghanistan target those accused of defection more precisely
"Extremists in the area rely on 'a strong network of informants in every village and town' to find suspected spies, said Malik Mumtaz, a tribal elder in Miram Shah, adding that the Taliban usually releases a DVD of the person being killed."
NYT: US contractor, headed by 22-year-old, supplying degraded ammunitions to Afghans
largest supplier to Afghanistan caught in almost unbelievable web of arms trafficking, incompetence and corruption

ICG: report on drug trade and "drug war" policies in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala flags dire effects on law and order, violence

NYT: North Korea expels South's diplomats

Gdn: weighing jurisdiction in Uganda: who will try Kony? who will capture him or make him surrender?
"...recent developments indicate that the Ugandan government is not, at present, pursuing the arrest and surrender obligation [it has as a signatory to the ICC]. Instead, as part of ongoing peace talks in Juba, the Uganda government signed an agreement with the representatives of the LRA on February 19 2008 to establish a national court to try those alleged to have committed 'serious crimes' during the conflict."
Gdn: UN court prepares to try alleged Hakiri assassins in the Hague
"Lebanon has been paralysed politically since Syria's allies, led by the Shia organisation Hizbullah, quit the Beirut government when it voted to establish the tribunal: one consequence is that the Lebanese presidency has been vacant for months and Fuad Siniora, the western-backed Sunni prime minister, will not attend the weekend Arab summit. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are also demonstratively staying away."

Salon: interview with modern slavery researcher
BBC: Indian men protest enslavement in US

BBC: a beauty pageant for landmine victims in Angola
"Perhaps the "Miss Landmine Survivor" contest will remind the rich and powerful in central Luanda that there is still a lot of work to be done, both in terms of ridding the country of landmines and of improving the lives of their victims."

checkpoints

NYT: heavy fighting with Shiite militias in Baghdad and southern cities, especially in Basra
"A British Army spokesman for southern Iraq, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that while Western forces had not entered Basra, the operation already involved nearly 30,000 Iraqi troops and police forces, with more arriving. 'They are clearing the city block by block,' Major Holloway said...Sadr City, the Baghdad neighborhood that is the center of the Mahdi Army’s power, was sealed off by a cordon of Iraqi troops and what appeared to be several American units. A New York Times photographer who was able to get through the cordon found more layers of checkpoints, each one run by about two dozen heavily armed Mahdi Army fighters clad in tracksuits and T-shirts...Basra, which until 2005 enjoyed relative peace, has since been riven by power struggles among the Mahdi Army and local Shiite rivals, like the Badr Organization and a militia controlled by the Fadhila political party, a group that split from the Sadr party."
LAT: potential preview of election cycle violence
"The U.S. military says it is targeting rogue elements of Sadr's militia who continue to attack its forces, allegedly with Iranian backing, though Tehran denies the charges. Sadr loyalists accuse his Shiite rivals in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party of using the Iraqi army and police to round up the cleric's followers ahead of the elections."
LAT: summary of the main Shiite factions
WP: Maliki gives militias 72 hours to stop fighting; rockets hit Green Zone in Baghdad

Gdn: Islamic Courts briefly seize Jowhar, Somalia

Gdn: Mugabe makes opposition eat campaign posters

Ind: behind the coup in the Comoros (ok, it's not really a coup, but SV favors alliteration)

Gdn: (slide show) Congo's displaced people

WP: violence in Sri Lanka escalates; famous monk advocates a "military solution"

WP: 1,000 arrested in Tibet protests

WP: US intelligence estimates to become more rigorous in attempt to regain credibility
(though it could be argued the NIE was only reflecting the executive, will rebound in Jan 2009)

jurisdiction, smurisdiction
LAT: US Supreme Court pushes back against executive power (so Texas can implement the death penalty unimpeded)
Slate: but seems ok with the executive denying habeas corpus to citizens held by "multinational forces"

