news.notes20090512a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Katharine Hepburn
Born this day in 1907, American actress Katharine Hepburn brought a spirited individuality and depth of character to her roles that made her one of Hollywood's most dynamic leading ladies and earned her four Academy Awards.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

1926: First flight over the North Pole
Aboard the semirigid airship Norge, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, American scientist Lincoln Ellsworth, and Italian engineer Umberto Nobile made the first undisputed flight over the North Pole on this day in 1926.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Ozawa declares resignation
Hatoyama also stepping down; Okada, Kan seen stepping up

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

Bowing to pressure from within the Democratic Party of Japan, Ichiro Ozawa surprised the political world Monday by announcing his resignation as DPJ president to take responsibility for the political fundraising scandal involving his chief aide.

Ozawa's resignation, although not effective immediately, comes at a critical time as both the ruling and opposition camps gird for a general election that must be held before Lower House members' terms end in September.

The two names being floated as his possible successor — Katsuya Okada and Naoto Kan — are both past DPJ presidents.

"I will take time thinking (about running for the party presidency)," Okada said later. "What matters is who can achieve the regime change as the party leader."

DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama said he too will step down from his post.

Ozawa told a news conference he made the decision to maintain solidarity within the DPJ so the party can win the next election and wrest power from the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

"We definitely need to secure victory (in the election). . . . Forming solidarity is indispensable for that purpose," he said. "If I'm posing any problem for that goal, that's not what I want to do.

"A change of power and the establishment of democracy in Japan have been my political priorities."

Ozawa said he plans to stay on until Lower House deliberations on the extra fiscal 2009 budget are done and an election to choose his successor as DPJ president is held. He said he will not leave the party or resign as a lawmaker.

Ozawa's secretary, Takanori Okubo, 47, was charged in March with violating the Political Funds Control Law.

Rikuzankai, Ozawa's political fund management body, for which Okubo was the chief accountant, allegedly accepted illicit donations from scandal-tainted Nishimatsu Construction Co.

The law prohibits corporate contributions to individual lawmakers.

Since Okubo's arrest, Ozawa had been stressing his innocence. Despite strong calls from within the DPJ to quit, the leader of the largest opposition force refused and said he would make the final decision depending on whether his exit would help the party's prospects for the next election.

Ozawa's announcement drew a positive reaction from DPJ heavyweights.

"From the viewpoint of the DPJ's goal (to take power), I think Ozawa truly made a smart and fine decision," senior DPJ adviser Kozo Watanabe said.

Before Okubo's arrest, the DPJ was enjoying a favorable wind. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso was suffering critically low support rates since he took office in September due in part to Aso's policy flip-flops and verbal gaffes, prompting critics to predict the DPJ could oust the LDP-New Komeito ruling bloc in the next election.

In March, however, the situation reversed. Opinion polls taken by various media companies showed a majority of the public did not support Ozawa's decision to stay on.

According to a survey by the Yomiuri Shimbun conducted between Friday and Sunday, 71 percent said they were dissatisfied with Ozawa continuing on as DPJ president.

The survey also found that 40 percent of the respondents favored Aso as prime minister, compared with 25 percent finding Ozawa more suitable.

In April 2006, Ozawa stepped in as DPJ president after Seiji Maehara resigned over a scandal. Ozawa is serving his third term as party president after having been re-elected last September.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
ANALYSIS
A boost for DPJ, at LDP's expense

By MASAMI ITO and KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writers

With Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa intending to resign over a political fundraising scandal, the party may regain some momentum for the upcoming general election, analysts say.

This could be bad news for Prime Minister Taro Aso, who has been enjoying a surge in the support rating for his Cabinet.

Norihiko Narita, president of Surugadai University in Saitama Prefecture, pointed out that the public's discontent was not with the DPJ but with Ozawa.

"Now that the DPJ is able to remove this big obstacle, it is going to have the wind at its back," Narita said, adding that if Ozawa had remained in his post, he was likely to have evoked even more public resentment.

"For the LDP, on the other hand, things are going to get tough," Narita said.

According to Narita, Ozawa's announcement to resign was "the biggest political decision" he has ever made, even more momentous than bolting from the Liberal Democratic Party in 1993.

"I think he just risked everything for his final battle to take power," Narita said. Ozawa's decision to step down "shows his strong will (for the DPJ) to seize control of the government."

With Ozawa set to walk away from the party's leadership, the question arises as to who the next DPJ president will be. Various names have been mentioned, including former DPJ chief Seiji Maehara and current deputy chief Naoto Kan.

However, critics agree the most likely candidate is former party chief Katsuya Okada.

With a scandal-free, "clean" image, it is likely that his leadership would unify the party, Narita said.

But Narita voiced concerns that Okada may not be as flexible as Ozawa over forming an alliance with other opposition parties.

Even though the Upper House is controlled by the opposition parties, the DPJ does not have an outright majority and must rely on the cooperation of other parties, such as the Social Democratic Party and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party).

