Under his plan, 50% of the budget would be used to counter conventional threats, with about 10% going to go irregular warfare and 40% to weapons useful to both types of conflicts.
Slate: the key points
Foreign Affairs: Gates's rationale behind it
The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States' existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done.
Abu Muquwama: some people have strong opinions about it
Abu Muquwama: and some have wrong ones
James Inhofe should be ashamed of himself -- not for saying the new budget is "gutting" our military and "disarming America" but for traveling all the way to Afghanistan on the tax-payer's dime and failing to discover that the kinds of weapons systems and skillsets needed for Afghanistan are exactly the kinds of weapons systems and skillsets privileged in the budget. Don't use the war in Afghanistan a cheap prop, Senator, if you're not even going to study the nature of the war itself.
WP: Pentagon dedicating resources to studying the Israel-Hezbollah 2006 war in Lebanon
A big reason that the 34-day war is drawing such fevered attention is that it highlights a rift among military leaders: Some want to change the U.S. military so that it is better prepared for wars like the ones it is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others worry that such a shift would leave the United States vulnerable to a more conventional foe.
irregular threats
WP: bombings kill 34 across Baghdad, in worst violence in months
"Nobody knows," said Hussan Fadhil Aziz, 29, as he watched American soldiers cordon the area in Um al-Maalif. "We don't know who controls the area anymore."
He still ventured an explanation for the violence: Last week's bitter clashes between members of the Awakening, a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary force, and the mostly Shiite security forces had triggered a new wave of animosity.
NPR: conflict emerges among Anbar province's Sunni tribes
Stars & Stripes: doctor rejoins US Army after 37 years (via Tom Ricks)
WP: shoe-thrower/icon's sentence reduced to 1 year
AJE: apparent revenge attack against village in West Bank by Israeli settlers wounds several
The settlers from Bat Ayin, where a Palestinian killed a young settler last week, attacked cars and homes in the village of Safa on Wednesday.
The Israeli account is that the settlers, who were armed, came under attack when they entered Safa to pray, Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the West Bank, said.
The Palestinians were injured when the Israeli troops fired tear gas and live ammunition to break up the disturbance, medics said.
NYT: Sri Lankan military, Tamil Tigers ignore calls for a ceasefire, step up the fighting
The government said on its Defense Ministry Web site that it had killed more than 250 Tamil Tigers during weekend fighting and 420 more in foiling an ambush Monday morning. A pro-rebel site said that Sri Lankan shelling of the no-fire zone had killed at least 71 civilians and wounded 143 over the weekend...
The government said its troops had taken control of the Puthukkudiyiruppu area, the rebels’ last remaining stronghold at the edge of the safety zone. A general said Sunday that the rebels had been driven into the safety zone, a small strip of beachfront jungle in the country’s northeast.
BBC: interviews with civilians escaping the area
Gdn: Tamil supporters arrested in London protest
AJE: 2 bombings in Assam kill several
Police said they suspected both attacks to have been carried out by the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).
Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister from the ruling Congress party, was set to campaign in Assam on Tuesday...
The latest incidents occurred a day before the 30th anniversary of ULFA, which has previously carried out attacks around their anniversary and has been blamed for violence in Assam before.
ULFA is fighting for secession for the Assamese people in the northeast and is one of dozens of armed groups operating in the region.WP: Somali pirates seize Dutch ship; US crew regains control
Reuters: Zetas training camp raided in Guatemala (via Tom Ricks)
Security forces were tipped off about suspicious activity at a ranch in Quiche, in the central highlands, by residents who said men in ski masks were asking villagers to join their ranks, police chief Marlene Blanco said at a news conference.
Two commanders of the Zetas, the armed wing of Mexico's Gulf cartel, and 37 recruits fled the camp before the police and army arrived, leaving behind 500 grenades, six rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Blanco said.
protestsNYT: Twitter, texting help mobilize post-election protests in Moldova
A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police...
There was no sign that the authorities would cede to any of the protesters’ demands, and President Vladimir Voronin denounced the organizers as “fascists intoxicated with hatred.”
But Mihai Fusu, 48, a theater director who spent much of the day on the edges of the crowd, said he believed that a reservoir of political energy had found its way into public life.