WSJ: Black funeral parlors facing violence during services

Slate: apparently suicide bombers shave their bodies before attacks

BBC: sex workers' workshop canceled by Ugandan gov't

bandits, roving and stationary

WP: bandit, "Thokia," eludes police in central India
"Madhya Pradesh, a region of jungles, forbidding rocky ravines and deep poverty, has harbored bandits and renegades since at least the 12th century, historians say. Between 1957 and 2001 alone, nearly 5,700 bandits have come and gone in the province.
In the past five years, Thokia, 33, has become part of the local folklore, a Robin Hood figure.
He and his gang of 20 have killed several police officers and other bandits. They have abducted businessmen and public works contractors for ransom. They also have managed to build a reputation of never hurting poor people, especially those of the leader's own caste...
When he was a young man, the story goes, his sister was raped. He pleaded with local police and the village council to arrest the perpetrator, but they refused. So at 23, he ran away from home, pledging revenge. He killed the brothers of the rapist, but the man himself is still free."
(SV's related film recommendation: The Bandit Queen)
Ind: bandits strike in Thailand, as rice prices rise
"Reports of widespread theft, although unsubstantiated by police, spread quickly after 220lb of premium-quality fragrant rice was stolen from a granary in Kalasin province, 300 miles north-east of Bangkok. 'Villagers have set up teams and are patrolling the community,' said Urit Poo-aob, a district chief in Kalasin."
AP: and for good measure, the US has its own version: the barbie bandit. of course she's branded, natch.

WSJ: militias in 2 Shiite neighborhoods stock-piling weapons in schools
WP: Sadr called for a strike Monday of shops and taxis in the areas; some fear ceasefire will be called off
LAT: security forces launch crackdown in Basra
since British troops left in December, "Basra has been torn by fighting among Shiite political parties and their militias, which are in competition for the south's lucrative oil reserves."
Gdn: today Sadr called for "civil revolt" in response to Basra measures
Gdn: Q&A on Basra

AP: Comoros retakes Anjouan with AU forces

BBC: Sri Lanka engages LTTE boats

LAT: Shining Path launches attack in coca-producing region of Peru, kill one police officer

AP: royalists win Bhutan's first election

BBC: new PM keeps his word, judges released in Pakistan

BBC: still working out the cabinet in Kenya

BBC: aid not making its way to Afghanistan

CSM: debating engagement with Hamas

BBC: India's Supreme Court orders new investigation of 2002 Gujarat riots

NYT: escape routes from East Germany to Bulgaria
"At least 4,500 people tried to escape over the Bulgarian border during the cold war, estimated the researcher, Stefan Appelius, a professor of political science at Oldenburg University. Of those, he believes that at least 100 were killed, but no official investigation has ever been undertaken...By comparison, the research center in Potsdam says that 134 people were killed trying to escape at the Berlin Wall, though the research is continuing and that figure is contested by those who say it should be higher. Over all, experts say, more than 1,000 people died trying to flee over the East German border."

keeping quiet and speaking up

Gdn: "forgotten" war in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia
"Deep in these desert wastes lie the Somali state zones (provinces) of Degehabur, Fik and Qorahay. It is here, largely unseen and unreported, that the Ethiopian army, backed by rival sub-clans, has waged a violent nine-month-long campaign against factions of the Ogadeni clan, the backbone of the ONLF."
LAT: horrific story of one woman accused of collaborating with the Ogaden National Liberation Front

BBC: talks in Somalia to end violence
interim PM met with elders of the Hawiye clan, though it's unclear if they can influence the most active armed group, al-Shabab (whose members are mostly Hawiye). Al-Shabab carrying out hit-and-run attacks on villages in central and southern Somalia:
"A pattern is emerging whereby the militia briefly occupy the town, often killing a number of people, then withdraw with arms, ammunition and military vehicles seized from Somali government and Ethiopian troops."