"Ozawa is realistic, but Okada has a tendency to stick to his opinions," Narita said.

SDP leader Mizuho Fukushima, however, stressed that her party will continue to cooperate with the DPJ.

"The opposition parties will continue fighting together no matter who becomes the head of the DPJ," Fukushima said. "The SDP will continue making efforts to bring down the LDP-led government."

The big question remains when Aso will dissolve the Lower House and call a snap election. There is not much time left, as the term of the lower chamber ends in September.

Nobuhiro Hiwatari, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo's Institute of Social Science, said Ozawa's resignation is unlikely to have any affect on the timing of the general election.

He predicted the election will be held after the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly race and the Group of Eight in July, with Aso hoping that public support will grow as more of his policies are implemented to pull the economy out of recession.

"There doesn't seem to be many people saying Aso should hold an election as soon as he can, and he may have gained more of a free hand," Hiwatari said. "And from Aso's viewpoint, he may be thinking of holding the election after" scoring more points.

Either way, the next few months are going to be a war of nerves for both the LDP and DPJ because the election will decide which party will lead the nation.

Hiwatari said that while Ozawa's three years of leadership strengthened the DPJ as an organization, it is still not clear what direction the party wants to take. With its membership ranging from liberals to ultraconservatives, the DPJ has often been criticized for not having unified policies.

"Ozawa was known for pouring his energy into election campaigns, but when it came to policies, all one really knew was that he was against the ruling bloc," Hiwatari said. Under its next president, the DPJ "needs to organize its policies because right now it is known for its inconsistencies."

news.notes20090512b

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
CITIZEN JUSTICE
Day of public reckoning in criminal trial process looms

By SETSUKO KAMIYA FIRST IN A SERIES
Staff writer

First in a series

Japan later this month will embark on a new chapter in its criminal trial system when citizens begin playing an active role in dispensing justice, joining some 80 countries that in one form or other have public participation in the judicial process.

After May 21, the lay judge, or "saibanin," system will see ordinary people sit with professional judges to try serious crimes at the district court level.

Six randomly chosen voters will sit with three professional judges to weigh the facts, and if they reach a guilty verdict, hand down a sentence.

The lay judges will try such crimes as murder, robbery involving death or bodily injury, and rape. Whatever verdict they reach must come by a majority vote with at least one of the three professional judges supporting the decision.

The first trial under the new system is expected to be held as early as July.

Observers say the involvement of ordinary citizens in the process of handing out justice will bring many changes to the way legal professionals operate. As a consequence, the system will be fairer and more transparent than before, they argue.

"Under the conventional system, there had been so many things that only made sense to legal professionals," said social psychologist Masahiro Fujita, an associate professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo who has researched the lay judge system. "But when the lay judges start asking their own questions, it will lead professionals to reconsider those things. And that is really significant."

The introduction of public participation in criminal trials began to take shape nearly a decade ago. The Judicial Reform Council, set up by the government in 1999, discussed all aspects of the legal system with the aim of improving its quality while making it generally more accessible to the public.

In its final report in 2001, the council suggested that while improvements to the education and number of legal professionals should be made, citizens who are subject to the law should also play an active role to inject their views and common sense into the criminal trial system, which has been only the realm of legal professionals.

Since the Diet unanimously passed the law to establish the lay judge system in 2004, the legal system has been in full gear to lay the groundwork for the transformation. Efforts have included running a huge campaign to promote the new system, including issuing explanatory brochures and giving speeches at companies.

A big challenge has been to simplify the legalese. When only legal professionals were involved, they used a lot of jargon and trial proceedings focused on written documents.

Under the new system, legal professionals will have to ensure the process is understandable for the average person.

"Until now, we would just read out the documents in a very dry way, and that was fine because basically we knew that judges would review them later (to decide the facts and sentencing)," said lawyer Takeshi Nishimura, secretary general of the preparatory task force of the lay judge system at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations. "But to make trials easy to understand for lay judges, what became extremely important was our questioning and arguments."

Among numerous efforts to improve their communications skills, the JFBA received training from American lawyers from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. In the process, the Japanese lawyers received a range of advice, even including tips on how to make eye contact with the judges, Nishimura said.

"Come to think of it, we barely looked at the (professional) judges when we were reading documents," he laughed.

Prosecutors have made similar efforts, according to Shozo Fujita, director of the Saibanin Trial Department of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office. "The preparation process was full of challenges, but I think we're ready for the system to start running," he said.

During practice trials, some prosecutors used Power Point presentations during their opening and closing arguments while also distributing memos to the panel of judges — all with the aim of making it easier for the judges to follow their arguments, he said.

The introduction of videotaping of confessions has partially opened up the questioning process, although police and prosecutors are reluctant to open the door completely to taped interrogations.

Law-enforcement authorities claim they have limited investigative powers and thus obtaining confessions is vital.

The partially taped interrogations are to be used as evidence to demonstrate that confessions were voluntary. They argue that if suspects know everything they say is being videotaped, they may hesitate to talk about the details of the crimes they allegedly committed or about accomplices, which would make it difficult to obtain enough evidence to get at the truth of a crime.