“Moldova is like a sealed jar, and youth want more access to Europe,” he said. “Everyone knows that Moldova is the smallest, poorest and the most disgraceful country. And youth are talking about how they want freedom, Europe and a different life.”...The immediate cause of the protests were parliamentary elections held on Sunday, in which Communists won 50 percent of the vote, enough to allow them to select a new president and amend the Constitution. Though the Communists were expected to win, their showing was stronger than expected, and opposition leaders accused the government of vote-rigging...
Behind the confrontation is a split in Moldova’s population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought benefits to much of Eastern Europe, but in Moldova it ushered in economic decline and instability. In 2001, angry citizens backed the return of the Communists and their social programs...
The participants at that first gathering, on Monday, dispersed peacefully. But demonstrations on Tuesday spun out of control. News coverage showed protesters throwing stones at the windows of Parliament and the presidential palace, removing furniture and lighting it on fire. Riot police officers shielded their heads as demonstrators pelted them with stones. The police then used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Fires continued to burn late into the night.
Reuters: police take control of president's office
Ind: president: the Romanians are to blame
After riot police retook the smoking and wrecked buildings overnight and rounded up the protesters, Voronin said he was expelling Romania's ambassador and introducing visa regulations for Romanians wanting to enter Moldova.
"When the flag of Romania was raised on state buildings, the attempts of the opposition to carry out a coup became clear," the 67-year-old Communist leader said. He vowed "strict punishment" for the ringleaders.
Most of Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic, was part of Romania until World War Two and retains close cultural ties with its larger neighbour. Moldovans are split between those wanting reunification with Romania and those keen to stay independent.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry said it was unacceptable that "the Communist power in Chisinau transfers responsibility for the Moldovan Republic's domestic problems on to Romania".
Voronin won strong backing from Russia which said the riots were aimed at undermining Moldova's sovereignty.
NYT: former prime minister's supporters protest in BangkokWearing the red shirts of Thaksin loyalists, the demonstrators streamed into Bangkok throughout the day from his political strongholds in the rural north and northeast and by early evening the police estimated the crowds at 100,000.
The demonstrations were the biggest challenge to the four-month-old government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who took office after a pro-Thaksin government was dissolved when a court ruled that the governing party had engaged in electoral fraud.
BBC: police prevent protest in Egypt
trials
WP: Fujimori convicted of crimes against humanity; sentenced to 25 years
The verdict, delivered by a three-judge panel on a police base outside Lima where Fujimori has been held throughout the trial, marked the first time that an elected head of state has been extradited back to his home country, tried and convicted of human rights violations...
Many people in Peru admire Fujimori for largely defeating the Shining Path insurgency and ending a two-decade war that left about 70,000 people dead. But the tribunal found that Fujimori was guilty of creating and authorizing a military intelligence death squad that killed innocent people...
Fujimori's trial focused on two episodes of killings: a 1991 raid in which 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, were killed at a barbecue in Lima where the military intelligence unit was looking for Shining Path suspects. This raid, which became known as the Barrios Altos massacre, was followed by the 1992 abduction and killing of nine students and a teacher from La Cantuta University, also by the Colina Group...
One of the arguments Fujimori partisans sometimes offered was that the dead had been terrorists and that their deaths were, therefore, justified. But the tribunal wrote in the summary of the 711-page sentencing document that none of the 25 people killed in the two massacres had been members of the Shining Path.
AJE: former RUF leaders sentenced by Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal Sesay was sentenced to a total of 693 years, but the judges ordered the 16 sentences be served consecutively, meaning he will spend a maximum of 52 years in prison. Alongside Sesay, Morris Kallon, a former RUF commander, received a total of 340 years in prison, but will spend a maximum of 39 years in jail under the judges' ruling. Augustine Gbao, whom the court said was the RUF's ideology trainer, will spend 25 years in prison.
The Freetown-based court handed down its highest ever sentence to Issa Sesay, the leader of the RUF, on Wednesday.
New Yorker: the British law professor who helped launch the investigation of Bush's 'torture team'
NPR: ICRC report found that CIA medics were involved in torture
The ICRC report was based on statements from 14 prisoners who were held in CIA prisons overseas before being sent to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006. The prisoners said that medical personnel were on hand when they were stripped naked, beaten, shackled for days in "stress positions" and subjected to the practice of controlled drowning, commonly known as waterboarding.
wronging rights: international justice round-up
AJE: commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide
LAT: no such acknowledgment of (what some call) the Armenian genocide during Obama's trip to Turkey
By refraining from calling the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians beginning in 1915 a genocide, Obama for the moment avoided offending a country whose help U.S. officials need in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. At the same time, he avoided infuriating his Armenian American supporters.
But Obama also contributed to the suspense surrounding a likely presidential proclamation expected in time for April 24, the annual Armenian remembrance day.
U.S. presidents usually issue statements deploring the mass killings without calling them genocide. Armenian American organizations are urging Obama to make good on his campaign pledge...
Turkish President Abdullah Gul emphasized that Turkey was willing to open its archives to historians investigating the subject and allow a joint commission to draw conclusions.
"It is not a political but an historic issue," he said. "That's why we should let historians discuss the matter." Obama administration officials said delicate talks are continuing between Turkey and Armenia over normalizing relations.
BBC: Bangladesh to investigate war crimes during its war of independence
The government says those suspected of collaborating with the Pakistani army in the killing and rape of thousands of civilians will be put on trial.
The party which fought for independence in 1971, the Awami League, has recently been returned to power.
The plan is opposed by one of the main opposition parties, Jamaat-e-Islami.
Its leaders are among those accused of alleged war crimes.
electionsEcon: 'election' campaigning in Algeria
Abdelaziz Bouteflika has conducted a vigorous campaign to be re-elected for a third term on April 9th. There is little doubt that he will emerge with a commanding majority in the first round, against largely token opposition from five rivals who have been widely derided as "rabbits" in the local press. However, the main focus of his campaign has been on emphasising the need for a respectable turnout to accord legitimacy to his new mandate....
Mr Bouteflika had also been constrained to lower his public profile owing to a resurgence of Islamist terrorist attacks during 2007 and 2008, including a suicide bombing in Batna, a town in the east of the country, which appeared to have been intended as an assassination attempt. His recent re-emergence at public meetings has come amid reports of setbacks suffered by the armed Islamist movement, which regrouped under the banner of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) at the end of 2006. Four former "emirs" (commanders) of the Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat (GSPC; the precursor of AQIM) have issued a public appeal to Islamist fighters to lay down their arms and take advantage of Mr Bouteflika's reconciliation plan, which offers the chance of an amnesty from prosecution, and the security services reported at the end of March that they had killed several AQIM members in raids on the their hideouts in the mountainous region to the east of Algiers.
Gdn: Bouteflika promises referendum on amnesty for militants
WP: opposition presidential candidate in Iran calls for more freedoms
New Yorker: in-depth coverage of the campaign
LAT: South African tribe wins rights to natural resources revenue, provides public goods
New Haven Advocate: urban informants and police corruption
NYT: gangs of New York
It was mostly battles over turf. “They were like all these street gangs — ‘Don’t bother my territory, don’t get in my way’ — fighting for land or space,” he said. “In other words, ‘This is my territory, stay out of it,’ and so forth.”
From a law enforcement perspective, the motivation for joining a gang was apparent.
“They formed the gangs because they had close-knit living quarters in the tenements, and they formed gangs going to school, to protect themselves,” said Eric C. Schneider, who wrote “Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York.”...“You have a transformation of gangs from social entities organized around turf or ethnicity or around projecting honor and learning what it is like to be a male to becoming, in the 1970s, more economic entities that are increasingly, over time, organized as means of entry into the underground economy,” Mr. Schneider said. “And kids then went from fighting with things like switchblades and car aerials to fighting with weapons that were supplied by returning veterans during the Vietnam era and eventually the surplus production of all our arms manufacturers.”
daily show: the turnover of power tastes like...
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Slate: faith no more: the scientific explanation of Biblical miracles
LAT: hip-hop in the Arab world
Iranians rhyme about stifled lives and street-level viciousness born of economic hardship. Lebanese rap subtly about sectarian blood feuds. Palestinians sling verses about misery in refugee camps and humiliation at Israeli checkpoints. Egyptians lament the fragmentation of the Arab world.
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