The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in the Taliban stronghold of eastern Afghanistan announced Jan. 27 that they had agreed to support the US-backed government, battle insurgents, and burn down the home of anyone who harbored insurgents. Elders from the Shinwari tribe, which represents about 400,000 people, also pledged to send at least one military-age male in each family to the Afghan army or the police in the event of a Taliban attack. In exchange for their support, US commanders agreed to channel $1 million in development projects directly to the tribal leaders and bypass the local Afghan government, widely viewed as corrupt. (NYT, Jan. 27)

Ethan Bronner in the New York Times took note Jan. 21 of the controversy surrounding Israel's high-profile rescue mission to Haiti in a story entitled "For Israelis, Mixed Feelings on Aid Effort." But the statements quoted are pretty tame compared to much of what is buzzing around the blogosphere. There is certainly something fundamentally perverse about the Israeli Defense Forces establishing a field hospital in Port-au-Prince as their blockade of the Gaza Strip is actively creating an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Commentators within Israel have made the point repeatedly. "Israel's compassion in Haiti can't hide our ugly face in Gaza," wrote Akiva Eldar in Haaretz Jan. 18. Paul Woodward on the War in Context website Jan. 23 notes a piece in the Israeli daily Maariv entitled "The painful truth: Haiti's disaster is good for the Jews." Blogger Richard Silverstein Jan. 19 noted a piece in Israel's Yediot by Yoel Donchin, a doctor who is himself a veteran of Israeli international disaster response teams—who accuses Israel of "Public Relations instead of saving lives." Donchin actually blasts the IDF field hospital as a scam, saying that "sending portable toilets to Haiti would have been a better option, but this does not provide good photo opportunities."

The Rag Blog on Jan. 11 was among those to take note in alarmist terms ("Got Fascism?") of a suggestion by Cass Sunstein—President Obama's Harvard Law School friend and recently appointed administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs—for "cognitive infiltration" by government agents to combat the growing popularity of conspiracy theory. In a piece entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures" in the August issue of the Journal of Political Philosophy, Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule write:

The Jerusalem Post of Jan. 15 is the latest outlet to cite claims in Iraq's Ur news agency that the Iraqi Antiquities and Heritage Authority is planning to build a huge mosque on top of the Shrine of Al-Kifi—thought to be the tomb of the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel—and that ancient Hebrew inscriptions and ornaments are being covered or removed from the site south of Baghdad under the guise of renovations.

In a heart-warming display of holiday spirit, the New York Times runs a Christmas Eve op-ed, "There's Only One Way to Stop Iran" by one Alan J. Kuperman, making the case for pre-emptive military strikes. The writer is named as "the director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at the University of Texas at Austin"—but this entity apparently isn't important enough to rate its own web page. It appears to be a project of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Pretty ironic, given that pre-emptive strikes on Iran without UN authorization would be clearly illegal. Maybe they should call it the Robert S. Strauss Center Against International Security and Law.

In several places around the world, marches commemorating Human Rights Day Dec. 11 were met with official harassment and repression. In Srinagar, capital of India-administrated Kashmir, police fired teargas and live rounds to disperse protesters, leaving at least 15 injured, including a young boy who sustained a bullet wound. (World Bulletin, Dec. 11) In Cuba, hundreds of government supporters jostled and jeered dissidents who staged two small marches in Havana. A 30-strong group of female relatives of political prisoners—known as "the Ladies in White" (Damas de Blanco)—marched through the capital chanting "liberty," carrying flowers, Cuban flags and copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A crowd of some 250 surrounded them and shouted "traitors" and "the street belongs to Fidel." A smaller march of about 10 dissidents in a park in the Vedado district was also surrounded and harassed. (The Guardian, Dec. 11)

From CBS, Dec. 11:

Sources tell CBS News the al Qaeda operative believed killed in a drone strike in Pakistan this week is Saleh al-Somali, who was in charge of external operations for the group. He was considered one of a half dozen top Qaeda operatives.

An "Open Letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee," online across the anti-war blogosphere (e.g. Antiwar.com):

On December 10, you will award the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, citing "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people." We the undersigned are distressed that President Obama, so close upon his receipt of this honor, has opted to escalate the U.S. war in Afghanistan with the deployment of 30,000 additional troops. We regret that he could not be guided by the example of a previous Nobel Peace Laureate, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who identified his peace prize as "profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time—the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression."