ON BENGHAZI

 

Secretary Clinton will testify in front of a House committee before the end of the year, on the successes and failures surrounding the incidents in Benghazi, Libya.

It appears the brazen attack on the U.S. facilities in Libya has spurred calls for a revised, even strengthened, authorization of use of military force. 

ON THE FIGHT

President Obama on Sunday honored a [special operations forces] member killed in an operation to free a Taliban-held American citizen in Afghanistan. In a statement released by the White House, Obama praised the [special operations forces] and said their mission was “characteristic of the extraordinary courage, skill and patriotism that our troops show every day.”

The Afghan Air Force has signed a strategic agreement with NATO.

A Taliban suicide bomber tried to assassinate the influential new chief of Afghanistan’s intelligence service at an agency guesthouse in Kabul on Thursday, officials said, in a brazen attack that left him seriously wounded and underscored the insurgency’s ability to go after those at the highest levels of the government.

The Afghan government is pursuing an ambitious new peace initiative in which Pakistan would replace the United States in arranging direct talks between the warring sides and the Taliban would be granted government posts that effectively could cede to them political control of their southern and eastern strongholds.

Former President Bill Clinton says in a new documentary that his administration’s attempts to limit drug trafficking from Colombia “hasn’t worked.” Clinton joined other world leaders — including former President Jimmy Carter — in filmmaker Sam Branson’s new documentary, “Breaking the Taboo,” which premiered Thursday at New York’s Google headquarters and charges that the global war on drugs is a failure.

The lone Syrian rebel group with an explicit stamp of approval from Al Qaeda has become one of the uprising’s most effective fighting forces, posing a stark challenge to the United States and other countries that want to support the rebels but not Islamic extremists. Money flows to the group, the Nusra Front, from like-minded donors abroad. Its fighters, a small minority of the rebels, have the boldness and skill to storm fortified positions and lead other battalions to capture military bases and oil fields. As their successes mount, they gather more weapons and attract more fighters. The group is a direct offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi officials and former Iraqi insurgents say, which has contributed veteran fighters and weapons. 

“This is just a simple way of returning the favor to our Syrian brothers that fought with us on the lands of Iraq,” said a veteran of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who said he helped lead the Nusra Front’s efforts in Syria.

African Union troops and Somali forces seized the formerly Islamist-held town of Jowhar Sunday, wresting control of one of the largest remaining towns held by the Al-Qaeda linked Shebab, officials said. The loss of Jowhar is a significant blow to the Shebab, who have lost a string of towns in recent months to the 17,000-strong AU force, as well as to Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia last year from the west.

An American doctor kidnapped by the Taliban was rescued Sunday by Afghan and coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, officials said. At least six people were killed and two Taliban leaders were arrested during in the rescue. The American, Dr. Dilip Joseph, and two Afghan doctors were abducted Wednesday as they traveled to a clinic in the Sorobi district of eastern Afghanistan, about an hour outside of the capital, Kabul, said the district police chief, Naqeebullah Khan. Meanwhile, a senior Al Qaeda commander has been killed in an American drone strike in North Waziristan, the restive tribal area along the border with Afghanistan, Pakistani security officials said Sunday.

Andrew Lebovich examines the myriad of challenges confronting the international community on the eve of intervention in Mali: "Ethnic politics continue to be significant in events in northern Mali, with militant groups appealing to ethnic fears to gain support […] As Mali and the international community continue to waver between plans for an intervention and pushes for a negotiated political solution between the south and its militant-controlled north, increasing attention has been paid to the diverse actors who may make up an intervention force."

ON THE FORCE 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify on a report expected to be released next week on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. "I have just received confirmation from Secretary Clinton’s office that the secretary of state will appear before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to discuss, in an open hearing, the findings and the recommendations in the report," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. Ros-Lehtinen is chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, which has already held several hearings and classified briefings on the attack. The attack killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, and raised questions about the adequacy of security in far-flung posts.

"We’re long past the point of doing more with less," said the blunt-spoken Under Secretary of the Navy, Robert Work. "We are going to be doing less with less in the future."

ON TECH

Apple’s decision to make some of its computers in the United States may be a positive for American jobs. It is certainly a marker of where much of the global computer industry has gone. Today, rising energy prices and a global market for computers are changing the way companies make their machines. Hewlett-Packard, which turns out over 50 million computers a year through its own plants and subcontractors, makes many of its larger desktop personal computers in such higher-cost areas as Indianapolis and Tokyo to save on fuel costs and to serve business buyers rapidly.

ON SECRECY – OR LACK THEREOF

Information about polygraph screening is so guarded by the agencies that use it that job applicants who are tested are urged not to tell anyone. The news media are denied basic information, such as how many government employees are screened, because it’s “sensitive” and could jeopardize national security. Researchers are told they can’t get studies about how it works.

CONTRACT WATCH

The Department of State is looking to increase security and augment its existing contract security force in Qatar.

 

Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

 

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Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.