Gdn: Mugabe printing an extra 3 million ballots, just in case vote rigging plan A goes awry
Gdn: vote rigging necessary because former allies have become the opposition

LAT: US death toll in Iraq reaches 4,000
CSM: attack on green zone launched from Sadr City
WP: another dispatch from Fallujah, where "brute force" keeps the peace (profile of the former Sunni insurgent turned local police chief)

BBC: new Pakistan PM to reinstate judges
BBC: Musharraf says he'll cooperate with new government

WP: Bhutan monarch imposes voting, despite popular opposition

LAT: cocaine production on the rise in Peru; Shining Path group involved
"...this time, the traffickers may be more difficult to combat because the flashy kingpins from Colombia have been replaced by a piecemeal network, a sort of gold rush of international entrepreneurs...A wave of drug-related lawlessness -- assassinations, ambushes, threats against prosecutors -- has fanned fears of the kind of narco-instability that afflicts Colombia and Mexico... And renewed militancy among the peasants who grow the coca leaf has sparked road closures and violent clashes with law enforcement officers...
'The narcos and their sicarios [hired killers] act in these zones with complete impunity,' said Rospigliosi, the former interior minister. 'They've bought off local officials and have complete control.'
The flourishing narco trade, authorities say, is stimulating a fresh incarnation of the Maoist rebel group Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, which terrorized the nation before being beaten down in the 1990s. Shining Path was never vanquished in coca country, where the rebels have long imposed "taxes" on traffickers, timber harvesters and others."

NYT: delay in response time by Chinese police during Tibetan violence
BBC: Tuareg rebels launch attacks in Mali
BBC: fighting in Afghanistan
BBC: and Kashmir;
BBC: imminent on island of Anjouan in the Comoros

Gdn: technology and justice: Argentines using DNA to identify disappeared

USAT: witnesses in US keeping quiet, fearing reprisals

NYT: nostalgia for Duvalier in Haiti
"Mr. Planess, 53, who complains that hunger has become so much a part of his life that his stomach does not even growl anymore, is not alone in his nostalgia for Haiti’s dictatorial past. Other Haitians speak longingly of the security that existed then as well as the lack of garbage in the streets, the lower food prices and the scholarships for overseas study." the article also mentions that the prime minister has appointed a commission to consider reconstituting the army.

WP: eradicating slavery in Mauritania
"The ancient tradition of slavery endures in Mauritania, although it was officially abolished in the 1980s. There are roughly half a million slaves among the country's population of 3.3 million, and at least 80 percent do not have access to a formal education, [former slave and activist] Messaoud said...Under the still-prevalent tradition, children inherit the status of their mothers and are passed on by masters as part of dowries or shared with other family members."

NYT: Suriname wrestles with language and identity

LAT: protest through poetry in Pakistan

gross national (un)happiness index

WP: is the FARC almost done?
" 'The civilian population does not want to collaborate,' [a guerrilla deserter] added. 'There is a complete rejection. Even civilians are telling guerrillas: 'Desert. Don't let yourself get killed.'

Last year, 2,480 rebels abandoned the FARC, up from 1,558 the previous year, according to the Defense Ministry. Most are classified as 'men in arms,' fighters on the front lines of a simmering conflict. About 40 percent are plainclothes militiamen who carry out intelligence operations and supply provisions to FARC units...The deserters also say that increasingly paranoid commanders have started to stage more 'war councils,' jungle trials in which guerrillas face execution if found guilty of treachery."

(mobilization on Facebook may deal a fatal blow; a group is organizing a "rescate civil" of 1,000 civilians to march to a FARC stronghold and demand the release of the kidnapped. HT to Adam Isacson)

NYT: new coalition in Pakistan to try new approach with militants: negotiation
“ 'We are dealing with our own people,' said Mr. Sharif, who was twice prime minister in the 1990s. 'We will deal with them very sensibly. And when you have a problem in your own family, you don’t kill your own family. You sit and talk. After all, Britain also got the solution of the problem of Ireland. So what’s the harm in conducting negotiations?' ”
CFR: (this approach doesn't seem all that new to SV; see "peace deals with tribal areas")
BBC: Pakistan People's Party to nominate prime minister today

SWJ: non-commissioned officers' reflections on their deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq

LAT: women imprisoned and abused in Iraq
WP: how the US bullied allies in the run-up to the Iraq invasion

LAT: violence by all sides in Tibetan protests
"Tibetans randomly beat and killed Chinese solely on the basis of their ethnicity: a young motorcyclist bludgeoned in the head with paving stones and probably killed; a teenage boy in school uniform being dragged by a mob. When authorities did regroup, paramilitary troops fired live ammunition into the crowds. Witnesses did not see protesters armed with anything other than stones, bottles of gasoline or a few traditional Tibetan knives.
Despite a massive deployment of Chinese forces, the protests show no signs of abating."
Gdn: China deploying more troops, paramilitaries
WP: also using unconventional means: pro-Tibet groups face cyber attacks

WP: Hezbollah said to be mobilizing in Lebanon for another confrontation with Israel
BBC: in refugee camp in southern Lebanon, fighting between Fatah-backed militia and pro-Syria Islamist group

Ind: British minister for International Development warns of future wars over water

Ind: the power of pop: young Afghans attend 'idol' competition despite militant threats

AP: clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurds celebrating spring festival

BBC: DRC bans Bandu dia Kongo after fighting in west

BBC: Armenian opposition to protest elections again

WP: Nepalis on the verge of voting

Slate: a creative compromise to end the Democratic battle (but eh, one that SV finds unpalatable)
Slate: what if Hillary gave a speech on gender a la Obama's on race? (and why she can't/won't)

Slate: public service announcement from SV: if you're on spring break somewhere delightfully warm, enjoying a coast, beware of jumping fish

Slate: and when you get back, catch up on how the economy's been crumbling
WSJ: maybe the US should switch to Bhutan's approach and measure Gross National Happiness instead. then again, that may not work out too well either...

resurrections

NYT: local-level governance in Iraq, captain by (retiring) captain
"During the war in Iraq, young Army and Marine captains have become American viceroys, officers with large sectors to run and near-autonomy to do it. In military parlance, they are the “ground-owners.” In practice, they are power brokers. 'They give us a chunk of land and say, ‘Fix it,’ ' said Capt. Rich Thompson, 36, who controls an area east of Baghdad."
LAT: in some areas of Iraq, US trying to transition militia members into alternative sectors
LAT: Fallujah repopulated, "alive again"; but article fails to describe how it's been rebuilt
"To ensure continued security progress, Marines conduct late-night raids several times a week after picking up intelligence about possible insurgent activities. The troops also have sought to provide employment to young Falloujans to help win their loyalty."
Gdn: letters responding to article on Iraq fatality estimates

CSM: Herat strike for more security against criminal gangs
"Doctors, nurses, and other health providers walked out on their jobs to protest what they say are the government's half-hearted attempts to address a growing security problem. Shopkeepers, judges, and the city's main trade union soon joined them, prompting the closure of close to 250 factories.
The strike, which ended earlier this week, highlights widespread dissatisfaction with government efforts to provide security and illustrates the extent to which criminal gangs – not the Taliban – are seen as the biggest security threat in Afghanistan's major cities."

LAT: in Colombia, army units accused of increasingly killing civilians, labeling them as guerrillas
"Ramiro Orjuela Aguilar, a Bogota human rights attorney representing 20 families of suspected 'false positive' victims in Meta, blamed the military's use of paid informants or demobilized guerrillas for many of the killings.
'They have an incentive to name people as rebels because they are paid for information whether it's correct or not,' Orjuela said.
Several of the Meta victims last year were youths living in and around Granada, the hub of a cattle and farming region that has been fiercely contested in recent years by leftist guerrillas, the armed forces and right-wing paramilitary troops. It is also home to the army's 12th Mobile Brigade, a unit that Orjuela says is implicated in many of the killings.
Orjuela alleges that the army is engaging in 'social cleansing' in Meta, home to four of the five municipalities that made up the so-called neutral zone occupied by Colombian guerrillas from 1998 to 2002. Killings and mass displacements of residents here are efforts to deprive guerrillas of sympathizers, Orjuela said.
'They are trying to deprive the fish of its water,' he said."

