The Times – A mystery surrounding the deaths of five French fishermen in a trawler accident three years ago deepened yesterday when a judge said that the boat was probably sunk by an unknown submarine spying on Nato exercises.
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Monthly Archives: June 2007
Iraq – The General's Report
New Yorker – How General Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.
Most interesting is this ending quote from General Taguba: “From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”
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Iraq – Iraq Push Revives Criticism of Force Size
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that the major U.S. offensive launched last weekend against insurgents in and around Baghdad has significantly expanded the military’s battleground in Iraq — “a surge of operations,” and no longer just of troops, as the second-ranking U.S. commander there said yesterday — but it has renewed concerns about whether even the bigger U.S. troop presence there is large enough.
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Geopolitics / Soviet Union – The Soviet Collapse: Grain and Oil
American Enterprise Institute – Yegor Gaidar, Russian economist and market reformer, former acting Prime Minister of Russia, former Russian economic minister, and possible Putin poisoning victim, has written a book about the collapse of the Soviet economy in the 1980’s that has been extracted into this astonishing paper.
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US Navy – U.S. hosts 3 foreign navies in exercises off Atlantic coast
Virginian Pilot – Four warships and several hundred sailors from France, Russia and Great Britain joined U.S. forces this week for a series of exercises off the Virginia and North Carolina coasts aimed at forging better relationships and operations among navies.
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Indian Navy – Once the USS Trenton, ship flies a new flag – for India
Virginian Pilot – The amphibious ship Jalashwa, which for 36 years sailed under the U.S. flag as the Trenton, is now flying the saffron, white and green colors of India.
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US Navy – Surviving SEAL tells story of deadly mission
Army Times – In the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, 4 SEALs made a tough choice. Only one lived to tell.
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Royal Australian Navy – Navy to get new advanced warships
AAP – Australia’s navy is to get new, advanced, Spanish-designed air warfare destroyers and large landing ships at a cost of as much as $11 billion.
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Miscellaneous – A plane that thinks it's a boat
The Economist – After a long gestation, ground-effect vehicles are coming to market.
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US Navy – New Hot War, Old Cold Warrior
Aviation Week – If you asked anyone to guess what were some of the most in-demand aircraft in Afghanistan and Iraq, the answers would not include aircraft designed to hunt Soviet submarines in the open ocean. But a combination of high-end sensors and displays, trained crews with space for more, and the ability to carry a wide range of communication equipment has made RAF Nimrods and US Navy P-3s uniquely valuable.
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Geopolitics / Pakistan – America's Bad Deal With Musharraf, Going Down in Flames
Washington Post – Ahmed Rashid analyses the current situation in Pakistan.
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Geopolitics / Religion – The Prophet of Moderation: Tariq Ramadan's Quest to Reclaim Islam
Foreign Affairs – Depending on whom you ask, Tariq Ramadan is either a brave Muslim moderate or an apologist for terrorism. Either way, his new book, which rethinks the Prophet Muhammad’s life for the modern world, is a step in the right direction.
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US Navy – USS Michigan, newly converted to guided missile sub, returns
Associated Press – The USS Michigan was welcomed back to duty Tuesday during a ceremony at Naval Base Kitsap that celebrated its conversion to a guided missile submarine.
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Operations Other Than War – Navy takes bedside manner down south
Virginian Pilot – The hospital ship USNS Comfort will deploy Friday on the ship’s first-ever foreign humanitarian mission. The Baltimore-based Comfort, docked in Norfolk since May 31 for final preparations, is expected to provide medical care to an estimated 85,000 patients in 12 nations throughout Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The mission is part of Partnership of the Americas 2007, an effort to improve relations with Latin American countries and the Navy’s readiness in the region
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US Marines – A Perspective on Anbar
Defense and the National Interest – William Lind analyzes the happenings in Anbar province in Iraq.
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Iraq – Military Envisions Longer Stay in Iraq
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that U.S. military officials are increasingly envisioning a “post-occupation” troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years.
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Geopolitics / Diplomacy – Defying Orders, Saving Lives: Heroic Diplomats of the Holocaust
Foreign Affairs – Little-known heroes of the Holocaust were the rare diplomats who defied their superiors’ orders and issued visas to save lives. With Iraqis now scrambling to leave their own country, those examples are as relevant today as ever.
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Iraq – Joint Chiefs Chair Will Bow Out
Washington Post – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that Marine Gen. Peter Pace will step down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September, a move that Gates said will avert the contentious congressional hearings that would be needed to reconfirm the nation’s top military officer. Pace will leave after just two years in the post, the shortest stint as chairman in more than four decades. The surprise announcement yesterday at the Pentagon amounts to Pace being fired before a customary second two-year term.
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US Navy – Norfolk-based ship fires on pirates off Somalia
Virginian Pilot – The Norfolk-based amphibious ship Carter Hall fired on pirates off the coast of Somalia as they overtook a Danish cargo ship. The Carter Hall fired several warning shots over the Danish vessel Danica White on Saturday and then destroyed three skiffs used by the pirates.
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Information Warfare – Could US repel a cyberattack?
Christian Science Monitor – Evidence is mounting that cyberwarfare tactics are part of the 21st-century arsenals of powers like Russia and China, yet the United States has not made Internet defenses a major priority.
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US Navy – The maritime strategy we need
Armed Forces Journal – A proposed maritime strategy for the US.
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US Navy – A question of cost
Armed Forces Journal – Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen has outlined the Navy’s plan for constructing the next-generation fleet in the 30-year shipbuilding plan, which details the road to a 313-ship force structure required to support the National Security Strategy. The goal is a future fleet that balances capability with affordability.
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Geopolitics / Terrorism – Al Qaeda Strikes Back
Foreign Affairs – By rushing into Iraq instead of finishing off the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Washington has unwittingly helped its enemies: al Qaeda has more bases, more partners, and more followers today than it did on the eve of 9/11. Now the group is working to set up networks in the Middle East and Africa — and may even try to lure the United States into a war with Iran. Washington must focus on attacking al Qaeda’s leaders and ideas and altering the local conditions in which they thrive.
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US Navy – U.S. fires at al Qaeda target in Somalia
CNN – U.S. Navy destroyer off the coast of northern Somalia Friday fired on a suspected al Qaeda operative believed to have been involved in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. There was no immediate word on the results of the attack, which was carried out using one of the destroyer’s 5-inch guns.
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Ground Warfare – How I Spent the War
New Yorker – Nobel laureate Gunter Grass reflects on how he spent World War II – with the Waffen SS.
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