Criticism of the partial videotaping remains strong among lawyers who claim all questioning sessions should be taped. Nishimura said he shares this view, but it was better to proceed with partial progress than hold out for total videotaping.

"Videotaping was unthinkable until a few years ago, but authorities decided to pursue it, even partially, because the public is going to participate in trials. If we stop the new system from running, interrogations would revert to what they used to be," he said. "If we communicate to the lay judges the problem of partial videotaping during interrogation proceedings, I believe some among them will advocate taping the entire interrogation, not just the (end result)."

The Supreme Court has held hundreds of in-house meetings and workshops to achieve balanced deliberations with their new lay counterparts, said Masaya Kawamoto, a judge currently serving as an administrator in the criminal department of the Supreme Court.

More than 600 mock trials have been held, including at all 50 district courts, in which members of the public were invited to serve as lay judges while professionals put their revisions into practice to see what in the process still needed improvement.

Kawamoto took part in four mock trials at the Tokyo District Court. He said he felt good working with the lay judges because they brought different opinions to the decision-making process.

"At times when some things were difficult to decide, it was good to hear different views, even though we came to the same conclusion in the end," said Kawamoto, who added proudly that his panel was the first to reach a not-guilty verdict in the mock trials.

But a majority of the public doesn't appear ready. A 2007 opinion poll by the Cabinet Office found that 20.8 percent of the respondents were either willing to or would not mind participating. Another 44.5 percent said they did not want to participate but feel they have to because it is an obligation, and 33.6 percent said they did not want to take part.

"I suppose when summoned, I'm obliged to go," said Hiromi Suzuki, 37, who runs an aromatherapy shop in Tokyo. She did not receive a notice in November from the court in Kanagawa Prefecture, where she lives, and thus will not be called to serve this year. But she could be called in the future.

Suzuki said that through the movies she was aware that the public takes part as juries in the U.S. and other countries, but she finds it hard to imagine this happening in Japan. "I'm still not familiar with the system," she said.

"To think that my opinion could determine someone's fate . . . that is a grave thing, even though that person may have done something wrong," Suzuki said. "These things had been decided by people who studied the law. I wonder if people who have never studied it can make such decisions."

Despite the overall anxiety among the public, however, Fujita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, who has analyzed many mock trials, believes that once the system is up and running people will play their part.

For a paper published in 2004, Fujita surveyed mock trial participants, asking how they were able to express their opinions in the deliberations.

Comparing the answers before and after the mock trial, the participants expressed confidence they were actually able to have good discussions with both their peers and the legal professionals.

"As long as judges do well and act as a facilitator rather than a teacher, deliberations involving all participants can be held successfully," Fujita said.

news.notes20090512c

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

David Cameron wins backing of Tory MPs for crackdown on expense claims
Conservative leader announces new regime requiring his MPs to pay back questionable claims and introduces new rules for future claims

Andrew Sparrow, senior political correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 May 2009 15.08 BST
Article history

David Cameron today won the backing of Conservative MPs for the introduction of a new regime which will require them to pay back any past expense claims deemed questionable or ambiguous.

The Tory leader is also introducing new party rules for future claims that will stop MPs "flipping" the second home allowance and require them to pay capital gains tax if they sell property funded by the taxpayer.

MPs applauded Cameron when he unveiled his plans at a meeting with his MPs in the House of Commons. He will reveal full details at a news conference at 3.30pm.

Shortly after the Tory meeting was over, Labour sought to match Cameron's initiative by announcing that Labour MPs will also be required to pay back certain expenses.

According to one MP who attended, no one present at the meeting criticised the plans. Dozens of Tories were there, although not the entire Conservative parliamentary party.

Some shadow cabinet members have already agreed, following discussions with Cameron, to repay some of the money they have received.

Under Cameron's plan, a panel will be set up to consider questionable claims as they are made public. This will include Patrick McLoughlin, the chief whip, and several other members, of whom at least one will be independent.

The panel will start work almost immediately adjudicating on MPs' past claims. According to one source, MPs will be ordered to pay any claims that the panel judges to be questionable or ambiguous.

Any MP who does not comply with the panel's ruling will have the whip withdrawn, a process that would in practice force them out of parliament at the next election.

Until the committee on standards in public life produces new rules for MPs' expenses at the end of the year, Tory MPs will have to comply with a new system:

• Claims under the second home allowance, known as the additional costs allowance, will be kept to a minimum.

• MPs will only be allowed to "flip" their second home – changing the property which they cite when claiming the second home allowance – with the approval of the chief whip. This is to stop MPs "flipping" to maximise their allowance.

• MPs who sell a home funded by the second home allowance will be expected to pay capital gains tax on it.

One MP leaving the meeting said Cameron had shown "great leadership".

news.notes20090512d

[Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

A new U.S. approach expected in Afghanistan
Gen. David D. McKiernan, replaced as commander by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, lacked bold, new plans, officers and officials say. McChrystal is expected to aggressively overhaul the war effort.

