9 February 2009

Early Bird summary
Monday’s Early Bird leads with a full slate of articles about Afghanistan, topped by a story from the Washington Post that reports President Obama's national security team gave a dire assessment Sunday of the war in Afghanistan, with one official calling it a challenge "much tougher than Iraq" and others hinting that it could take years to turn around.U.S. officials said more troops were urgently needed, both from America and its NATO allies, to counter the increasing strength of the Taliban and warlords opposed to the central government in Kabul. They also said new approaches were needed to untangle an inefficient and conflicting array of civilian-aid programs that have wasted billions of dollars.
Other noteworthy stories in the EB’s Afghanistan slate:
§ The Daily Telegraph reports that the surge of extra international troops heading to Afghanistan may need to stay for five years, the commander of the country's NATO-led coalition has said.Gen David McKiernan has asked for more than 30,000 extra US soldiers over the next 18 months to fight the Taliban-led insurgency.He said there would be "more expected'' of other NATO partners and that 2009 would be "a tough year''. And he gave warning that a tipping point when the Afghan police and army were strong enough to begin taking charge of security was "some way off.''
§ The Chicago Tribune reports that increasingly, Taliban militants have been funding themselves with drug money, despite banning poppy cultivation while in power. For the first time this year, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force is publicly trying to help eliminate the Taliban's heroin income.At a time when the Obama administration is refocusing the fight against terrorism in the region, this is a major change in policy. But it also is highly controversial with many European leaders, who worry that NATO involvement in eradicating drugs could prove counterproductive, legally questionable and helpful as a propaganda tool for the Taliban.
§ In a related story, the Wall Street Journal reports that Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration's new point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, is expected to engage Iran as part of a broad effort to stabilize Afghanistan and combat the country's growing drug trade, according to officials briefed on the special representative's plans.Many in the Obama administration believe that Iran and the U.S. share common interests when it comes to Afghanistan, these officials said. Tehran has been among the largest suppliers of financial and economic aid to Kabul since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, and these officials said they believe Iran may be willing to work with the U.S. to strengthen the fragile government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
§ The New York Times offered this narrative: “On Saturday, something typical happened in eastern Afghanistan: Two Taliban guerrillas assassinated a top local politician.“But on Sunday, something very unusual occurred, according to witnesses and Afghan intelligence officials.“Hundreds of people from around the district of Dara-e-Noor joined with the local police to corner the Taliban assassins. A firefight broke out. Eventually the wounded Taliban were captured. But instead of turning them over to the authorities, the villagers trussed the men to a tree and punched and kicked them to death.”
Elsewhere in today’s Early Bird, stories about Pakistan are beginning to appear more frequently. The New York Times reports that when the envoy Richard C. Holbrooke arrives in Islamabad Monday looking for ways to stop a runaway Islamist insurgency that is destabilizing Pakistan, he will find a pro-American but weak civilian government, and a powerful army unaccustomed and averse to fighting a domestic enemy.In a nuclear-armed nation regarded as an ally of the United States and considered pivotal by the Obama administration to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan, Mr. Holbrooke will face a surge of anti-American sentiment on clear display by private citizens, public officials and increasingly potent television talk shows.
Washington Times reports that Pakistani Taliban militants released a graphic video Sunday showing the beheading of a Polish engineer, whom they said was killed because Islamabad refused to free detained insurgents.The tape, seen by an Agence France-Presse correspondent, was released one day after a spokesman for Pakistan's umbrella Taliban group said its men had decapitated Piotr Stanczak, who was seized in the volatile northwest Sept. 28.
Other noteworthy stories in today’s EB:
§ The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration stepped up its overtures to Russia, signaling possible flexibility on missile defense as part of a broad push to repair Washington's strained relationship with Moscow.In addition, one day after calling for pressing the "reset button" on the U.S.-Russia relationship, Vice President Joe Biden made comments on the sidelines of a high-profile security conference here that were widely interpreted by the Russians and some European diplomats as the beginnings of a U.S. policy shift on Georgia.
§ President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and top NATO officials will begin a diplomatic effort this month to persuade lawmakers in Paris to accept Sarkozy's plans to return France to full membership in NATO military command structures in time for the alliance's summit meeting in April, according to the International Herald Tribune.
