War

A U.S. military convoy sliced through the flat Iraqi desert before first light, carrying the last troops safely into Kuwait and ending America's costly and divisive war in a troubled land. When relieved soldiers got out on the other side Sunday, shouts of "Going home!" and "It's over!" mingled with bear hugs and high-fives. One soldier hollered, "I'm going to Disneyland!" Another, "A sweet, sweet Christmas. " The final vehicle passed a fortified Kuwaiti border police post eight years, eight months and 28 days after U.S. forces poured across the same frontier, 150,000 strong, sweating inside bulky chemical and biological protective suits, but convinced of a swift and certain victory.

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Two of the top destinations on a recent trip to Charleston - Ft. Sumter and the Confederacy's H. L. Hunley submarine - transcend the label of "Civil War attraction. " These sites appeal to students of U.S. history, to devotees of military archives and to those who value peace over war. After a 30-minute ferry trip from the city to the man-made island that is the site of Ft. Sumter, my tour group encountered park ranger Dennis Birr, who proved to be a combination of historian, carnival barker and motivational speaker.

A former security guard accused of fatally shooting an 18-year-old college student in a Palmdale parking lot nearly a decade ago was convicted of murder Friday, authorities said. The verdict caps a lengthy legal saga that began when Raymond Lee Jennings first reported finding Michelle O'Keefe's body during a routine patrol of the park-and-ride lot. Investigators found the victim, a student at Antelope Valley College, slumped in the front seat of her Ford Mustang. She had been shot four times in the chest and face.

Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson Former Trinidad and Tobago leader held by Islamic rebels Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson, 87, a former Trinidad and Tobago prime minister who was held hostage for days and shot during a bloody 1990 coup attempt, died Wednesday at a private medical center in Trinidad's capital of Port-of-Spain after a prolonged illness. National Security Minister Gary Griffith said Robinson had been hospitalized for several medical conditions related to diabetes.

'Declaration of War' MPAA rating: Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes; French with English subtitles Playing: At Nuart Theater, West Los Angeles

Re "Waiting for the last plane out," Opinion, Dec. 23 I had tears in my eyes reading David Freed's Op-Ed article about not seeing his son, who is probably stationed in Afghanistan, this Christmas. I share his feelings of longing to be with a son at familiar family outings. My son flies air cover on six-hour missions over Afghanistan from the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower. From 20,000 feet he looks down on a land that seems so desolate and bleak. He is grateful not to be stationed on the ground, but he's perfectly willing to fly close to the ground to protect his comrades in arms.

'Women, War & Peace' Where: KOCE When: 10 p.m. Tuesday Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14)

'Frontline: The Vaccine War' Where: KCET When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Rating: TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children)

The War on Moms On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation Sharon Lerner Wiley: 216 pp., $25.95

'American Experience: War of the Worlds' When: 9 p.m. Tuesday Channel: KOCE

Comparing illegal immigration to a war that threatened the United States' future, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly once exhorted citizens to rise and join his fight to stop people from crossing the border, according to audio of a speech he gave in 2006. "I am a descendant of Jim Bowie, who died at the Alamo," Donnelly, then a leader in the Minuteman border-patrol group, said at a rally in Temecula that year. "It is rumored that he took a dozen Mexican soldiers to their deaths before they finally killed him. How many of you will rise up and take his place on that wall?"

LAS VEGAS - Wielding signs and slogans, several hundred demonstrators rallied Monday to support beleaguered Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy after authorities began to seize his cattle from federal land. Protesters had responded to an alert that promised: "Range war begins at the Bundy ranch at 9:30 a.m. We're going to get the job done!" Federal officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, habitat of the federally protected desert tortoise.

Three years into the Syrian civil war, neighboring Lebanon is fraying at the seams. Over the last year, as Lebanese Sunni Muslim jihadis and their counterparts in the Shiite militia Hezbollah fought each other in Syria, at least 16 car bombs detonated in Lebanon, in both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods. In December, a leading Sunni politician was assassinated. Meanwhile, more than 1 million mostly Sunni refugees have streamed in from Syria, increasing Lebanon's population by more than 20% and skewing its delicate sectarian balance.

HOMS, Syria - On the ragged fringes of the Old City, aid workers, clerics and government troops stood vigil, awaiting a U.N. convoy evacuating women, children and the aged from the besieged ancient quarter of a town known to many as ground zero in the Syrian civil war. But the buses disgorged a very different class of passengers: scores of young men, haggard and sallow-faced, blankets draped over their shoulders and fear evident in their eyes....

ROME - After spending four days in Europe dealing with the crisis over Russia's annexation of Crimea, President Obama now turns to a diplomatic challenge of another sort: trying to smooth relations with Saudi Arabia without making the longtime U.S. ally seem like an afterthought. Obama is scheduled to arrive in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, shortly before sunset Friday to meet with King Abdullah, whose inner circle is riled by how the United States has handled Iran's nuclear ambitions and Syria's civil war. Some with close ties to the royal family have talked about breaking ranks with Western partners.

BRUSSELS - The crisis over Crimea has not restarted the Cold War but has revived a "contest of ideas" between belief in powerful leaders and in democratic ideals, President Obama declared Wednesday as he laid out his case for firm opposition to Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. Speaking in this European capital as two decades of diplomacy on the continent unraveled, Obama cast the crisis as a fight between "the old way of doing things" and "a young century. " Obama dismissed as "absurd" Russian President Vladimir Putin's justifications for annexing Crimea and sought to gird Europe for a drawn-out dispute.

President Obama declared an end to the U.S. combat role in Iraq this week, but his speech didn't include the word victory. One reason is that the U.S. combat role isn't entirely over; 50,000 American troops are still in Iraq, and some of them probably will be drawn into battle again. Another is that Iraq isn't at peace and doesn't have a stable government yet. As a political matter, the president would rather have been talking about the economy — the crisis on the minds of most Americans — instead of an almost-forgotten war that has taken too many lives, too much money and too much time.

Jonathan Schell, the author, journalist and activist who wrote passionately and cogently about war and politics for more than 40 years, condemning conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq and galvanizing the anti-nuclear movement with his horrifyingly detailed bestseller, "The Fate of the Earth," died Tuesday at his home in New York City. He was 70. The cause was cancer, according to Schell's companion, Irena Gross. With unrelenting rage and idealism, Schell focused on the consequences of violence in essays and books that conveyed a hatred of war rooted in part in his firsthand observations of American military operations in Vietnam.

A war of words erupted Tuesday between two Los Angeles City Council members vying for control of the annual Fourth of July fireworks show at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In a blistering press release, Councilman Bernard C. Parks accused Councilman Curren Price and USC of "continuing what has become a petty retaliation effort" to force Parks out of the Fireworks Extravaganza he founded more than a decade ago. Parks said the university and some Coliseum Commission members have been at odds with him since he publicly opposed a deal giving USC control of the Coliseum, which he argued gave the community "little to nothing in return.