NYT: violence between Tibetans and the Chinese state may influence voting in Taiwan

BBC: veterans of Bangladesh's 1971 independence war want collaborators of Pakistan tried for war crimes

BBC: Cyprus peace talks on again

BBC: Liberia launches its first census since 1984; pop song translated into 16 languages plays daily urging citizens to stay home to be counted

Slate: how early Christians understood resurrection
"The ancient Jewish and early Christian idea of personal resurrection represented a new emphasis on individuals and the importance of embodied existence beyond the mere survival or enhancement of the soul, although there was debate about the precise nature of the post-resurrection body...In the earliest expressions of their faith that we have, Christians claimed that Jesus' resurrection showed that God singled out Jesus ahead of the future resurrection of the dead to show him uniquely worthy to be lord of all the elect...In Christianity's first few centuries, when believers often suffered severe persecution and even the threat of death, those who believed in Jesus' bodily resurrection found it particularly meaningful for their own circumstances. Jesus had been put to death in grisly fashion, but God had overturned Jesus' execution and, indeed, had given him a new and glorious body. So, they believed that they could face their own deaths as well as those of their loved ones in the firm hope that God would be faithful to them as well."

facebook to resolve Israel-Palestine conflict, move on to world peace next

WP: Western spooks having hard time infiltrating Al-Qaeda; find that members not easily bought off, Cold War style:
"During the Cold War, for example, the CIA had enjoyed some success in recruiting KGB moles and persuading Soviet officials to defect. The agency was also able to buy off Afghan warlords with suitcases of cash, persuading them to fight Soviet forces in the 1980s and to turn on the Taliban in 2001. A similar approach has worked, to a limited extent, against insurgents in Iraq: An informant's tip led directly to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, in 2006.
But al-Qaeda's core organization in Pakistan and Afghanistan has so far proved impervious to damaging leaks."

LAT: division in the Pentagon over when to withdraw troops
Officers on the ground opposed, Joint Chiefs in favor

NYT: the state of the Iraqi army in Mosul

Ind: gearing up for a "final" fight in Basra

AP: Turkey bombed Kurdish target in Iraq

BBC: the plight of Uighur prisoners in Guantánamo

Gdn: Cheney still on the "here I am so you can thank me in person" tour of Mideast; says NATO needs to show its thanks by stepping up support in Afghanistan

BBC: Kenyans killed by cattle raiders in Rift Valley

BBC: UN report condemns Sudan for reigniting violence in Darfur

BBC: Eufor commander says troops will shoot if attacked in Chad, where guarding refugee camps

Gdn: China acknowledges shooting Tibetan protesters - in "self defense"

Slate: do "three strikes" laws lead perpetrators to be more violent?

Gdn: nationalist and territorial conflicts in the 21st century: the Israel-Palestine dispute on Facebook
"Jewish settlers living inside the occupied Palestinian West Bank complained when they found their addresses identified them as living in Palestine, rather than Israel. More than 400,000 people live in settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, all of which are widely considered illegal under international law...After a campaign of several days Facebook relented and now allows settlers in three of the largest settlements, Ma'ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, and in the tense and divided city of Hebron, home to around 600 settlers, to choose either Israel or Palestine as their home country."

hindsight (doesn't improve everyone's vision)

the 5th anniversary: reflections on the invasion of and war in Iraq
RAND: (HT to new Insurgency Group Blog at King's College)
Slate: an ex-Army captain
Slate: Fred Kaplan
"The disastrous consequences that have been unfolding plainly over the past five years are not "side effects" of this war but rather the direct, head-on results."
Newsweek: the debate over what kind of future wars to prepare for
Salon: Juan Cole
Ind: the British legacy in Basra
"a dark and forbidding place of militias"
Gdn: Bush
shocker: "President George Bush showed no sign of regret today when he marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by declaring that the costs in terms of lives and upheaval had been worth it and that retreat would threaten both security and the world economy...In words addressed to Clinton and Obama, he said: 'The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable – yet some in Washington still call for retreat. War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq – so now they argue the war costs too much. In recent months we have heard exaggerated estimates of the costs of this war.'" !!!
Gdn: what are the estimated "costs" in terms of lives?
"There is no shortage of estimates, but they vary enormously. The Iraqi ministry of health initially tried to keep a count based on morgue records but then stopped releasing figures under pressure from the US-supported government in the Green Zone."
Gdn: stolen antiquities funding Al-Qaeda

