16 March SWJ Roundup (SWJ Blog)

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field. “What happens is, sometimes at cross-purposes, you got one hand doing one thing and one hand doing the other, both trying to do the right thing but working without a good outcome,” General McChrystal said in an interview. Critics, including Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional American forces, say that Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules.

-- New York Times

The head-to-toe burqas that made women a faceless symbol of the Taliban's violently repressive rule are no longer required here (Laghman). But many Afghan women say they still feel voiceless eight years into a war-torn democracy, and they point to government plans to forge peace with the Taliban as a prime example. Gender activists say they have been pressing the administration of President Hamid Karzai for a part in any deal-making with Taliban fighters and leaders, which is scheduled to be finalized at a summit in April. Instead, they said, they have been met with a silence that they see as a dispiriting reminder of the limits of progress Afghan women have made since 2001.

-- Washington Post

The White House was refusing to back down yesterday in a dispute with Israel over settlement expansion that has stalled peace talks and which the Pentagon believes is threatening the lives of American soldiers in the Muslim world. As Palestinians threatened to boycott future talks Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, was quoted as warning that relations between the countries were “in their worst crisis since 1975 - a crisis of historic proportions”. In 1975 President Ford pressed Israel to withdraw from Sinai. History was also invoked by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, who refused to cancel a project to build 1,600 homes in east Jerusalem, saying that building would continue as “has been the case over the past 42 years”.

-- The Times

The killing of an American consulate worker and her husband over the weekend in the shadow of the bridge that links this ramshackle city with the United States has become a public symbol of the mounting concern here that President Felipe Calderón’s strategy for attacking Mexico’s drug cartels is veering far off course. The city braced for a visit on Tuesday from Mr. Calderón, who has been forced by the relentless violence here to recalibrate his approach and acknowledge that merely concentrating firepower on the drug gangs is not working. In an about-face, the Mexican government has begun refocusing much of its energy on attacking social issues in Ciudad Juárez, in what officials say privately could be an experiment for other Mexican cities that are consumed by drug violence.

-- New York Times

Afghanistan and Pakistan
U.S. Is Reining In Special Forces in Afghanistan - New York Times
Holbrooke Hails Marja Operation, Relationship with Pakistan - AFPS
Afghan Women Fear Loss of Hard-won Progress - Washington Post
Are Taliban Ignoring Mullah Omar's Ethics Code? - Christian Science Monitor
Blackwater Contract to Train Afghan Police Blocked by GAO - Washington Post
Afghan Forces Kill 5 Suicide Bomber-Suspects in Eastern Afghanistan - VOA
U.S. Had 'Private Spy Network' in Pakistan, Afghanistan - Voice of America
Official: Pentagon Probing Alleged Spy Operation - Associated Press
Rocket Attack Kills 1 at Bagram NATO Base - Associated Press