This Week In War via The Political Notebook

Here’s an excellent digest of all the chaos and gut checking insanity of the perils and proliferation of useless war in the world. This comes courtesy of a really insightful blog I recently became aware of called ThePoliticalNotebook. Links and news below.

Peace.

No really. Peace. We need A LOT MORE of it. Take heart. War can be over if you really want it.

~Daniel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.

If you would like to receive this round-up as a weekly email, you can sign up through this form, or email me directly at torierosedeghett@gmail.com.

• The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. The Hague-based organization was established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons convention and is currently overseeing the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria.
• According to Human Rights Watch, rebels in Syria were responsible for the massacre of 190 civilians in Latakia in August.
• Aleppo prepares for winter.
• Syrian forces took control of a key road into Aleppo, giving them back control of an important supply line.
• Turkish spy chief Hakan Fidan has become a force in the construction of Turkey’s regional security strategy.
• The US is suspending a significant portion of its $1.3bn in aid to Egypt.
• Mohammed Morsi will stand trial in November for inciting murder and violence.
• The US says that the Libyan government approved the commando raids that captured Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai in Tripoli.
• Libyan PM Ali Zeidan was kidnapped from his home on Thursday, later to be released.
• Roughly 60 have been killed so far in clashes in the Central African Republic.
• Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, sentenced to 50 years for crimes against humanity, will serve his time in a British jail.
• American Special Forces had to retreat during a raid in Somalia on Saturday, which officials say was the result of “imperfect intelligence.”
• Colum Lynch on the June 19 Al-Shabab raid on the UN in Mogadishu.
• Iraq hung 42 convicted of terrorism charges.
• Al Jazeera America breaks down where the real causes of concern are (and aren’t) in Iran’s nuclear program.
• A portrait of an Afghan assassin, a seventeen-year-old responsible for a green-on-blue attack that killed four Marines.
• Britain makes its final major deployment to Afghanistan.
• A day after being granted bail in a separate case, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was arrested over a 2007 mosque raid.
• Russia is cracking down on the North Caucasus region ahead of the Winter Olympics.
• Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani says he’s retiring in November.
• China arrested 139 people in Xinjiang for spreading jihad.
• A special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists calls the Obama administration the most aggressive one since Nixon when it comes to controlling media and information.
• Kim Jong-un fired his top general, Kim Kyok-sik.
• The UN is being sued in US court over the cholera epidemic which has 8300 since October 2010. The Haitian government is seeking $2.2bn in compensation from the UN, saying the cholera was introduced by Nepalese peacekeeping forces and poor sanitation practice.s
• Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, known as the Republican Congressman who co-authored the Patriot Act, is going to introduce bipartisan legislation meant to curtail the domestic surveillance powers of government agencies.
• The CIA is shutting down access to the Open Source Center, which for more than half a century has operated as a publicly accessible source of unclassified global information compiled from media sources outside the US.
• Furloughed intelligence employees will begin returning to work.
• The Obama administration has begun reviewing the cases of dozens of Guantánamo inmates for possible release.
• The NSA’s FOIA request caseload is up 1054 percent since the Snowden leaks.
• Electrical issues are stalling the opening of the NSA’s $1.7bn data center in Utah.
• Congratulations to Gregory Johnsen on being Buzzfeed’s first Michael Hastings National Security Reporting Fellow.

Photo: Salaheddine neighborhood, Aleppo. Free Syrian Army fighters take up position against government forces in a firefight. Malek Alshemali/Reuters.