§ Yemen released 170 men it had arrested on suspicion of having ties to al-Qaida, security officials said Sunday, two weeks after the terror group announced that Yemen had become its base for the whole Arabian peninsula. The men were freed Friday and Saturday after signing pledges not to engage in terrorism--a strategy the Yemeni government has often used with those suspected of fighting in militant causes abroad. Local tribal leaders are also expected to guarantee the good behavior of the released, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: The Washington Post leads with news that the White House has delayed its announcement of the new plan to bail out ailing financial firms in order to keep all eyes focused on the massive stimulus package. (Slate Magazine)
2. Local Marines, sailors protect U.S., coalition forces from enemy attack: A group of Marines and sailors from Hampton Roads is providing anti-terrorism security forces around the world. (WVEC.com)
3. USMC nears automatic rifle replacement: The US Marine Corps (USMC) Systems Command (MCSC) has announced the award of four contracts to three companies for the USMC's Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR) programme. (Jane’s UK)
4. Suicide program a success for MCLB: The Marine Corps has a hands-on suicide prevention program in place, which has proven successful for Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany. (Albany Herald)
5. A human face for the Corps: Wilder Lee always advised his students against joining the Marine Corps. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
Leading newspaper headlines
The Washington Post leads with news that the White House has delayed its announcement of the new plan to bail out ailing financial firms in order to keep all eyes focused on the massive stimulus package. The Senate will hold a procedural vote today to determine whether the compromise $827 billion measure will receive enough Republican support to move forward. If approved, the Senate will have to spend the week negotiating with the House to reconcile their versions of the bill. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with details on what the new bailout plan will look like. It seems the White House wants private investors to play a big part in helping banks get bad assets out of their balance sheets.
USA Today leads with a look at how the effort to rebuild the Gulf Coast "remains largely stalled" more than three years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the area. More than $3.9 billion of the $5.8 billion promised to help fix public works remains unspent. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to look once again at the issue to determine how the process can be improved. The Los Angeles Times leads with the worst wildfires in Australia's history, which have killed at least 130 people so far. Arson is suspected in at least some of the fires, which have destroyed more than 750 homes.
The NYT notes that the details of the new bailout plan for financial institutions are still "sketchy" and probably will remain that way even after the program is announced on Tuesday. Right now it looks as if the program will have four parts. The Treasury will inject more money into banks, institute new programs to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, expand a Federal Reserve program to thaw the consumer credit markets, and devise a method to help banks get rid of bad assets. The NYT says that in order to get the private sector involved, the government "would guarantee a floor value" on the bad assets to push investors to take up the risk. The WSJ says the plan will call for an "aggregator bank," or "bad bank," to buy up the bad assets. The government would put up some money, but the idea is that the private sector would provide most of the financing.
By getting the private sector involved, the Obama administration hopes to avoid having the government determine the price of the bad assets and risk overpaying for them. And by taking away some of the risk for investors, the White House hopes to restore confidence in the banking system. The WSJ points out that some sort of of incentive is essential to get the private sector to participate in the bad bank, since investors can already buy some toxic assets in the open market. While cautioning nothing has been decided yet, the WSJ says it's likely that investors will buy a stake in the bad bank, which would then go out to buy the bad assets. But that assumes financial institutions will want to sell their assets for the price that investors and the government would be willing to pay. Some banks have proved reluctant to sell and are holding onto their assets in the hope that they'll be able to recoup some of their losses when the market recovers.
The new bailout plan has so many different unknowns that Americans will soon realize that the massive stimulus plan was the "easy part," notes an analysis piece inside the NYT. The stimulus plan may involve a huge political fight, but the truth is that the government is relying on a well-known formula to jumpstart the economy while "the problems facing the financial system have no real parallels in scale or complexity," writes David Sanger. Lawmakers can easily explain the stimulus package to their constituents, but getting support to spend what could amount to trillions of dollars to save the very institutions that have "become symbols of excess and greed" will be much more difficult. "We know what we need to do," a senior member of Obama's economic team said. "But the perception is that you are bailing out a bunch of Wall Street bankers, and even many Democrats are going to rebel at that."
For now, the White House is keeping its focus on the stimulus package, and Obama will launch a new effort to try to sell the plan to the American people. He will spend today in Indiana before holding his first prime-time news conference, where he will urge lawmakers to work quickly on reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill. On Tuesday, Obama will fly to Florida. As the fight drags on, public support for the package appears to be decreasing, so White House advisers told the president "he had no choice but to fire up Air Force One and return to a mode of campaigning that helped him win the presidency," notes the NYT.
Even though senators haven't voted yet, congressional aides have started working on trying to figure out the main differences between the House and Senate versions of the stimulus package. It looks as if we're in for a long process, and Democratic aides tell the WP that it might be difficult to get the legislation on the president's desk by this weekend. The White House has tried to minimize the differences between the two bills, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said some of the changes in the Senate compromise are "very damaging." Democrats are holding out hope that more Republicans will be willing to support the measure. Three GOP senators have suggested that they would back the compromise but have made no commitments to support the bill that will come out of the negotiations between the House and the Senate.
In a front-page piece, the WP points out that Republican leaders are beginning to see opposition to the stimulus package as the first step "in the party's liberation from an unpopular president." Republicans say that they have been able to pull together and it won't matter if the bill ultimately passes because they've made their point. "We're standing on our core principles, and the core principle that suffered the most in recent years was fiscal conservatism and economic liberty," Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said. It's a risky strategy that has so far successfully given the appearance of unity, when, in fact, Republicans are divided on how they should regroup. Many think that as long as Republicans stick to the principles of small government, much of their base will come back. But others say that's a misreading of the electorate, and the party has to develop new ideas if it hopes to regain power.
The WP talked to contracting specialists who warn that the stimulus plan may end up wasting billions of dollars if the government tries to spend the money too quickly. Although the bill does contain measures to ensure oversight, many say it would be nearly impossible to do so effectively, considering that contracting officials "would be asked to spend more money more rapidly than ever before."
The NYT takes a look at Avigdor Lieberman, a candidate in Tuesday's Israeli parliamentary elections who wants all Arab citizens to sign a loyalty oath. He wants all citizens to vow allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state and to commit to military service. It's highly unlikely that Lieberman will be the next prime minister, but his Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Is Our Home) party will probably come in third and become a key power broker. Unlike others who have espoused similar views, Lieberman isn't religious and has been able to get lots of support by not adhering to a traditional right-wing agenda while characterizing the Arab Israeli population as a threat.
The WP's Jackson Diehl writes that "for the first time in decades, Israelis may choose a prime minister who is promising to wage war." Binyamin Netanyahu is slightly ahead in the polls and has vowed to topple Hamas if he is in power, while Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is in second place, is promising to continue peace talks. At a time when the Obama administration is trying to increase diplomacy in the Middle East, "it may find itself with an Israeli partner that rejects negotiations with its neighbors and does its best to push the United States toward military confrontation with Iran and its proxies."


NORFOLK -- A group of Marines and sailors from Hampton Roads is providing anti-terrorism security forces around the world.
The Marine Corps Security Force Regiment protects U.S. and coalition forces from enemy attack.
Their outgoing commander says they do a great job.
“A lot of them are very young Marines and sailors. It’s their first enlistment in the service, and we're pretty proud of what they do across the globe," said Col. William McLaughlin.
McLaughlin turned over command to Col. Barton Sloat in a ceremony Friday at Camp Allen on Naval Station Norfolk.
Sloat says it takes a special person to do the job and the work really matters.
“I think it continues in the importance of anti-terrorism in the dangerous world in which we live, that we've got forces that are trained, prepared to deter that kind of violence against our nation, and detect and defeat it if necessary when that time comes."
According to the Marine Corps, there are about 3,200 members of the security regiment on duty around the world. About 800 of them are Navy master-at-arms sailors.


By Scott R Gourley with additional reporting by Kate Tringham
09 February 2009
The US Marine Corps (USMC) Systems Command (MCSC) has announced the award of four contracts to three companies for the USMC's Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR) programme.
As described under an early 'sources sought' announcement in July 2005, the IAR would be a non-developmental 5.56 mm weapon that could "enable the fire team to rapidly suppress point and area targets of immediate concern.
"The IAR will replace the infantry's M249 Squad Automatic Weapons [SAWs] with an automatic rifle easily operable by a single infantry marine that emphasises light weight and portability in order to maximise dismounted manoeuvrability", it stated.
The announcement identified a range of both threshold/mandatory and objective/desired attributes for the IAR. Examples included: an empty weight (excluding the magazine and accessories) of less than 12.5 lb (5.67 kg) as a threshold and 10.5 lb as objective; a sustained rate of fire of 360 rounds per minute (threshold) and 750 rounds per minute (objective); and accommodate a magazine with a threshold capacity of 100 rounds with an objective goal of a magazine that permits rapid visual determination of the number of rounds remaining. In addition, service planners mandated that the IAR "shall accept and function with the current Marine Corps service rifle [the M16A4] 30-round magazines".
