adventure tourism [wish you were here]

NYT: US backed failed attack on LRA in the Congo, leading to hundreds massacred
The United States has been training Ugandan troops in counterterrorism for several years, but its role in the operation has not been widely known. It is the first time the United States has helped plan such a specific military offensive with Uganda, according to senior American military officials. They described a team of 17 advisers and analysts from the Pentagon’s new Africa Command working closely with Ugandan officers on the mission, providing satellite phones, intelligence and $1 million in fuel.

No American forces ever got involved in the ground fighting in this isolated, rugged corner of Congo, but human rights advocates and villagers here complain that the Ugandans and the Congolese troops who carried out the operation did little or nothing to protect nearby villages, despite a history of rebel reprisals against civilians. The troops did not seal off the rebels’ escape routes or deploy soldiers to many of the nearby towns where the rebels slaughtered people in churches and even tried to twist off toddlers’ heads...

The Lord’s Resistance Army is now on the loose, moving from village to village, seemingly unhindered, leaving a wake of scorched huts and crushed skulls. Witnesses say the fighters have kidnapped hundreds of children and marched them off into the bush, the latest conscripts in their slave army...

Villagers across the area are now banding together in local self-defense forces, arming themselves with ancient shotguns and rubber slingshots. In the past in Congo, home-grown militias have only complicated the dynamic and led to more abuses.

AJE: police kill 30 demonstrators in Madagascar
Supporters of Andry Rajoelina, an opposition leader and former mayor of Antananarivo, were marching towards offices used by Marc Ravalomanana, the president, when the shooting began on Saturday...Last month, at least 68 people died when rioting and looting broke out after a similar protest.

AJE: new president arrives in MogadishuAhmed travelled to the presidential palace under the protection of government soldiers, local fighters and African Union (AU) peacekeepers.

The road from the airport was lined with hundreds of people who welcomed him from Djibouti, where he had been following his visit to last week's AU conference in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
Slate: he apparently submitted his application fee on time
DB: maybe the pirate negotiator would've been a better choice
There are seven pirate clans in Somalia, and they do not go into each other’s areas. So the location of the ship tells us much about which group we were dealing with. As soon as I figure out the group, I try to link up with its leader through our contacts in Somalia.

AJE: treason charges dropped against opposition in Zimbabwe
The decision of the court underlined Zimbabwean government's eagerness to improve relations with the opposition, ahead of the formation of a unity government...On Thursday, the parliament passed a constitutional bill to allow the establishment of a coalition government under a power sharing deal signed in September.

AJE: Israel responds to two rocket attacks with air raids in Gaza
WP: UN suspends aid
Hamas officials in Gaza denied that the Islamist movement had seized the [aid] trucks, saying there had been a misunderstanding. But in an interview, Hamas economics minister Ziyad al-Zaza defended the group's decision to take 3,500 blankets and 400 food packages from the warehouse. Zaza said some employees of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency had been telling recipients that the aid was a gift of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is the leader of the Fatah party, Hamas's chief Palestinian rival.

"UNRWA is supposed to do work that is purely humanitarian," Zaza said. "But some of their employees want to use the aid to play politics."

John Ging, head of the relief agency in Gaza, called the allegation "nonsense," saying Hamas's actions had "crossed a red line."

AJE: killings continue in Pakistan, of police officers, civilians
AP: and, claims the gov't, militants
AJE: mosque bombing sparks crowd attack on police outpost in Punjab
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said: "The attack angered a lot of people, they vented their anger on the police station this morning. [Police] were unable to provide security to these people in the procession. So there was considerable anger at police."

Slate: the US in Afghanistan
Some argue that the best way is to step up attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida forces directly, as—or perhaps before—they cross the border from Pakistan. Others say it's better to stop chasing terrorists all over the countryside and instead to protect the Afghan population, provide basic services, and build their trust. But since resources are limited, which segments of the population do you protect—those in the cities, where most of the people live, or in the villages, where the Taliban have made their deepest incursions?