By Julian E. Barnes
May 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- In ousting his top commander in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates agreed Monday with growing criticism in military circles that the U.S. war effort has been suffering from stale ideas and inadequate innovation.

A critical failure of Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, replaced as the commander in charge of U.S. and NATO forces, was the lack of bold, new operational plans and a reluctance to adapt successful strategies from Iraq, according to officers and Defense officials.

By contrast, the officer Gates has nominated to take his place, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is regarded as a nimble thinker who is expected to more aggressively work to improve Afghan forces, overhaul military intelligence collection and institute organizational changes that McKiernan resisted.

Under the outgoing commander, military officers in Washington complained privately for months about the U.S. command in Afghanistan. Although few blamed McKiernan by name, Gates made it plain Monday that he had heard their complaints.

"Our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders," Gates said at a Pentagon news conference. "Today we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership also is needed."

Gates has ousted a succession of top military officials since becoming Defense secretary, firing the Army secretary and top leaders of the Air Force as well as accepting the resignation of the former head of U.S. forces in the Middle East. But McKiernan is the first ground commander fired by Gates. McKiernan, who has been in command for 11 months, was originally supposed to serve for up to two years.

Although officials praised McKiernan, who also helped lead U.S. ground forces during the Iraq invasion, Gates acknowledged Monday that the move would end the 58-year-old general's military career.

The step was yet another signal of growing U.S. apprehension over the war in Afghanistan, compounded by concerns in neighboring Pakistan.

Gates said he consulted top military officials on the change, including Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, chief of the U.S. Central Command. Military officials said it was Mullen who pushed the hardest for a change, concerned that otherwise the U.S. could muddle through the next year.

Gates also obtained approval from President Obama, who in outlining a new strategy six weeks ago said Afghanistan was becoming "increasingly perilous." Obama, who has ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, agreed that the new strategy "called for new military leadership," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Top Defense officials were disappointed that McKiernan did not quickly lay out a detailed campaign plan in the days following the announcement of a new strategy.

"Gen. McKiernan is a good man," said Jack Keane, a retired Army general who advised the Bush administration on the 2007 troop buildup in Iraq. "But he was the wrong man at the wrong time. What the war needs is a new strategy and a new plan."

Several senior military officials pointed to the example of Petraeus in underscoring the importance of carrying out a new presidential strategy. When nominated by President Bush to take charge in Baghdad, Petraeus shelved his predecessor's plans and outlined a broad array of new initiatives: walling off Baghdad neighborhoods to protect them from attack and setting up joint U.S.-Iraqi outposts across the country.

In Afghanistan, McKiernan has resisted overhauling his operations, sticking with a NATO campaign plan that critics consider outdated and ineffective. McKiernan did not want to alienate NATO allies by changing the organizational structure of the command or altering agreed-upon operational plans, military analysts said.

Current and former officials have also criticized McKiernan and his command for failing to move quickly enough to adapt some of the strategies that worked during the Iraq troop buildup.

"We need to apply what we know works," said a senior military official. "You have to secure the population, you have to help them help themselves and you have to make them believe their future is in their hands."

Critical to success in Iraq was the rapid expansion of the local security forces. In 2007, Iraq added more than 100,000 forces. During the 11 months McKiernan has headed the Afghan mission, the country's army has grown from about 60,000 to about 83,000.

"The growth of the Afghan national security forces has been much too slow. And we have been unwilling to overcome some of the obstacles," said a former Defense official, discussing internal views on condition of anonymity. "But Gen. McChrystal will jump all over that."

The new commander is seen as a counterinsurgency war expert and is credited as the architect of U.S. Special Operations missions in Iraq, stepping up the use of highly trained troops and helping to undercut both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

McChrystal, 54, was singled out for praise after the June 2006 operation that killed Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of the group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Recently, McChrystal has been leading an effort for Mullen to examine ways of improving the Afghanistan war effort. On Monday, Mullen said that effort was designed to make sure the most experienced officers were being sent to Afghanistan, and to ensure their experience was not lost.

One blemish on his career involved an investigation of the aftermath of the 2004 friendly-fire death in Afghanistan of Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

A Pentagon inspector general investigation faulted McChrystal for his role in Tillman's Silver Star award citation, which suggested his death was from enemy fire. But investigators also credited McChrystal for trying to warn superiors that Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez will serve as McChrystal's deputy. Rodriguez is expected to have a strong hand in running day-to-day military operations and coordinating the operations between the military commands in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. He previously commanded troops in eastern Afghanistan.

news.notes20090512e

[Today's Paper] from [The New York Times]

Commander’s Ouster Is Tied to Shift in Afghan War

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and THOM SHANKER
Published: May 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, was forced out Monday in an abrupt shake-up intended to bring a more aggressive and innovative approach to a worsening seven-year war.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced the decision in terse comments at the Pentagon, saying that “fresh eyes were needed” and that “a new approach was probably in our best interest.” When asked if the dismissal ended the general’s military career, Mr. Gates replied, “Probably.”