Gdn: McCain thinks that Iran is funding Al-Qaeda; if it weren't so remarkably off-base, SV would be reminded of bogus claims linking Al-Qaeda and Hussein to justify war

BBC: US Marine tried for murder of unarmed detainnee

SWJ: (video) President Kennedy's speech to 1962 West Point class

other news
LAT: first woman speaker nominated in Pakistan
BBC: UN peace force considered for Somalia
BBC: Gurkas protest for citizenship rights in Britain
BBC: UN suggests riots in Kosovo organized by Serbia
Newsweek: slavery in Malaysia

Slate: US Supreme Court on its way to affirming Americans' (individual) right to bear arms

NYT: Obama's speech

let's share. or not.

BBC: Kenya MPs weigh making power-sharing deal between Odinga and Kibaki constitutional
BBC: Zanzibar and Tanzania reach power-sharing deal

BBC: after 9 months, Belgium reaches its own - you guessed it - power-sharing deal

BBC: OAS brokers truce among Ecuador, Colombia (and Venezuela)
Gdn: calls for UK Foreign Office minister to resign, after linking human rights and labor organization to FARC

Gdn: Mugabe bucks the trend, won't share: threatens to ban foreign press from upcoming election coverage, accusing them of spying

BBC: clashes in the Comoros with renegade leader of Anjouan, one of the islands in the federation
"Since gaining independence from France in 1975, the Union of Comoros - an impoverished three-island archipelago off Africa's east coast - has suffered 19 coups or coup attempts...Bacar unilaterally declared himself president of semi-autonomous Anjouan last July after winning an election which the central authorities declared illegal."

BBC: Liberian women in Ghana strip in protest of planned return and $100; they ask for $1000 and resettlement in West

LAT: not enough sharing: Tibetan grievances
Gdn: elsewhere in China, leading dissident goes on trial

IHT: no cross-class gym going for Haitians

BBC: attacks in Manipur, India continue: 11 killed

BBC: Joseph Kony, head of the LRA, moves from base in Uganda to Central African Republic, violating terms of cease-fire

BBC: Afghan inmates take over parts of prison in days-long, ongoing stand-off

LAT: Hamas gains popularity over Fatah

Gdn: (video) "killing fields" outside Sadr City
Gdn: Pentagon avoided brain screenings of veterans

IHT: US considers cold war tactics to fight terrorism
"After piecing together a more nuanced portrait of terrorist organizations, they say there is reason to believe that a combination of efforts could in fact establish something akin to the posture of deterrence, the strategy that helped protect the United States from a Soviet nuclear attack during the cold war." (sounds to SV like Shapiro's emphasis on containment)

Gdn: Turkish constitutional court considers banning ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Chief prosecutor seeking ban because of "anti-secular" turn; AKP threatens to curb judiciary's power

Gdn: "Europe's last dictator," Belarus's Lukashenko hires Thatcher's old spin doctor to soften image

BBC: Somali pirates receive ransom for Dutch ship owner

Slate: did strategic, Rush-inspired voters give Clinton the edge in Texas?
NYT: they won't get the chance in Florida, and maybe not in Michigan either (even if there is a re-vote there)

USAT: Q&A on the financial crisis and Fed bailout
including: "What is an investment bank, and why should I care what happens to one?"