President Obama has talked of sending three extra brigades to Afghanistan. That means about 12,000 combat troops. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talks of deploying 30,000 extra troops—doubling the 30,000 we have there now.

These numbers sound far apart, but they're not. Obama's three brigades would also require "enablers"—military jargon for the personnel who enable the combat brigades to fight. They would include an aviation brigade (already in place), a division headquarters, a support brigade, military police, medics, military engineers (to build the expanded barracks and bases), and so on. Add all this into the mix, and you get 30,000 extra troops. Obama and Mullen are talking about the same troop boost.

How did they come up with this number? This is where the cause for worry begins. It didn't come from any assessment of how many troops are needed for a particular mission. No decisions about a specific mission—an operational goal—have yet been made.

The request for three brigades stems from one fact and one fact only: That's how many brigades will be available this year, as more troops pull out of Iraq.

It's a number based on what we have, not on what we need. It has no substantive rationale.

There soon will be a rationale, and it may well be the product of systematic thinking. Three "strategic reviews" of Afghanistan are currently in the works, due to be finished this month—one by the National Security Council, one by the Pentagon's Joint Staff, one by Gen. David Petraeus' staff and advisers at U.S. Central Command. (Petraeus' review encompasses Afghanistan, Iraq, and the surrounding region.)...

Judging from press accounts and from my own conversations with officials and advisers involved in these reviews, a consensus seems to be developing that—in the medium to long term—we should put most of our efforts into a counterinsurgency campaign, along the lines of Gen. Petraeus' field manual on the subject. This conforms to the school of thought that the best way to defeat insurgents is not to chase them here and there, but to protect the Afghan population and help build loyalty to the government.

However, there are widely differing views—both between and within the review teams—over what to do in the short term (as well as over how long the short term might last). The problem, widely acknowledged, is that a certain level of security has to be attained before a full-blown counterinsurgency campaign can work—and that many Afghan cities, villages, and roads haven't reached that level.
AP: maybe the Europeans will answer the NATO commander's plea for more troops
BBC: meanwhile, Karzai is displeased

AJE: Sri Lankan forces seeking LTTE rout; will not hold talks
AJE: ...as thousands of civilians are displaced and an LTTE sea base is captured
WP: meanwhile, some in Colombo are hopeful the war will end

AJE: confrontation between parties in Malaysia

NYT: Italian tourist visits Falluja

AJE: Panetta says he would end CIA renditions (mostly)

WP: President of Haiti requests emergency aid
Préval said he also urged Clinton to convert some of the $250 million in annual aid the United States now gives to Haiti into direct budget support for the government, instead of distributing the money through nongovernmental organizations. The United States is the biggest aid donor to Haiti, but he said "every last cent of the contribution" continues to be funneled through aid organizations, even though the government is better managed.

"Political stability has been restored, but what is necessary is the creation of jobs," he said...

Préval acknowledged that there has been "donor fatigue" over Haiti, but he noted that a series of U.N. peacekeeping missions have each cost nearly $500 million. He said he told officials in Washington that it would be cheaper to give the country the $75 million to $100 million he is seeking rather than have to pay for yet another expensive U.N. mission later.

"We are going to go back to the series of missions unless we do the work necessary to put the country back on the rails," he said.

Préval spoke through an interpreter, but when asked when Haiti needed the money, he broke into English and simply declared, "Now."

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Slate: denying the Holocaust
The closest thing to a codified definition of Holocaust denial is found in European law. Thirteen countries have laws banning Holocaust denial, including Austria, Germany, France, Israel, and Switzerland. (Other countries, like Canada, prohibit hate speech against any "identifiable group," including Jews, but don't refer specifically to the Holocaust.) Most of the laws are broad, like the Czech Republic's law punishing the "person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or Communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or Communists." In Israel, any published statement of "praise or sympathy for or identification with" the Nazis is a crime. Germany requires that the statement be part of a "public incitement." Those found guilty of Holocaust denial might get jail time—from six months to five years—or a hefty fine.

Slate: prehistoric animals were very, very large