I attended the 2004 World Affairs Council weekend retreat at Asilomar -- it was an interesting event and I'll likely do my best to go there again this year.
One discussion I recall was about the relative role of the Pentagon in nation building and many types of overseas developments. This being the Bay Area in particular, you could probably imagine the sheer fury that our panel of military Civil Affairs specialists received from the erstwhile do-gooders in the audience. If I recall correctly, one commentator was quoted as "you can't help someone while you're waving a gun in their face."
Well, I suppose there's a certain logic to that. By contrast, any regular reader of mine would probably guess that I'm sympathetic to the complex interplay between society and military and find attempts - like this one - to separate the 2 pretty tenuous. It's not that I necessarily want this to be the case so much as I basically accept that there really are wolves out there and they are often right around the corner.
So, you could probably guess that I was also sympathetic when I came across this article describing NGO's vs. Special Forces in Afghanistan at StrategyPage.com -
January 10, 2005: The government estimates that there are 100,000 tons of military munitions in the country, and is finding and destroying most of it (some is given to the army). Already, some 5,000 tons have been taken care of in Herat province alone. In addition, hundreds of heavy weapons (tanks, APCs, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and mortars) have been collected. None of the warlords have tried to hang on to this stuff, mainly because they know the Americans can spot it from the air, and use smart bombs to take if out if anyone refuses to cooperate. So far, the national government has not gotten any serious resistance from the regional warlords. American troops continue to maintain good relations with most Afghans by, performing lots of reconstruction work and chasing down bandits and other troublemakers (like the Taliban). American Special Forces have used their diplomatic skills to work with local leaders and avoid raids or attacks on the wrong people. Lots of Afghans wander around carrying weapons, as they have for centuries, so American troops can’t just go out and attack any Afghan with a gun. There is, however, a problem with banditry, another ancient Afghan customs. NGOs have become favorite targets, because of their obvious wealth (at least compared to most Afghans), and the fact that they (unlike the military Civil Affairs troops) don’t carry guns. While NGOs often hire local security, the bandit gangs simply bring along more firepower. The NGOs have SUVs, computers and satellite phones, all popular items with Afghans. There are 300 international, and 1,500 Afghan NGOs operating throughout the country. The victims of the attacks are usually Afghan, not foreign, employees of the NGOs. Last year, 24 NGO employees were murdered during these robberies, compared to 13 in 2003.
In a contest between folks who are Armed and those who are Armed only with Good Intentions, I'll put my money on the former every time.
UPDATE - interesting,
related anecdote on Instapundit -
Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:
" See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."
After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.
And then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.
I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose -
"Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want?
Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?
Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water?
Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?
Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies?
Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?
Well "Franz", us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier". We have 12 of them. How many do you have?
Well said.
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