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Suicide prevention program a success for MCLB

The Marine Corps has a hands-on suicide prevention program in place, which has proven successful for Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany.

Jennifer Maddox Parks jennifer.parks@albanyherald.com
MCLB-ALBANY — Based on the overall numbers, 2008 was a record in terms of suicides for the Army, with 130 confirmed cases as of last week. According to officials at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany, the numbers for the Marine Corps were not as staggering.
Officials attribute this to the suicide prevention program the Marines have in place.
“There is no need for a Marine to suffer in silence,” said Brenda Ray, health promotions coordinator at the base. “So many resources are at their disposal. I think we have a first-class program.”
The program reaches out to all Marines. When regular safety briefs are performed, suicide prevention briefs are also done—which usually includes a detailed presentation by a trained professional. In addition, there are trained counselors on the base available to provide assistance to Marines as well family members.
“When I was a young Marine, there were no family services in place. We’ve come a long way in 35 years,” said Eric Ashley, the base’s Marine and family services director. “The program exists to make sure Marines can do what they need to do.”
Marine leaders, who are trained to recognize warning signs, also play a role in suicide prevention by ensuring their subordinates get the necessary treatment they need should the signs present themselves.
“Part of training is geared through leadership,” Ashley said. “We train Marines to recognize the signs.”
There have been no suicides within Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany in recent memory. For the Marine Corps as a whole, there were 41 suicides out of 146 attempts in 2008. Sixty-two percent were under 25 years of age and 94 percent were male.
“(The Marines) put themselves in harm’s way. It’s the least we can to offer these services,” said Public Affairs Officer Lt. Caleb Eames.
Prevention training is provided on an annual basis for one hour. Those referred to the base’s Family Services Center are assessed in order to determine the best course of treatment. A mental health assessment is also required for those coming back from an overseas tour after which follow-ups are performed after 90 days and six months.
“First and foremost, they are men and women,” said Ray. “We need to be compassionate enough to know what is going on. When we reduce stress, then and only then will they be mission-capable.”
There are three clinicians at the base’s Family Services Center. Classes in areas including stress management, finances and parenting are also available.
“If you can think of any issue, one of (our agencies) are able to deal with it. It boggles the mind the services we offer,” Ashley said. “The bottom line is to get the Marines in here.”


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Monday, Feb. 9, 2009 , 12:01 a.m.
A human face for the Corps
By: Lauren Gregory (Contact)
Staff Photo by Gillian BolsoverRed Bank High School teachers Amy LeVally, left, and Tara Tharpe listen during a presentation during the Marine Corps Educators Workshop at Marine Corps Recruiting Depot Parris Island on January 14, 2009. The teachers were given a whirlwind tour of marine recruit training during their four-day stay, including firing guns, trying physical challenges, speaking to select marines and frequent formation marching.
Wilder Lee always advised his students against joining the Marine Corps.
“They’re just moving targets,” the Memphis high school teacher said as he waited to board an airplane that would take him to see the “targets” up close at Parris Island, S.C., the Corps’ East Coast training facility.
Mr. Lee was among about 80 people invited on an all-expenses-paid, four-day trip to Parris Island in January as part of the Marine Corps’ Educators’ Workshop program. The program runs weekly from January through May, rotating through educators from different geographic districts across the country. Mr. Lee’s group represented schools under the Nashville and Montgomery, Ala., recruiting stations.
Recruiters specifically chose Mr. Lee and others with similar opinions about the Marine Corps in an effort to show them some stereotypes about Marines aren’t accurate.
In a culture where knowledge of the Marine Corps is encapsulated in the 1987 film “Full Metal Jacket” — with boot camp scenes framed by profanity and violence — the Marines hope to get the message across that they don’t brutalize recruits.
Recruit training no longer allows drill instructors to curse at or touch their charges. But few outsiders realize that, according to Maj. Kathy Lee-Wood, executive officer of the female training battalion on base and one of the workshop leaders.