protests that would make st. pat proud

LAT: Tibetan protests, Chinese repression like whack-a-mole
"The Chinese have deployed thousands of troops from the paramilitary People's Armed Police and the People's Liberation Army. But just as soon as the troops stamp out one protest, another pops up...The violence was seeping outside Tibet proper into parts of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces with large ethnic Tibetan minorities."
WP: Chinese actions appear to have popular support
"The Dalai Lama, now 72, led a violent uprising with help from the Central Intelligence Agency after Chinese troops reimposed rule from Beijing in 1950. The subversion campaign failed, and he was forced in 1959 to flee on horseback to India, where he has lived in exile for half a century. It was to mark the anniversary of his dramatic flight over the Himalayas that anti-China demonstrations in Lhasa got started last Monday...
Tibet, a 750,000-square-mile territory sitting between the Himalayan and Kun Lun mountain ranges, was more or less part of various Chinese empires over the centuries, paying fealty but often too remote to be totally controlled. With the Dalai Lama as its leader, however, Tibet governed itself as an independent nation while China was torn by the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century. So for Beijing officials and the public they have educated through propaganda, the Dalai Lama is less a devout Buddhist than a secessionist rebel."

Gdn: Serbs take court in Kosovo, clash with UN forces
"Mitrovica's 40,000 Serbs are militantly opposed to Kosovan independence and, backed by Belgrade, they are bent on partitioning the province and taking over the police and judicial institutions in the north."

NYT: decision to disband military taken by Bremer and Bush without consultation
NYT: (op-ed) Bremer doesn't think that's his biggest mistake
NYT: (op-ed) it wasn't Perle's fault either
WP: at Congressional hearing, representatives debate the obligations of the US gov't to Iraqi refugees and IDPs
WP: Dick "the Liberator" Cheney goes to collect long-overdue flowers in person
Gdn: soldiers speaking at Iraq Veterans against the War forum know better

IHT: Shariah and (Western) rule of law

BBC: new parliament opens in Pakistan

WP: violence in Kenya's Rift Valley organized by opposition, says HRW report
"'This was not done by ordinary citizens, it was arranged by people with money,' said one young man who took part in the attacks, according to the report. 'They brought the jobless like me. We need something to eat each day.'"

Ind: ivory funds warlords in the DRC, Sudan and Chad, Somalia
BBC: violence in usually (relatively) stable western DRC
Bundu Dia Kongo challenges central state authority; police are trying to disband its militia

Gdn: (book excerpt) marijuana trade in Canada
BBC: coca and cocaine labs discovered in Brazilian Amazon for first time

IHT: families sue Chiquita over 1993 deaths of loved ones in Urabá, Colombia
"The 63-page complaint asserts that Chiquita provided 'numerous and substantial hidden payments' to [the FARC] in addition to weapons and supplies. That financing, the plaintiffs say, contributed to the deaths of the five men because Chiquita had in fact supported 'acts of terrorism.'"

IHT: the changing patterns of sex work
Slate: Venkatesh outlines the new tiers

New Yorker: washboarding is not torture. it's just really really irritating

Slate: raise a glass today for St Patrick today, even if you're not sure why

anniversaries

lots of outlets focusing on the 5th anniversary of Iraq invasion...most are pessimistic. here are 2 from the LAT: signs of progress don't last long enough to report, and one Iraqi general's story of lost hope
"As the fifth anniversary of the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein nears, he serves as a singular witness to the hopes and horrors of the last five years: a man haunted by his role in a terrible stampede on a Baghdad bridge that left nearly 1,000 people dead; a man targeted for his involvement in the discovery of a Shiite police torture chamber; a man devastated by the killing of his son."

New Yorker: documenting life at Abu Ghraib
“'[the prison looked] Like something from a Mad Max movie,' Sergeant Javal Davis, of the 372nd, said. 'Just like that—like, medieval.' There were more than two and a half miles of wall with twenty-four towers, enclosing two hundred and eighty acres of prison ground. And inside, Davis said, 'it’s nothing but rubble, blown-up buildings, dogs running all over the place, rabid dogs, burnt remains. The stench was unbearable: urine, feces, body rot.'
The prisoners—several thousand of them, clad in orange—were crowded behind concertina wire. 'The encampment they were in when we saw it at first looked like one of those Hitler things, like a concentration camp, almost,' Davis said. 'They’re in there, in their little jumpsuits, outside in the mud. Their rest rooms was running over. It was just disgusting. You didn’t want to touch anything. Whatever the worst thing that comes to your mind, that was it—the place you would never, ever, ever, ever send your worst enemy.'”

Ind: older atrocities: remembering Mai Lai, 40 years later

NYT: US trying to convince Pakistan to embrace counterinsurgency (against militants) rather than conventional warfare (against India) (SV wonders if Musharraf cites Rumsfeld and Cheney)

Gdn: Tibet demonstrations, violence move to Xiahe
BBC: Taiwanese plan to demonstrate against anti-secession law

Ind: Iranian students reflect on the elections
Gdn: despite risks from the Morality Police, women resist restrictions through 'self expression' (indoors)

Ind: mercenary Mann agrees to give evidence of other coup plotters to Equatorial Guinea

BBC: the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) of Manipur claims 6 Indian soldiers' lives

WP: the Left (read: Communist Party) in Germany making a comeback

do as i say, not as i do

WP: clash between Chinese security forces, civilians, and Tibetan protesters leaves at least 10 dead
Gdn: an eyewitness account
WP: oops, just when US removes China from list of worst human rights abusers

Vanity Fair: the US supported Fatah militia to destabilize Hamas
"Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza."
WP: seven weeks in, the official program is stumbling
Is this program a legal version of the previous one? I can't tell...

LAT: Rice expresses outrage at possibility that Chávez is supporting the FARC, presumably to destabilize Colombia
BBC: Colombia will pay millions in reward to FARC members who mutinied and killed Iván Ríos, member of the secretariat; still may be charged with homicide, mutilation of a corpse (for cutting off his hand to offer proof of death)

LAT: SV would like to thank the British general who points out that winning 'hearts and minds' is "ridiculous"
"He said the best an occupying army could hope for was the consent of local people, and this required delivering tangible benefits such as electricity, water and security."
Slate (but could've appeared in the Onion): Bush laments being too busy, old to fight in the romantic war that is Afghanistan. obviously he failed to read the summary of the NYT magazine article a few weeks back...

The Nation: who really is fighting, and how
"The government treats its soldiers the way most corporations treat their workforce--as an invisible, disrespected, disposable means to an end that is contrary to workers' interests."

WP: drug war on the Mexican border
"More than 20,000 Mexican troops and federal police are engaged in a multi-front war with the private armies of rival drug lords, a conflict that is being waged most fiercely along the 2,000-mile length of the U.S.-Mexico border...A total of more than 4,800 Mexicans were slain in 2006 and 2007, making the murder rate in each of those years twice that of 2005."
WP: mass grave uncovered at cartel safe house in Ciudad Juárez
Gdn: Peruvian lawmakers protest the UN's recommended ban on traditional uses of coca

Gdn: the fall of the USSR and the rise of the Russian mafia (book excerpt)

WP: glowing report on health of multi-party democracies in West Africa
WP: in Kenya, where glowing news stories on African states used to all be based, the Rift Valley still receiving displaced people, one week after peace deal reached
BBC: more than 150 members of the Sabaot Land Defence Forces (SDLF) have been arrested in West Kenya, for violence that appears to be opportunistic rather than motivated by election outcome
Gdn: further south, Mugabe receives "endorsement" from police and army
"Zimbabwe's police and army chiefs have said they will not allow Robert Mugabe to be defeated in this month's presidential election by opposition candidates they deride as "puppets" and "sell-outs" to Britain."
AP: Sudan and Chad agree to peace deal
Reuters: but Darfur armed groups balk at pact

WP: Croatians on trial for perpetrating war crimes against Serbs in 1995
Gdn: in another court, militia member testifies that Charles Taylor ordered combatants to eat enemies

Reason: sex work, slavery, and rhetoric at the turn of the 20th century still resonates, from New York to
Ind: Bangladesh

The Onion: war czar says war isn't imminent