Weekend Edition Saturday

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

As the assault against Homs continues, Secretary of State Clinton is urging Syrian security forces to disobey orders from their own commanders and stop the violence against protesters. Aram Nerguizian researches Middle East military strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. We asked him about the possibility of further defections among the ranks.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. Gunfire broke out today inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul, Afghanistan. Two high-ranking U.S. military officers have been killed. The incident came on the fifth day of protests across the nation, sparked by the burning of Qurans at a U.S. base. NPR's Quil Lawrence joins us from Kabul. Quil, thanks for being with us.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: My pleasure.

SIMON: What do we know now about the shooting?

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time now for your letters.

(SOUNDBITE OF TYPING AND MUSIC)

SIMON: Today a correction, so maybe some music that's a little more suitable.

(SOUNDBITE OF KLINGON BATTLE THEME)

Events as disparate as the cruel, escalating violence in Syria and the congested, unnerving conditions where Apple's iPads and iPhones are made at the Foxconn assembly plants in China raise a recurring question:

When do a country's internal affairs become the business of the world? And when do we make that our personal business?

You can take that question back through atrocities, crimes and outrages of recent history.

During the summer of 1972, five men were arrested in the middle of the night for breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington, D.C.

The breach went to the very top. Watergate toppled the Nixon administration and became an iconic (and exhaustively studied) American political scandal. In his new novel, Watergate, Thomas Mallon gives the story a fresh twist, retelling it from the perspectives of the involved parties — from seven different points of view.