The move reflects a belief that the war in Afghanistan, waged against an increasingly strong Taliban and its supporters across a rugged, sprawling country, is growing ever more complex. Defense Department officials said General McKiernan, a respected career armor officer, had been removed primarily because he had brought too conventional an approach to the challenge.

He is to be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. He served in Afghanistan as chief of staff of military operations in 2001 and 2002 and recently ran all commando operations in Iraq.

Forces under General McChrystal’s command were credited with finding and capturing Saddam Hussein and with tracking and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. His success in using intelligence and firepower to track and kill insurgents, and his training in unconventional warfare that emphasizes the need to protect the population, made him the best choice for the command in Afghanistan, Defense Department officials said.

At the same time, he will be confronted with deep tensions over the conduct of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, whose aggressive tactics are seen by Afghan officials as responsible for many of the American mistakes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians.

Pentagon officials have begun to describe Afghanistan as the military’s top priority, even more important than the war in Iraq. President Obama announced a major overhaul of American strategy in Afghanistan in March. Planned troop levels are expected to reach more than 60,000 Americans.

Pentagon officials said it appeared that General McKiernan was the first general to be dismissed from command of a theater of combat since Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

At a Pentagon news conference on Monday, Mr. Gates praised General McKiernan for what he called his “long and distinguished” service, but said of Afghanistan, “Our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches by our military leaders.” General McKiernan served in his current command for only 11 months, about half the length of such tours.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Mr. Gates in making the announcement.

The change also reflects the influence of Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took over last fall as the top American commander for Iraq and Afghanistan. General Petraeus served under General McKiernan in Iraq only to surpass him quickly in his rise through the ranks. The defense officials said the two men did not develop a bond after General Petraeus inherited General McKiernan as his Afghanistan commander.

While his unblemished record included service in the former Yugoslavia, General McKiernan found himself unable to win support from the two most recent defense secretaries. As the commander of allied ground forces during the invasion of Iraq, General McKiernan differed with the Pentagon leadership and with his commander, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, when he joined a circle of Army officers who advocated many more troops than were ordered to the region.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Obama agreed with the recommendation from Mr. Gates and Admiral Mullen that “the implementation of a new strategy in Afghanistan called for new military leadership.” The president praised General McKiernan’s leadership, but said it was time for a “change of direction in Afghanistan.”

The president met with Mr. Gates in the Oval Office on Monday, but aides declined to provide details of their discussions.

A senior administration official said that last week, Mr. Gates asked the president for his approval to remove General McKiernan and the president agreed. Mr. Gates then officially delivered the news of his final decision over dinner last Wednesday night with General McKiernan at Camp Eggers, the American military headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Mr. Gates said General McChrystal would be assisted by a deputy commander, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, who is to serve in a new position with responsibility for the day-to-day management of the war. General Rodriguez had a previous tour in eastern Afghanistan as commander of the 82nd Airborne.

A West Point graduate from the class of 1976, General McChrystal is himself a Green Beret and a Ranger, as well as a veteran Special Operations commander. One spot on General McChrystal’s generally sterling military record came in 2007, when a Pentagon investigation into the accidental shooting death in 2004 of Cpl. Pat Tillman by fellow Army Rangers in Afghanistan held General McChrystal accountable for inaccurate information provided by Corporal Tillman’s unit in recommending him for a Silver Star.

The information wrongly suggested that Corporal Tillman, a professional football player whose decision to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 attacks drew national attention, had been killed by enemy fire.

In recent work as director of the Joint Staff, General McChrystal has developed a plan to select a group of some 400 troops and officers to go back and forth from assignments in the region and the United States. While at home, the troops and officers would continue in their military jobs and work on some aspect of Afghan strategy, training or operations. The troops would remain in the cadre for three to five years, depending on the job. The approach is similar to the way General McChrystal ran Special Operations forces.

Most troops now deploy to Afghanistan for about a year or less without any formal training in the region before they go. They often move on to unrelated jobs when their Afghan tours end.

“The idea is to develop a group of people who give you continuity, expertise and relationships. They know each other plus the people they’re going to work with,” said a senior military official who has worked closely on the plan. “As they build relationships among themselves, relationships with Afghan partners and relationships with Afghan units, their relative effectiveness is just going to go up.”

The official said that the program, which Admiral Mullen has approved, should be up and running within 60 days after details are worked out, and its effects would be noticeable in Afghanistan within six months.

news.notes20090512f

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Fired

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that he had requested the resignation of the top American general in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, making a rare decision to remove a wartime commander at a time when the Obama administration has voiced increasing alarm about the country's downward spiral.

Gates, saying he seeks "fresh thinking" and "fresh eyes" on Afghanistan, recommended that President Obama replace McKiernan with a veteran Special Operations commander, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. His selection marks the continued ascendancy of officers who have pressed for the use of counterinsurgency tactics, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that are markedly different from the Army's traditional doctrine.