“You hear all of the bad stories,” Maj. Lee-Wood told workshop participants at their welcome dinner Jan. 13. “What you don’t hear are all of the good stories.”
the stigma
Marine Corps pride is strong within the ranks, but historically, other branches of the service — and many civilians — have come to see Marines in a somewhat negative light, said Bumper Reese, a Red Bank High School teacher and coach who attended the Educators’ Workshop six years ago.
“Most people think the Marine Corps is just brash, raw. The dummies of the service. Other branches have names for them, like ‘bullet stoppers’ and things like that,” said Mr. Reese, whose father was a Marine. “But they’re intelligent.”
It is true that the Corps is “a very infantry-centric organization,” said Lt. Col. Katherine Estes, commanding officer of Parris Island’s Support Battalion.
Marines are “riflemen first,” agreed Brig. Gen. James Laster, commander of recruit training for the eastern United States. At the same time, he said, “We’re not all about killing people. The president may call on us to do that, but really, on a day-to-day basis, our mission is to lead and mentor young people.”
The Marine Corps doesn’t want to be seen a last resort for troubled youth, said Maj. Marty Steimle, operations branch head at Parris Island. It wants to attract talented and intelligent individuals just like other branches such as the Air Force, which advertises highly technical jobs that translate well to the civilian work force, he said.
“There’s this stigma: You either go to jail or you go into the Marine Corps,” Maj. Steimle said. “We want to show the educators that this is a legitimate opportunity for top students.”
recruit quality
The Marines are attracting high-quality recruits, boasted Brig. Gen. Laster, noting that 95 percent of recruits are high school graduates and 63 percent score in the top three categories on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test.
In January, workshop organizers introduced participants to a number of Marines whose jobs weren’t on the front lines. They also presented a panel to address the educational and apprenticeship opportunities Marines can tackle — while on active duty and afterward through the GI Bill.
They also confronted the much-publicized issue of enlistment waivers for felony convictions. Enlistment standards are high, and recruiters don’t want to see drug use, medical problems or excessive tattoos, according to Maj. William Sauerland, commanding officer of the Montgomery, Ala., recruiting station.
With drug use, he said, “it depends on the type and quantity — experimentation versus hard drug use. So we look at the whole individual, because if they just used drugs maybe once or twice, they can probably get a waiver,” he said.
Other felonies are waiverable as well, he said, though recruiters weigh the severity and frequency of any criminal offenses before approving waivers.
“I don’t want people to think that we are opening this up to crackheads and felons,” he cautioned.
HUMANIZING THE ‘BOOGEYMAN’
Part of the Corps’ image overhaul involves breaking stereotypes about the automaton qualities of the Marines and their often-caricatured drill instructors.
“The drill instructor is almost a mythical creature,” said Col. Jeffery Peterson, chief of staff of the Eastern Recruiting Region. “We want you to realize that they’re not some machine. When you cut them, they bleed. When their mother passes away, they cry. They are real people.”
Staff Sgt. Carlos Enriquez was the Tennessee educator group’s drill instructor throughout the week, yelling as he would to recruits when appropriate but breaking from character periodically to rib his charges playfully about their lack of marching skills or describe his role as a father figure to new recruits.
Col. Peterson said he hopes the workshop experience with Staff Sgt. Enriquez would give teachers a better understanding of how recruits are molded into Marines.
“When you create transparency, you take some of that boogeyman stuff out of it,” he said.
Past participants have questioned the actual level of transparency involved in the Educators’ Workshops.
The drill instructors’ demeanor with educators doesn’t exactly reflect basic training, said Arlene Inouye, a speech therapist in Los Angeles who attended the workshop in San Diego, Calif., in 2005.
“The discrepancies really got to me, and that’s what I didn’t know if the other teachers there understood,” said Ms. Inouye, who founded the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools in 2003.
“They put us up in a high-class hotel, they gave us free time and they allowed us to ask all the questions we wanted,” she recalled. “That’s totally different from what a real recruit would go through.”
Mr. Lee also questioned the motives of his hosts, even after returning home from the trip.
“I still believe they’re training to be moving targets,” he said in a telephone interview last week. “I understand what they do better now, so I’m going to tell some of my kids about it, but only the type of kids who have the fortitude for it.”
That’s all the Marines can hope for, said Maj. David Banning, commanding officer of the Nashville Recruiting Station.
Although the Marine Corps is currently ahead of its recruiting goals, the competition to keep it that way is fierce.
“We’re in competition with every other company, with every other business, for the best and the brightest,” he said.
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