Civilians

Last week, when the band played at Fort Meade, the Army invited everyone to come and listen. Two years after the base became a closed post protected by armed guards, Army officials invited the public back inside, this time for the annual Twilight Tattoo, a musical chronicle of the Army's 300-year history that officials say is meant to be shared with the civilian public. The success of Twilight Tattoo, which drew hundreds of visitors, underscores a challenge area military bases have grappled with since the Sept.

MOSCOW -- Perhaps nothing describes Russia's loss of moral compass more acutely than the differences between Sergei Kovalyov, the previous human rights commissioner, and Oleg Mironov, the present one.During the last war in Chechnya, from 1994 to 1996, Kovalyov, now 69, was in the battle-torn region more often than not, huddling in freezing basements, braving the bullets and bombs of the government he was representing, gathering evidence and calling politicians...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In what has become a dolefully familiar event, local Afghan officials reported yesterday that at least 30 civilians, and perhaps a great many more, were killed during U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, this time in the Gereshk district of the southern province of Helmand, where dozens of civilians died under similar circumstances the previous week. Contacted by telephone, the mayor of Gereshk, Dor Ali Shah, and tribal elders said that the allied bombardment began late Friday and extended into yesterday, coming soon after insurgents had attacked coalition ground forces.

The Pentagon needed the best intelligence it could get from the skies over Afghanistan, and it needed it immediately. And so it asked for Avis Anderson. The Air Force called on Anderson late last year, and by Thanksgiving had him on the ground fighting the war on terrorism. The Global Hawk, the nation's newest and most sophisticated surveillance plane, was spying on al-Qaida and Taliban forces, with Anderson and a small team of specialists like him in control. "Certainly there was a fear of the unknown, going into a strange place and not knowing what you would encounter; nobody wants to go to a war," said Anderson.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Seeking to quell outrage over allegations that Marines went on a killing rampage against unarmed civilians in Haditha, the top U.S. general in Iraq ordered all American troops in the country to undergo additional ethics training, the military said yesterday. The announcement came a week after Marine Corps commandant Michael W. Hagee left from Washington for Iraq on what he said was a mission to reinforce the training Marines receive in following laws regarding force and violence.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- Four Marines were charged yesterday with murder in connection with the deaths of 24 men, women and children last year in the Iraqi town of Haditha, and four officers were charged with failing to make accurate reports and thoroughly investigate the deaths. The Nov. 19, 2005, incident in the insurgent stronghold in the Euphrates River valley is one of several in which U.S. personnel face criminal charges for killing innocent Iraqis. But the Haditha case is regarded as the most serious, both because of the numbers of victims and Marines involved and because the Marine Corps initially said the civilians had been caught in fighting between insurgents and U.S. forces.

Reports that Russia is supplying Syrian President Bashar Assad with attack helicopters for use against rebel fighters and civilian protesters mark an ominous new phase in the country's descent into chaos and civil war. Mr. Assad's escalation from tanks and heavy artillery to aerial assaults threatens to spark a new arms race between the government and its opponents that can only lead to more bloodshed and suffering as long as he remains in power....

Today, on its 37th anniversary, Roe v. Wade is still an unfulfilled promise for the women in our military. Women soldiers serving their country overseas and in the United States face impediments to accessing reproductive health care that most civilians take for granted. While military personnel must give up some rights enjoyed by civilians, there is no compelling reason for the current policies and practices that circumscribe their reproductive rights. In November, Major Gen. Anthony Cuculo III, the commander of U.S. forces in Northern Iraq, put in place a policy that made pregnancy or impregnation an offense subject to a court-martial or jail time, citing military readiness as his justification.

CHAATIYE, Lebanon -- The stubborn and the old, the zealous and the careless, those who stayed in southern Lebanon came out to scan the sky yesterday looking to see if diplomats had yet brought relief from the barrage.From the porch of her house in Chaatiye, a Hezbollah stronghold in South Lebanon, Rafiya Ali Fayad tended her roses and said that diplomacy and the end of the 11-day Israeli bombardment were both matters too big to worry about.Israel had told a half-million Lebanese to flee their homes, and announced that anyone remaining would be considered a Hezbollah target.

WASHINGTON -- At least 1.9 million civilians in Sudan's predominantly black African south have died in a 15-year ethnic and religious war that has become the bloodiest conflict since World War II, the U.S. Committee for Refugees reported yesterday."