"We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership is also needed," Gates said at a hastily convened Pentagon news conference. Gates also recommended that Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, a former head of U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan who is serving as Gates's military assistant, be nominated to serve in a new position as McChrystal's deputy. Gates praised McChrystal and Rodriguez for their "unique skill set in counterinsurgency."

McKiernan, an armor officer who led U.S. ground forces during the 2003 Iraq invasion, was viewed as somewhat cautious and conventionally minded, according to senior officials inside and outside the Pentagon.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander of U.S. forces in the region, has pressed aggressively to broaden the military's mission in Afghanistan and Iraq beyond killing the enemy to protecting the population, overseeing reconstruction projects and rebuilding local governance. Petraeus played a key role in the Obama administration's strategic review of the Afghanistan conflict and was involved in the decision to remove McKiernan, which Petraeus said in a statement he "fully supports."

The decision to fire McKiernan represents one of a handful of times since President Harry S. Truman's removal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951 that U.S. civilian leaders have relieved a top wartime commander, and is in keeping with Gates's style of demanding accountability by dismissing senior military and civilian officials for a host of problems, including nuclear weapons mismanagement and inadequate care for wounded troops.

McChrystal is the director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff. From 2006 to August 2008, he was the forward commander of the U.S. military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command, responsible for capturing or killing high-level leaders of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently tapped McChrystal to lead an effort to manage the rotations of senior officers to shore up a base of experience on Afghanistan.

In a statement, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that Obama agreed with the need for new leadership but that he was "impressed" by McKiernan's calls for more troops for Afghanistan. McKiernan had successfully pressed the administration to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan, forces that have only now begun to arrive in the country.

Gates did not criticize McKiernan directly and instead praised his decades of "distinguished service." But senior officials said McKiernan's leadership was not bold or nimble enough to reenergize a campaign in which U.S. and other NATO troops had reached a stalemate against Taliban insurgents in some parts of Afghanistan.

One senior government official involved in Afghanistan policy said McKiernan was overly cautious in creating U.S.-backed local militias, a tactic that Petraeus had employed when he was the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

"It's way too modest," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We don't have 2009 to experiment in Wardak province," where one such militia has been set up. "I think we've got about two years in this mission. The trend lines better start swinging in our direction or we're going to lose the international community and we're going to lose Washington."

Other U.S. military and Afghan officials disagreed with the criticism, however, saying McKiernan's approach was prudent.

Incidents in which U.S. forces caused high numbers of civilian casualties in Afghanistan had emerged as a major source of discomfort for Gates and Mullen during McKiernan's tenure, but officials said that was not the reason for his removal. "McKiernan got it, and he's been much better about responding," a senior military official said. Gates noted yesterday that civilian deaths in Afghanistan had declined 40 percent since January compared with the same period last year.

Since the Obama administration took over this year, Gates had been weighing whether to replace McKiernan and had asked Mullen and Petraeus for their opinions. Mullen informed McKiernan two weeks ago that a change was needed. Gates then broke the news to McKiernan during an hour-long, one-on-one dinner at Camp Eggers in Kabul on a trip to Afghanistan last week.

Asked by reporters whether this decision would effectively end McKiernan's military career, Gates replied: "Probably."

In a statement, McKiernan said it had been his "distinct honor over the past year to serve with the brave men and women" from the 42 nations that have contributed to the international effort in Afghanistan and with the members of Afghanistan's security forces. "I have never been prouder to be an American Soldier," he said.

McKiernan took command of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan in June and was scheduled to serve in the post for two years, a U.S. military official said. Like other top U.S. commanders before him, McKiernan pressed the Pentagon firmly and publicly to provide additional forces to combat rising violence and an escalating Taliban insurgency.

McKiernan oversaw initial troop increases under the Bush administration as well as the ongoing deployment of an additional 21,000 troops this year ordered by Obama. McKiernan has an outstanding request, which neither the Pentagon nor Obama has approved, for 10,000 more troops next year.

Gates told Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, yesterday morning that he was replacing McKiernan. At the news conference, Gates urged the swift Senate confirmation of McChrystal and Rodriguez.

McChrystal has come under criticism for his role in the military's delay in acknowledging the "friendly fire" death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a former NFL player, in Afghanistan in 2004, an incident likely to come up during confirmation hearings.

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[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Changing Afghan Warhorses in Midstream

By Daniel Politi
Posted Tuesday, May 12, 2009, at 6:36 AM ET

The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal 's world-wide news box lead with the firing of the top American commander in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced yesterday that he had requested the resignation of Gen. David McKiernan, who had been in the job for less than a year, because the Pentagon needs "fresh thinking" and "fresh eyes" on Afghanistan. McKiernan will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff who recently ran the secretive special operations forces in Iraq. McChrystal has lots of experience in counter-insurgency operations and is widely expected to quickly institute changes to U.S. and NATO strategy in Afghanistan. Replacing a four-star commander of a war zone is exceedingly rare, and several papers mention that it looks like it's the first time this has happened since President Harry Truman removed Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

USA Today goes high with the ousting of McKiernan but leads with the five U.S. service members who were killed by a fellow soldier at a counseling center in Baghdad. None of the other papers front the news, even though the slayings appear to amount to the deadliest episode of violence between U.S. service members since the start of the Iraq war. "It does speak to me about the need for us to redouble our efforts in terms of dealing with the stress," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. There's word that the shooter might have been a patient at the clinic, but investigations are ongoing.

The LAT notes that "Gates has ousted a succession of top military officials since becoming Defense secretary," but McKiernan is the first ground commander he has fired. Gates made it clear that the move would "probably" end McKiernan's military career. While many military officers praised McKiernan, they also said he was reluctant to change tactics and slow to implement strategies that have had success in Iraq. "Gen. McKiernan is a good man," said a retired Army general. "But he was the wrong man at the wrong time."

The decision to oust McKiernan comes after what the LAT says were months of complaints from military officers about the U.S. command in Afghanistan. The WSJ hears word that the decision was made "after a behind-the-scenes campaign by an influential group of current and former military officers, many of whom played key roles developing and backing the Bush administration's troop 'surge' in Iraq." Ultimately, Gates and many top advisers thought McKiernan, who spent his entire military career with conventional forces, didn't have the right experience for the job. ("McKiernan's ouster signals a dramatic shift in U.S. strategy for the war in Afghanistan," writes Slate's Fred Kaplan. "And it means that the war is now, unequivocally, 'Obama's war.' ")

The WP highlights that there were particular complaints about McKiernan's reluctance to create U.S.-backed local militias that had been a key factor in reducing violence in Iraq. And the LAT notes that McKiernan tried his best to not anger allies by sticking to a NATO campaign plan, even though many thought it had become "outdated and ineffective." McChrystal, along with Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez who will now manage day-to-day U.S. troops in Afghanistan, have lots of experience with counter-insurgency and unconventional warfare. McChrystal oversaw the commando teams that captured Saddam Hussein and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The NYT and LAT front, and everyone covers, news that the Iranian-American journalist who had been convicted of spying in Iran and sentenced to eight years in prison was released yesterday. Roxana Saberi had been in jail since January, and the Obama administration had been speaking up to try to secure Saberi's release. Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for a careful review of the case in what the NYT says might have been a bid to try to improve relations with the United States before the June elections. The LAT takes it a bit further and says that while the arrest shows the Iranian system remains unpredictable, it's at least "capable of flexibility, pragmatism and even damage control." Ahmadinejad's press adviser cryptically declared: "Maybe we want people to read into this."

The WP takes an interesting look at how more than two years after a United Nations weapons expert was nearly killed by an explosion in his hotel bedroom, it's still unclear what happened. A U.N. colleague was initially implicated, but infighting between different U.N. agencies throughout the investigations has led to a stalemate. Meanwhile, both men lost their jobs and their reputations "with virtually no hope of having their names cleared." This case may be particularly dramatic, but it's really just another example of how the U.N. is often unable to police its own staff. More than 850 peacekeepers have been sent home since 2006 after they were implicated in wrongdoing, but the vast majority of the cases remain unsolved.

The WP goes inside with e-mails that seem to suggest Robert Murtha may have exploited his influential family connections to get millions of dollars' worth of Pentagon contracts. Robert Murtha insists his uncle, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, had nothing to do with the contracts. But some correspondence suggests that may be far from the truth. In one e-mail, Robert Murtha writes about the importance of sending some federal work through his uncle's hometown. And some people who used to work with him say Murtha's companies were often able to maintain their share of big contracts even though the work they did was ultimately unnecessary.

In the WSJ's op-ed page, Andy Kessler writes that the recent increases in the stock markets "sure smells to me like a sucker's rally." The Dow Jones industrial average has surged 30 percent from its low of more than two months ago, but there "aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise." There are several reasons that could explain the recent rise in stock prices but the "stock market still has big hurdles to clear." Even though, as analysts never tire of saying, it's possible to have a "jobless recovery" it's impossible to "have a profitless recovery."

Anthony Cordesman writes in the WP's op-ed page that Iraq "now risks becoming the 'forgotten war.' " Many seem to be in a rush to declare victory and get out as soon as possible, but that may lead to losing "both the ongoing war and the peace that could follow." While it's true that much of the country's future depends on Iraqis, that doesn't mean the Obama administration shouldn't be doing everything possible to make sure the recent gains are sustainable. Although the steps will undoubtedly mean more American lives and money will be lost, the ultimate price tag "will be far lower than the mid- to long-term cost of throwing away a high probability of leaving Iraq with lasting security and stability." It's imperative that the United States not make the same mistake as in Vietnam and actually come up with a strategy to leave Iraq, not only for the country's sake but also to ensure the stability of the Persian Gulf. "In strategic terms, Vietnam was always expendable," writes Cordesman. "Iraq and the Gulf are not."

The NYT takes a look at how writers and publishers are seeing an increase in pirated digital editions of books online. Musicians and filmmakers have been here before, but "to authors and their publishers in the age of Kindle, its new and frightening territory." Illegal copies of best-sellers are hardly a new phenomenon, but publishers insist their numbers are rising as consumers get more used to the idea of e-books. Several authors say they are fighting a seemingly endless battle for their work by going after those who post their words on the Internet. "It's a game of Whac-a-Mole," an author said. "You knock one down and five more spring up." It's precisely for this reason that others say they can't be bothered. "The question is, how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys," Stephen King wrote in an e-mail message. "And to what end? My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer."

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[News & Politics] from [Double X, Slate's magazine for women

Motherhood Changes You
Posted: May 12, 2009 at 8:17 AM
By Judith Shulevitz

In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan argued that American women suffered from a malaise she called "the problem that had no name." Her critique of domestic ennui helped launch the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s, leading to many of the advances women now take for granted. But not everything has changed. So we asked women to answer this question: If you had to pinpoint today's problem that had no name, what would it be? Read the other responses here.

Having been an indifferent babysitter in my teens and an uninvolved aunt in my twenties, I didn’t have much to draw on when it came to imagining motherhood in my thirties. I was pretty sure it was going to be a logistical nightmare. I remember folding clothes in stunned shock after the baby shower.When I came home with my unnervingly vulnerable baby, however, I suddenly became aware that I could actually die, and sobbed because I thought that if I did, my husband wouldn’t have what it would take to keep our son in socks.

Motherhood changes you, as they say, and I’m not just talking about how it makes you appreciate socks. Fatherhood changes you too. Becoming a parent is unlike anything else. This is a truism, but an important one: it’s the depth and differentness of that experience, its total incongruity with the rest of life, that feminism needs to grapple with more than it has.

I don’t mean to imply that feminists aren’t thinking hard about motherhood and how it militates against gender equality. There are feminist legal theorists who say that the last bastion of sexism in our society is discrimination against mothers. There are feminist socio-biologists who say that male evolutionary biologists have gotten it exactly wrong, and that civilization derives from cooperative mothering, not from male competitiveness. Back in 1981, Betty Friedan argued in The Second Stage that feminism had to do a better job defending mother and fatherhood, though a lot of women called her a reactionary for saying so.

But we’re going to have to dig deeper into the actual experience of parenting if we’re going to figure out why it still keeps forcing us out of the workplace. For instance, we need to understand how it operates at the temporal level. Time is another underrated feminist issue. The politics of time are hugely significant for women because the temporality of motherhood is strictly at odds with the temporality of work. Social historian E.P. Thompson, in a famous essay about the industrialization of the English countryside, identified the fight between peasants and factory owners as partly a fight between two irreconcilable orders of time. The time of the peasants—agricultural time—ebbed and flowed. It was task-oriented, that is, evaluated by how well jobs were done. The time of the factory owners—industrial time—was steady, uniform, clock-oriented, evaluated by how quickly jobs were done. But as task-oriented as a farmer’s work was, Thompson said, the farmer’s wife’s work was even more so, particularly when it involved taking care of infants. Even today, he wrote (in 1963), despite school times and television times, the rhythms of women's work in the home are not wholly attuned to the measurement of the clock.”

Motherhood follows not just a pre-industrial schedule but a biological one as well. (The two are related.) Women have to have their babies before they become infertile, and once their children are born, they have to meet their needs then, not later. As we learn more about the psychological and physiological benefits to a baby of being soundly attached to a mother or father figure, the importance of love for brain development, not just personality formation, we get an ever clearer sense of the cost to children of depriving their parents of the means to spend time with them, especially when they’re young. Under current social arrangements, however, motherhood and fatherhood clocks clash with most career clocks, so parents who spend that time often pay a high price for doing so.

This kind of thinking, though, is a little too utilitarian for my taste. It’s true that we ought to make it easier to parent because that would be good for children, and therefore good for society. But there’s another claim about parenting that feminists since Friedan have been pretty bad at making, and that is that it’s good for parents. Not having liked myself much as a child, I didn’t know how to love children until I became a mother. Mothering my children, I mothered myself, and shed a layer of callowness. My children’s fiercely animal bodies brought me alive to my own. And when I watched them see all the things I had trained myself not to see—poverty, racism, sexism, filthy public spaces—I felt responsible and ashamed. In short, I flourished, in the Aristotelian sense of the term: I became more politically aware, more physically attuned—more human.

Why should my flourishing be incompatible with my equality? Why is parenting a tradeoff, rather than a right? Why can’t career clocks accommodate us, rather than us accommodating career clocks? Why can’t I stay home with my children while they and I cultivate this humanizing bond, then return to being a competent professional without encountering lowered wages, less challenging work, and the judgments of people who think my situation reflects an enfeebled mind or will? For that matter, why can’t men have all the same things? And why aren’t more feminists fighting for them?