Double Negative

Mbeki on the UN's Double Dealing in Côte d'Ivoire

2011-05-01T02:21:00.000-07:00

Thabo Mbeki writes lucidly and doesn't pull his punches!

This is Getting Serious: It’s Time to Write An Open Letter

2011-04-03T02:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is seriously getting serious. The situation in Côte d’Ivoire has been going on three months now. Some people refer to a longer period of successive crises, but in order to simplify things, it’s easier to focus on the timeframe in which short-term diplomacy has become the main sideshow.

I was going to do a sarky timeline starting with colonization in the 19th century, but that’s crazy-boring. And anyway, this is not about the historical legacies or political fundamentals common to failed states like Côte d’Ivoire – stuff like messy colonization and messier decolonization. This is about the International Community, exploring what its needs are now and, as Obama likes to say almost as much as “let me be clear”, what its needs are ‘moving forward’.

Since my last post at the start of this crisis (see below – the one with the minstrel-meets-chocolate poster pics), the situation has unfolded. And as one report noted, the Ivorian people, not to mention the international community, are getting fed up with this situation.

And it’s not without trying on the part of The Diplomats, who have issued countless communiqués, resolutions, reports, dispatches, and press statements decrying the need for more Diplomacy. Always reluctant to engage prominent politicians and their own Former-Formers, the International Community has brought out some of its Traditional African Diplomats and Legations:

- In October 2010, Côte d’Ivoire double-billed with Mediation Matinee Hosts, President John Atta Mills of Ghana and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia;

- A month and a half later, in early December, former South African President, Thabo Mbeki represented the African Union on a mediation mission. No takers;
(Two weeks later the newly appointed Ivorian Ambassador to the UN, Youssoufou Bamba, cautioned that his country was on the verge of genocide. That means up the ante on Diplomatic Efforts)

- About a month after Mbeki’s stalled efforts, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo met with both Gbagbo and Ouattara in what he described as a "process of exploration". As far as exploration processes go, he was successful in confirming that the situation is intractable and perhaps not worth spending any more of his Politico-Diplomatic Credit;

- A week after Obasanjo AU special envoy and Mediator #3 Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, visited Abidjan and held talks with Ouatarra and Gbagbo. Adopting an unorthodox strategy of telegraphing his intention to remove Gbagbo and effect the peaceful installment of Ouatarra, no one could work out why Odinga’s two-day whirlwind in a teacup made no discernible difference whatsoever to the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire;

- AU chairperson Bingu wa Mutharika has held talks in Côte d’Ivoire with Ouatarra and Gbagbo in the lead up to AU shindigs, but Bingu was smart enough not to use the ‘M-word’ in describing his efforts.

So now it’s time for Double Negative to weigh in and make its own demarche:

Open Letter to The Diplomats on the Situation in Côte d’Ivoire

3 April 2011

Excellencies,

The diplomatic situation in Côte d’Ivoire is rapidly deteriorating.

We recall the Open Letters from H.E. President Louise Arbour from the Republic of the International Crisis Group dated 22 and 25 March 2011, and we take note that “civil war in the country has been reignited”. We would submit that re-ignition is not the same as ‘raging’ and that a détente between the main two rivals is not utterly hopeless.

We are dismayed that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in its resolution adopted on 24 March 2011 did not use more mild and circumlocutory language.

We urge all parties to lend their support behind the forceful recommendations of ECOWAS, interalia, " to explore all avenues of providing the Government of Mr. Alassane Ouattara all the necessary legal and diplomatic means to exercise its authority, including admitting the Government to all meetings of ECOWAS” and “establishing the joint AU-ECOWAS facilitation team to ensure the immediate transfer of power to Mr. Alassane Ouattara”.

We are concerned that the gentle pressure and ministrations of peacekeepers dispatched by the United Nations Mission in Cote d’Ivoire are being viewed as ineffective and believe that UNOCI should have the opportunity to access state-owned television and radio networks in order to address this perception issue.

We have taken note of the ongoing sensitive electoral process and the unresolved aspects of the peace process.
We are pleased to see that the number of registered and unregistered former combatants has reduced dramatically over the last three months from an estimated 32,777, but we are concerned that this reduction is attributable to the phenomenon of recruitment into militia and irregular armed forces.

We are pretty sure that all of the most brutal and unsavoury former combatants are Pro-Gbagbo.

We expressly reject all notions that because UNOCI was directly involved in supervising and providing logistical support to the Independent Electoral Commission that the UN’s refusal to hold a vote recount or question whether the election was “generally successful” that there are any conflict(s) of interest.

We eagerly await the appointment of the High Representative of the president of the AU Commission and second the assessment of H.E. President Louise Arbour that this is “the best way out of the crisis”.

We underline the need for increased efforts to assist the The Diplomats in the promotion of a climate of stability and trust in order to facilitate the return of Ivorian refugees in neighbouring countries.

We call upon the States neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire to take steps, with the aim of putting an end to factors contributing to the destabilization of Cote d’Ivoire, to ensure that such arms and materiel are not transferred to Ivorian camps within their territories.

We request the Secretary-General to consult the Governments of neighbouring countries on the possibility of holding an International Peace Conference on Cote d’Ivoire.

Artful Aid Worker

Minister Plenipotentiary, Double Negative

A Cup of Technicolor Tea, Ban?

2011-03-22T01:01:00.000-07:00

This is way off piste. I have a habit of reading errant political analyses of Obama’s chances for a second term. I can’t work out whether I despise the man for his war-mongering or I admire him in spite of it. Anyway, the Tea Party folks have no such conflict – they loathe this guy. Being a fairly inward-looking lot, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that their appreciation of foreign policy is rather shallow. But what it lacks in depth, it makes up for in colour. Technicolor!

This is an amusing exchange of commentary under an article in the conservative monthly, American Spectator entitled, “Barbour Out On the Hustings” by the magazine’s founder and editor-in-chief, Bob Tyrrell.

I have pruned it for length but I have tried to keep the ranting (and repetitious) style and hectoring tone intact. Check it out:

patrick henry⁠|⁠ 3.17.11 @ 3:17PM

What Republicans need to seriously consider as they plan their 2012 Presidential campaign is that Obama may not be the Democrat candidate again. Candidates who base their entire campaign on that assumption are risking being completely caught off-guard by an historic blind-side political bombshell. The 2010 election seriously damaged Obama, and his on-going indifference as multiple domestic and international issues piles up will cause many Dem candidates up for re-election in 2012 to be very open to a "Savior" who can step in and rescue their party from political oblivion.

After some detailed probing and pursuit of the subject, what we find is that Barack Obama, still just in his late 40’s, has much greater ambitions than just serving two terms as President of the United States. Barack Obama is positioning himself to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations, a post with no statutory limit of terms and control of the only organization with widespread authority over all points of the globe.

Researchers contemplating Obama’s long-range master plan find that all the necessary elements are in place, or soon will be, to give Obama the opportunity to literally rule the world- possibly for as long as he wants. A brief review of the United Nations charter and history provides the eye-opening details.

The first term of Ban Ki-moon expires Dec. 31, 2011 and, according to UN tradition, if he is interested, he will almost certainly be reappointed to a second term, which will expire Dec. 31, 2016, three weeks prior to the end of Barack Obama’s presumed second term as President of the United States. Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, only two geographic regions of the world have not had a representative serve as UN Secretary General: Oceana…. and North America. Barack Obama intends to be the first from North America.

This, of course, would explain virtually everything about Obama’s otherwise-unconventional behavior and his aggressiveness in acquiring as much control, authority and international goodwill as possible. The basic goals of the Obama Presidency are to weaken the United States as an international force in order to lessen its ability to exert influence and control over international affairs, while at the same time seek to subjugate the U.S. as much as possible to international agreements and UN control, authority, regulation and laws. This will curry favor with the international community, thus enhancing Obama’s chances at ascension to the Secretary General throne, and make the U.S. less significant vis-a-vis the UN in international affairs, so that he, as life-long UN Secretary General, will have unquestioned and unchallenged authority over the worldwide community and its affairs.

To achieve these ends, during his time as President, the Obama administration has pursued policies that weaken American strength, power and influence in every conceivable political, economic and social way possible. For example, many economists have pointed out that the Obama economic plan, loaded with unsustainable spending and debt, may cause serious long-term damage to the American economy. No problem- if his plan does happen to somehow work, fine, but the Obama economic plan is not designed to heal the economy- in accordance with Obama’s long-range master plan, it’s designed to weaken the economy, and the nation. And how does the on-going Obama international “blame America / apology tour” strengthen America’s foreign policy? It doesn’t- it’s not supposed to- it’s designed to weaken our nation’s role in international affairs. Further, Obama’s administrative and judicial appointments and nominations are people infused with a strident anti-traditional and anti-constitutional ethos, because that nudges America further toward an eventual submission to “international” ethics, laws and constraints.

The more that Obama will be able to enact this agenda and master plan now, the easier it will be for him to later wield unquestioned power as UN Secretary General, because the United States will have been severely weakened and unable to exert significant influence on international (or even some domestic) affairs.

Speculators are envisioning several alternative scenarios. For example, one option being bantered about is that Obama’s unbridled ambition will not allow him to wait until Ban Ki-moon completes a second term as UN Secretary General. Mr. Ban’s first term will conclude Dec. 31, 2011, one year and three weeks prior to the end of Obama’s first term as President, and one popular scenario envisions that, if Obama feels he has sufficiently accomplished enough of his agenda by then, he will resign as President and seek to replace Mr. Ban in January of 2012. After all, why wait another four years and risk something going awry in the meantime that could pre-empt an Obama second Presidential term or even the larger Obama long-range master plan itself?

Under that scenario, it is thought that Vice President Joe Biden’s subsequent ascendancy to the White House in January of 2012 would assure a continued passive and subordinate American role in UN and international affairs while Obama then promotes his UN Secretary General agenda, and, at the same time, assure election of Biden as President later that November.
Another variation of that scenario is that the aftermath of the 2010 election and growing unhappiness with Obama's lack of leadership, including by members of his own party, will cause key Dems, especially those up for re-election in 2012, to seek an alternative to head the Dem ticket as Presidential candidate. Hillary would then offer herself up as the "Savior of the Party" as Biden fills out Obama's term and doesn't seek the nomination. As a narcissist, Obama must be concerned about the prospect of being defeated in a re-election campaign. So, as a political safety valve, Obama could resign in late 2011 for the UN job. Under that scenario variant, everybody would win- Obama would get his UN Secretary General-for-life job, Biden would get to serve one year as a U.S. President, and Hillary would get her shot at making history as the first female President, perhaps even for two terms.
However, some feel that this scenario would be too outrageously ambitious for even Obama. Their thought is that Obama would prefer to complete the second term as President and then move on to the UN. On the other hand, this scenario would explain the “mad rush” to enact as much of Obama’s agenda as soon as possible in his first term. And it would also explain why Obama was so insistent on running for President in 2008, rather than allowing Hillary Clinton to have her shot at the job in ’08 and running after her two terms.

All very logical, except for one very revealing factor. As previously mentioned, a new UN Secretary General will be scheduled for appointment in 2016, and eligible for two five-year terms. If Obama would have let that opportunity pass by and allow someone else to become UN Secretary General, that would mean that Obama’s next best shot at the UN Secretary General position may not occur until 2026. At that point Obama would be 65 years old, with far less time to rule the United Nations. And, in addition, that would leave far too much time for something unforeseen to disrupt Obama’s long-term master plan. No, it was felt that it was a far better approach to push Obama for the Presidency in 2008 even if that meant risking the wrath of Hillary and her Democrat Party operatives. With an Obama victory in the 2008 Presidential election, his plan of ascending to the open UN Secretary General seat in 2016 was assured, and he could serve as many as four five-year terms as UN Secretary General before finally retiring at a still-robust 75, or possibly even serving beyond that. That would provide Obama with a full twenty years or more of ruling the world- a heady opportunity indeed, one that would be very difficult for an intense narcissist to let pass by.

Regardless, it is clear that the position of UN Secretary General will be open for appointment just as Obama’s presumed second term is about to expire. The Secretary General serves a five-year term and is traditionally (but not constitutionally) limited to two consecutive terms. But Barack Obama clearly sees himself as a being above and beyond traditional (if not even constitutional) constraint, and there is no provision in the UN Charter that would prevent him from seeking as many terms as he desired. By ingratiating himself to the international community during his service as American President, he could assure himself of unlimited service later as UN Secretary General. The only constraint to prevent Obama from additional terms as Secretary General would be a veto by one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. But the Obama team has very effectively considered that element as well. The five permanent Security Council members are the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. The U.S. is already (figuratively and literally) indebted to China, Russia is clearly pleased with Obama’s weakening of the U.S., and Obama has profusely sidled up to the European powers in his on-going “blame America / apology” tours. This should greatly diminish the prospects of one of those other four permanent Security Council nations vetoing additional Obama terms as Secretary General beyond his second term. And, with a submissive America ruled by the Democrat Party, the chances of a U.S. veto are virtually nil.

Following his act as the first black President of the United States, the Obama campaign for UN Secretary General would focus on the historic nature of him becoming the first person from North America to serve in that capacity. And, as a result of his weaken-America policies as President, the members of the United Nations would feel much more comfortable bestowing upon him the honor of serving as the first North American Secretary General. For his part, naturally, this would fit very nicely into Obama’s narcissistic persona. And, of course, the mainstream American and international media would play it to the hilt. Obama’s ascendancy to the throne of United Nations Secretary General would be virtually a coronation, not a selection or an election.

Now that the basic goals of Obama’s long-range master plan are clearly evident, his motivations and intentions are much easier to decipher. Clearly, the structure of the Obama Presidency is not about what is good for America or its citizens- it’s all about Obama. It’s all about what advances Obama’s personal agenda and objectives. If it appears that Obama is still campaigning, it’s because he is still campaigning. Obama viewed the 2008 American Presidential election as just another primary election in his broader campaign to become the UN Secretary General. During his Presidency, Obama’s policies are designed to control, not cure. The economy, the banking system, the auto industry, the health care system- the Obama administration’s energies are directed toward seizing control over all those sectors, not “curing” any real or perceived problems in them. The more that Obama can make America subservient, compliant and subordinate now, the easier it will be for him to rule later as the unchallenged United Nations Secretary General.

This fascinating insight gives us the opportunity to view Obama and his administration in a much different light. Other such alternative scenarios are being actively debated, and only his closest insiders are privy to the details of the actual plan. But one thing is very clear: the increasingly strange and unconventional behavior of Barack Obama and his administration and policies can now be seen through a much clearer lens, and it’s quite obvious that there is, indeed, a very specific method to the madness.

Habu⁠|⁠ 3.17.11 @ 6:38PM

patrick henry You have written an encompassing piece on the obama grand strategy but allow me this observation.Most Americans want the US out of the UN and with good cause. The institution that held such promise almost immediately ossified into a caricature of itself, stifled at every important point (save Korea, where the Soviets had walked out of the Security Council w wee bit too soon) but the nyets of the Soviets. There is already talk of developing a parallel institution of truly free countries committed to the rights of man to run without the interference of antithetical philosophies that would have us all back in the dark ages. That is why it is vital to defeat obama and gain a leader with the energy in the executive that Alexander Hamilton in Federalist#70 outlined: Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. Every man the least conversant in Roman story, knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of Dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome. In our case we need no dictator but a leader who can create a new organization to bypass the truly pitiful UN.With the proper energy we can move the UN from it’s now illegitimate standing to its proper place in the pantheon of failed international organizations and move Obama back to Punahou School or better yet Indonesia.

I don’t know where to start. These Tea Party folks are really special.

Vote and Relax: Bring in The Diplomats

2011-01-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

In the stakes for alarming post-conflict elections outcomes of 2010, Côte d'Ivoire could not be a more high-impact place in which to hold an election. It’s also proving to be very promising for the careers of those hard-working diplomats one so seldomly hears on the BBC.

As an aside, in terms of war potential, the Ivory Coast is way up there, or as Homer might say, "mmmm, War-Fresh". But while there are still avenues for dialogue (and therefore peace; dialogue often paves the way for peace in Africa), the basic premise of an election needs to take second place to negotiating a way towards avoiding egregious human rights abuses, and suffering of The People. Round-the-clock talks, strongly worded UN communiqués, press releases, and above all, Diplomacy is the order of the day.

One could ask what is the reasoning behind the clamour for elections in a place that so manifestly craves other equally time-critical changes? Changes like fairness in the labour market, a more equitable redistribution of public and private revenues, industrial relations reform, and those twin albatrosses that hang around the heads of so many African heads of state, health and education. But why would we do that when other pressing matters like egregious human rights abuses could occur in the absence of Dialogue?

The current Ivorian crisis is perplexing; and it already straining the immense skills and tireless efforts of The Diplomats, the UN, and a unity of other institutions and states all working around the clock to prevent further suffering of The People.

It's the mediocrity of leadership that really sets places like Côte d'Ivoire apart from other countries. For instance, the reasons advanced by third-time presidential wannabe and former prime minister, Alassane Ouattara, as to why Laurent Gbagbo should be removed by force from his perch (HIS perch!) are that "Gbagbo would become entrenched in power and become more difficult to remove". This may seem obvious to you or I, but in the Realm of Diplomacy there are subtle nuances in this statement that defy the perusal of mere bystanders (i.e. people who are not working tirelessly from capitals around the world using Dialogue to pave the way for Peace).

For poor old Gbagbo, and perhaps his international burnish is not as cultivated as Ouattara's, it was always going to be hard campaigning against a UN-sanctioned, IMF-supercharged banker. Bankers are so charismatic in Africa (and they drive nicer cars). This was a tough break for Gbagbo, who ran on an imaginative negative campaign along the lines of 'Ouattara has nothing". Ironically, or hopefully in Gbagbo’s case, mediocrity appears to be an asset when it's "a position in an international organization". So a UN or IO slot executing foreign policy is where the leadership qualities of someone like a Laurent Gbagbo can really shine. Once appointed within the UN or an IO, someone like Gbagbo might finally be able to make that difference that they tried so hard as an elected (and unelected) official to achieve.

An American Diplomat made a good point when he remarked that there is "plenty of precedent, for instance, of former African leaders who have gone on to work with regional or international institutions".

This is described as "A Sort of Consolation Prize" when a corrupt and sometimes brutal elected official loses a popular vote. In the Democratisation Calculus (a sub-department of the Realm of Diplomacy), working within the international humanitarian community is the effluent run-off for individuals who (temporarily) refuse to accede to the results of an incorrigible election that just wouldn't rig their way. Fair enough, I say.

Which brings me to meddlesome neighbours. Good fences are hard to come by in places like Africa. The Berlin Conference some 120 years ago ostensibly carved up the continent but didn't budget for fences (or 'border security' in today's vernacular). This was a serious oversight when one considers the early multiculturalist objectives of the Conference. (The Conference is often derided as 'cookie-cutter' and arbitrarily separating clans and indigenous peoples - WRONG! - why not try to cause the tribes to understand and tolerate one another more by mixing and mingling them within colonies-soon-to-be-states?)

In one sense, good fences make bad neighbours in Africa. Why? Because the nation-state is obviously more dominant in the African Psyche than clan or ethicity. This variant of nationalism makes being a neighbour an act of open hostility. That's why it's so difficult for Gbagbo to find a peaceful solution; because everyone is ganging up on him.

You know, we are all Concerned About Africa; indeed the Accra Agenda calls for African states and their Donors to let them Do the Needful. The needful could be, hypothetically speaking, taking foreign taxpayers funds and spending it on transport and housing construction instead of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Brand-new Prados, opulent villas, and lavish workshops may seem unnecessary to the outside (paying) world, but in fragile spaces like Côte d'Ivoire, this is institution-building and upholding "nationally-owned and locally led processes".

Why are we so concerned about Africa? Because if for no other reason, the children. The suffering is no-one's fault, it's just something so tragic and unavoidable - we need to do something, anything, to make a difference. Those children never asked to be on UNICEF ‘spare change’ envelopes, you know.

The French have 900 or so troops garrisoned in Côte d'Ivoire. And the UN has 10,000-odd. Because they are concerned. But as events in 1994 showed us, even with a standing presence of French and UN troops, in some cases tragedy simply cannot be avoided (but we’ll try not to talk too much about that isolated example).

Earlier I mentioned working as an international civil servant as a consolation prize when a senior elected official (refuses to) accedes to an election outcome. It goes the other way too. Ouattara knows all about persistence. Ouattara served the administration of Félix Houphouët-Boigny and was even appointed as prime minister in the 90s. This is also someone who remained at the same university from his Bachelors all the way through to his Doctorate. He has twice served in both the IMF and the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO). Being hard-to-remove is Ouattara's modus operandi. So, in a sense, the effect of Ouattara replacing Gbagbo is a zero-sum gain. One space in the international civil service opens up, only to be filled by way of the African Elections Consolation Prize Doctrine. Once in, it’s almost certain that Ouattara will find leaving office just as difficult as poor old Gbagbo. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. There are sure to be Diplomats at the ready to talk their way, our way, (?) around anomalous future election results to prevent suffering of The People. The good news for the striving Diplomats is that there is always a willingness to talk on all sides.

For now though, some very long nights await these tireless Talkers of Peace. And whilst both sides obstinately refuse to negotiate from their position as president, other avenues for peacemaking are open. From one(narrow) point of view the elections were basically about who becomes president, not jobs within the UN or an international organization, or consolation prizes, or asylum arrangements. But the Diplomats through High-Level Talks are the next best thing to enforcing an election result.

Destroy and Relax: Bring in the Tanks

2010-11-20T00:18:00.000-08:00

Helmand needs some tanks! Not water storage tanks, tank-TANKS. Over 1,000 tonnes of M1 Abrams tankage wielded by the United States Marine Corps.

Force multiplier, force protection, forced outcome. Whatever US/NATO calls this, tanks in Afghanistan is about more force.

One poor lad described the tanking of Helmand (as if the writing wasn't already on the wall) as follows:

"You know what scares the hell out of dismounted insurgents? 70 tons of badassery that will make them dead if they mess with it...If the problem in Helmand is a highly-active insurgency that requires a firepower solution, then the M1A1 is what you want to bring to the fight."

Afghanistan is deadly riddle. Consider the following fairly straightforward conundrums:

- Is the enemy 'not winning but not losing either' (in the case of the Taliban/AQ/'Terror') a security interest?

- Does it matter if the enemy moves on - should we just stay and fight anyway?

- Counter-insurgency doctrine often demands a lot of tactical thinking into things like where to dig wells, where to build hospitals, roads, and the like. Why do we need soldiers making these decisions - aren't such matters the government's purview?

- Is counter-insurgency or COIN actually relevant or is was this a doctrine used to paper over US/NATO's unimaginative (and doomed) approaches to stabilising Afghanistan?

- If Karzai is a corrupt and ineffective ally, how can his dysfunctional government actually be the recipient ofcounter-insurgency and stabilization (or so-called nation-building) dividends?

- Can a foreign occupier even counter an insurgency as fluid and population-centric as the Taliban? Indeed, doesn't military occupation only fill their ranks?

- How many small wars waged by foreign occupation forces have had legitimate/clean/able government?

- Are the measures used to gather information on AQ/Taliban targets sufficient and reasonable to justify pre-meditated (and extra-judicial) killing? Will this chicken come home to roost in 5-15 years time? And will China exploit this double standard in U.S. committments to upholding human rights?

- Is there a correlation, or a measurable relationship, between the way US/NATO forces conduct their operations and deteriorating security? (The Afghanistan Study Group is slowly coming around to this conclusion. Essentially, they are suggesting that the occupation - in its complexity and through the force of its will - is (re)fueling the enemy.)

Of late, I have found it bewildering that some U.S. commentators think that a U.S. withdrawal will be anti-climactic. These are usually the same commentators who dismiss the release by Wikileaks of nearly half a million classified documents from war theatres in Afghanistan and Iraq as "nothingnew". Glance for a moment at all the major news wires; news on the U.S. is totally over-represented. Any withdrawal, however incremental or precipitate, will create a lot of excitement. (And whilst I am on the subject, if the deluge of war logs released by Wikileaks is nothing new, why is Julian Assange being continually harrassed and Bradley Manning being detained?)

If a withdrawal happens - and I do hold out hope - several things are very likely to happen:

- Karzai will shift allegiances faster than you can say "I am a reliable partner". Iran will get its hooks deeper into Afghanistan, at Pakistan's expense. This game is neither great nor determinative; it's theirs to play. Karzai will be ousted within months unless his contortionist ways save him.

- The UN will have a meltdown of sorts. They'll recover.

- The US economy will recover faster. Because you will have more resources for stimulus and your brighter minds can start thinking their way around this riddle, instead of an unnecessary war in Central Asia.

- The President will have a lot of explaining to do with the idiotic right castigating him for 'cutting and running'. This is the touchstone issue - can Obama afford to lose in Afghanistan? Or is the smarter money on prolonging the war and dumping it in the lap of the next President?

- Pakistan will pack its daks because it will realise that it's waterbed-cum-state is next cab on the rank. The magnitude of failure of this nation as a result of poor policy, service-delivery, and security in Kashmir, Beluchistan, FATA, now Sindh and Punjab, safeguarding the judiciary, and pursuing constructive relations with India are withering and abominable. But it's not the U.S.'s problem. It's Pakistan's. The U.S. can certainly help on the development and trade side, but Pakistan's foreign policy is neither controlled chaos or diabolical. It's infested with its leaders' self interests, which appear to be absolutely rotten.

It will take Herculean effort to pull out of this ditch; the political torque required is there. Obama is a strong leader, still with untapped reservoirs of confidence around the world. Letting Afghanistan gowould transform America's international prestige (positively), but it would also excoriate national morale.

(the photos are from the Battle of Kursk, July-August 1943)

Bob Herbert on Afghanistan

2010-08-17T02:21:00.000-07:00

The comments are just as sharp as the op-ed piece itself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/opinion/17herbert.html

Why is there not an organised movement of similiarly minded people?

Papers (Over) Pentagon

2010-08-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

Bravo to the folks at Wikileaks!

The Pentagon and the Attorney-General’s office are demanding Wikileaks founder Julian Assange surrender the remaining 15,000 classified files encrypted in a cache ominously entitled, “insurance”. Oh, and he should do the right thing and tear down all the other leaks and delete all Wikileaks records permanently.

Says an irate U.S. federal official, "If doing the right thing is not good enough for them, then we will figure out what other alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing…"

Yikes! Like slap a Predator drone on them? Or is that honour only bestowed upon non-U.S. nationals? Actually, Assange is an Aussie, so he’s probably fair game.

According to most experts and war pundits, the leaks have not revealed anything that people don't already know. Then, why are Pentagon and FBI officials entreating Wikileaks to delete the files claiming that they contain sensitive information on active operations (informants, tactics, etc)?

The release of the documents has coincided with some other subtle but significant changes.

Criticism and skepticism is starting to make a dent on the Pentagon's much-heralded counter-insurgency campaign that has been put forward as the field-tested (i.e. ostensibly proven during the Iraq Surge in 2006-2007) and the most sensible course to stabilise Afghanistan and inoculate it against terrorism. But then why is the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, so ambivalent about his government’s counterinsurgency strategy? If Eikenberry was judged solely on diplomacy and his ability to cause Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, to be supportive of U.S. foreign policy, his scorecard wouldn't be something to write home about.

Operations such as search and destroy, counter-terrorism, and the remote-controlled assassination campaign using drones are being ratcheted up steadily. Some reports have Obama’s administration’s prodigious reliance on these methods (usually more associated with the Bush administration) rising steadily. By way of illustration, Obama approved 50% more drone attacks in 2009 compared to the previous year under the Bush administration. It appears that drone attacks this year (2010) may be 2-5 times 2008 levels. Meanwhile Joe Biden and Admiral Mullen have gone on the public record confirming that there is a shift away from the counter-insurgency/surge model of approach to operations that search for the bad guys and pick them off. In Pakistan, local populations claim that civilians, including many women and children, are being killed or injured by these strikes (but, they’re probably lying because, well because).

Cracks are appearing all over Iraq. The seemingly intractable political impasse between Nouri al-Maliki and Iyad Allawi coupled with the broad and acute deterioration in security across Iraq give lie to the snake-oil claims of the COINdinistas. What does this mean for Afghanistan? An Anbar-style awakening in Afghanistan will not, if it ever happens (which is hughly unlikely), be a product of counter-insurgency doctrine; it would be a political outcome caused by attune political actors from within the region and sensitive U.S. civilians. Not US/NATO troops.

The rising clamour from Viet Nam veterans drawing comparisons with America's devastating quagmire of the 50s, 60s, and 70s is not longer a trickle. It’s an angry torrent. And as if to emphasise the parallels with America's past errors of tact and judgement, classified documents are being leaked. While it's not at all uncommon for secrets to be shared during times of war (McChrystal, Eikenberry, and others have all done their bit), the scale and breadth of the Wikileaks' cache of 91,000 documents is on par with Daniel Ellsberg's so-called 'Pentagon Papers'. It is worth remembering that at the time, Ellsberg questioned the value of the documents he was copying from RAND, fearing that they lacked the sensational revelations that would make them an instant hit. Back then, just as now, the New York Times demonstrated the same methodical and balanced interest in unearthing the truth of why and how the US gets itself into deadly wars that start off small and become ungainly, unwinnable, yet somehow remaining un-daunting for the powers-that-be.

In fact Ellsberg's prescient and withering analysis at the time can be summed up very simply; successive administrations knew the costs and consequences of escalation (in all its forms) but chose escalation for clear political reasons. Successive presidents did not want to be associated with failure. So, instead of throwing in the towel and admitting defeat, they kept the war simmering thereby deferring what they perceived as 'blame' and voter-alienation in response to 'losing the war'. The Pentagon Papers were 9,000 pages of the best and brightest people's analysis and decision making; detailing all the political contortions and resulting carnage done, not in the interests of the U.S., but in the interests of the political capital of sitting administrations. The Wikileaks Papers may be very similar, possibly even more far-reaching. It's not clear how much of the data is raw intel, how much primary analysis has already been done, and if secondary analysis and higher-level consideration is contained within the cache. Potentially, there may well be a basis for answering critical questions that concern the public interest, issues like:

- Is counter-insurgency being implemented or was this a doctrine used to paper over US/NATO's unimaginative (and doomed) approaches to stabilising Afghanistan?
- Are there clear instances where ISI support to the Taliban (and/or Al Qaeda) have been verified?
- Are the measures used to gather information on AQ/Taliban targets sufficient and reasonable to justify pre-meditated (and extra-judicial) killing?
- Has the remote-controlled technology and new weapons like drones made killing easier?
- Is there a correlation, or a measurable relationship, between the way US/NATO forces conduct their operations and the deteriorating security across Afghanistan?
- Is the way the war in Afghanistan being fought in accordance with international law?
- Is the way US forces conduct the war in Afghanistan within the spirit of Congress's mandate to go to war in Afghanistan?
- Are the numbers of civilian casualties in Pakistan and Afghanistan being concealed or omitted from public scrutiny?

I find it both beguiling and highly suspect that so many political commentators and foreign policy analysts are so quick to dismiss what could be information vital to the public interest.

Again, Bravo Wikileaks!

STOP PRESS! Kashmir as a model for Southern Thailand

2010-07-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

Apparently Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thailand believes that there are "emerging opportunities" to learn from India's experience with counter-insurgency, referring to the so-called Muslim-Malay Insurgency that has intensified in the southern part of Thailand since 2004.

Moreover, Prime Minister Abhisit cited Kashmir as a living example of how to fight small wars, one that he feels Thailand could learn from.

The report goes on to say that "...insurgency is due to ...historical and cultural reasons ...which includes occupation, ...and alleged cultural and economic imperialism, including allegations of security personnel brutality and corruptions."

I can't recall if the article attributed this description to Kashmir or the Deep South.

When we said 'not guilty' that didn't mean you're free to go...

2010-07-20T09:30:00.001-07:00

In the past I have celebrated the impressive way in which US/NATO occupying forces in Afghanistan are handling the socio-political terrain of so-called "nation-building" in Afghanistan. This progressive integration of justice best known as 'detention-without-charges' and 'trials-without-charges'. Well, 'they' have just added acquittal-without-freedom to their Integrated Justice product line!

The Taliban on the other hand seem to have a much more fluid and less determinist grasp on administration and governance at a local level.

Some might say that in conflict-affected contexts it means an awful lot to have some recourse to policing, justice, and compensation – however loaded with ideology and concessions that assistance might be served.

It's pretty obvious that the manner in which local people are detained and prosecuted by occupying forces is bound to become a focus for the local population and the insurgents.

I was reading a NYT article and it seems that Integrated Justice now uses two really cool systems, one in which prisoners of war are detained without charge and their cases periodically reviewed by American officers; the other in which detainees ‘will be tried in an Afghan court, before an Afghan judge, and defended by an Afghan lawyer’.

What maked this exciting new Integrated Justice product so fabulous is that an acquittal does not mean a person is free – he may still be detained if there is a feeling amongst American military offices that the person poses a security threat. As the NYT articles muses, an Afghan court could acquit a detainee whom the American review board deems a continuing threat.

Fortunately, Capt. Gregory Belanger, director of legal operations for Task Force 435, clears up any confusion:

“Anybody not found guilty can be released, but we have an interest in not releasing people that pose a risk to the people of Afghanistan and to us...I’m not going to say it’s not binding, but if someone is acquitted in state court, they can still be prosecuted in federal court”.

So the US/NATO Integrated Justice System now offers Afghans more options than ever before:

- Afghans can be incarcerated without charge (obviously!);
- These same detainees may be prosecuted for crime(s) that s/he wasn't charged (duh!);
- The trial will be held in a prison (which saves everyone so much time);
- Even if you are acquitted, this is no guarantee of your freedom (because an acquittal may not be binding).

Clears things up for me. What a relief!

Contrast this with the Taliban, who warn you (night letters, etc.) if you are threatening their interests, and kill you if you go to far or persist after being warned. Otherwise, if you have accusations and grievances against other people (civil stuff, whatever), their local officials are available at the village-level to dispense justice using some traditional mumbo-jumbo mechanism (boring!).

It's pretty obvious which justice-provider offers better terms...

Lessons Unlearnt from Uganda and Afghanistan

2010-07-17T00:55:00.000-07:00

Eerie similarities in the political calculus underpinning the impact of an International Criminal Court indictment and the U.S. government’s designation of foreign terrorist organizations.

I believe that both designations – either as an indictee or foreign terrorist organization – potentially have the opposite desired outcome in terms of efforts to arrest (as in stop) small wars and armed groups?

Mark Landler and Thom Shanker of The New York Times write that the “new American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is pushing to have top leaders of a feared insurgent group designated as terrorists, a move that could complicate an eventual Afghan political settlement with the Taliban and aggravate political tensions in the region.”

The process of FTO designation and listing is fairly straightforward in which the Executive branch consults Congress; the authority to designate an entity as a “foreign terrorist organization” rests with the U.S. Secretary of State, and is subject to judicial review.

The consequence of designation and subsequent listing is that a broad class of forms of “material support or resources” shall not be rendered to a foreign terrorist organization. Recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court offer guidance on what these forms of material support and resources may include, as follows:
- Property, tangible or intangible; and
- Service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe-houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal sub-stances, explosives, personnel (one or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation.

Over the years the definition of “material support or resources” has shifted to clarify that a violation requires knowledge of the foreign group’s designation as a terrorist organization or its commission of terrorist acts. This requirement of a certain mental state delimits culpability because an unwitting person who has no idea of the foreign terrorist organization’s designation or its terrorist acts lacks the necessary intention or frame of mind.

The U.S. Department of State publicly lists these terrorist organizations offering some preamble and rationale explaining the legal basis and potential consequences of being designated as a FTO, including – and presumably not limited to – the following:

1. Supports efforts to curb terrorism financing and to encourage other nations to do the same.
2. Stigmatizes and isolates designated terrorist organizations internationally.
3. Deters donations or contributions to and economic transactions with named organizations.
4. Heightens public awareness and knowledge of terrorist organizations.
5. Signals to other governments our concern about named organizations.

The same public information states that the “organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States”. This element alone practically constrains the court because it has to straddle the evidence before it and the informed judgment of both Congress and the Executive.

The Supreme Court decisions in Holder, Attorney General, et al. v. Humanitarian Law Project et al. and Humanitarian Law Project et al. v. Holder, Attorney General, et al., both decided on 21 June 2010, provide guidance on the amplitude of what “material support”, “service”, and some of the other confusing aspects of the FTOL really mean.

The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (1952 and its amendments) does not penalize mere association, but prohibits the act of giving foreign terrorist groups material support. And whilst some of these groups often have social, political, economic, and humanitarian operations, in acceding to the designation Congress is effectively concluding (explicitly or by construction) that the taint of the group’s violent activities is so great that working in coordination with them or at their command legitimizes and furthers their terrorist means. The court has presciently observed that foreign terrorist organizations do not maintain “organizational firewalls” between their social, political, and terrorist operations – or financial firewalls – between funds raised for humanitarian activities and those used to carry out terrorist attacks. The court also distinguishes between independent advocacy (and therefore freedom of speech) and “service”; the latter is described as “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization”.

That’s the court’s view. In practice, sub-contractors, humanitarian/development organizations, and international agencies won’t touch or go near groups or individuals that have the merest whiff of FTO association. This means that a whole class of people, organizations, and interest groups that merely ‘associate’ their aims and interests with the political and social objectives, policies, and activities of an FTO are effectively isolated or stigmatized (as the U.S. State Department describes). In short, the average aid worker is completely freaked out by the FTO designation.

Which brings me to the effect of the International Criminal Court’s investigations and prosecution of East and Central Africa (‘the situation’ as the ICC likes to refer to it – see the diagram below). Take Uganda’s (and their stomping grounds of Central African Republic, D.R. Congo, and Southern Sudan) Lord’s Resistance Army as an illustration:

The effect of what may, by way of corollary with the U.S.’s FTO designation, be described as the international designation and prosecution of an armed group and its members, is to introduce and maintain effective disincentives that discourage active LRA commanders and combatants to come forward and give up the fight. In an even broader sense, active and former LRA commanders and combatants associate the ICC as an imminent threat to their safety and freedom. The approach that the ICC is taking is high-flown from a moral standpoint; but practically it has the opposite desired outcome.

Consider the following:

Since the ICC indictment, the LRA has become viral, transforming itself from a brutal insurgency in Northern Uganda to a brutal band of terrorists at a regional level active in three foreign countries;

- The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in August 2006 culminated in the failure of the so-called international community to cause the LRA to sign the Final Peace Agreement; -

- Traditional and customary justice mechanisms perceive their competence as inferior to that of the ICC; that is the ICC can undermine, subvert, overrule, and invalidate traditional forms of reconciliation and punishment of the LRA by prosecuting anyway. Point in fact, reconciliation processes in Acholiland (the most hardcore politico-military leadership of the LRA is Acholi-controlled) that involve truth-telling, clan-level accountability, reparations, punishment, and forgiveness have not really been pursued against active or former LRA combatants over the last twenty years. And in anticipation of arguments to the contrary, claims that returning ex-combatants were "cleansed" under traditional custom are disingenuous; this so-called cleansing is nothing more than a short welcome ceremony. No former LRA commanders and combatants have ever gone through a comprehensive process of atonement and punishment.

The point?

Countering or combating insurgency is inherently political. It is wrong-footed in my view to effectively narrow the options for influencing and enticing an armed group (e.g. guerilla-based insurgencies and/or mercenary groups) into the political domain at the expense of their military actions. Why would a commander come forward with the threat of indictment over his head? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but unless the counterinsurgents’ military interventions compel him/her to do so, what would be the upside? Equally, the very actors that can chip away and disaggregate certain individuals and sub-groups (esp. support networks) interests and objectives within a politico-military armed group are virtually barred from doing so if it is a designated FTO.

The only reason I can think of is total misapprehension of the conflict itself. I would argue to anybody who would care to listen that the conflict dynamic should be the focal point of any and all attempts to counter, combat, and otherwise arrest (again, as in stop) an insurgency. This means the following:

- Shifting local narratives (e.g. injustice, impunity, identity) away from or distinguishing certain elements from the politico-military movement;
- Co-opting interest groups and individuals that are effectively key opinion-shapers of the politico-military movement; and
- Disaggregating and co-opting the many and different individuals and sub-groups that comprise a politico-military movement’s support network(s).

If you can’t use every available means to do so, then how can you say that you are striving for optimal results? Perhaps it is by pulling the veil over foreign terrorist organizations and indicting certain commanders and combatants in international tribunals this becomes the justification for covert operations? And in the dark recesses of covert operations, none of us have any idea what happens.

Firing Your Way Out of Chaos: Loose COINdinistas Sink Ships

2010-06-24T06:12:00.000-07:00

Michael Hastings has just kicked some COINdinista butt! He inked his scalp, four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal no less, for Rolling Stone Magazine.

McChrystal is mercilessly depicted as an infantile and loose-lipped man intoxicated by the camaraderie and adrenaline of power and his elaborately constructed military persona:

"I'd rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner," McChrystal says.

He pauses a beat.

"Unfortunately," he adds, "no one in this room could do it."

Talk about pride coming before the fall...

Poor old McChrystal won't have to worry anymore about bothersome diplomatic dinners; there will be plenty of dinners at home for him and his suffering wife (the dude celebrates their anniversary in Paris at an Irish theme pub "Kitty O'Shea's" with his slavering entourage of loose-lipped twits in tow). At the end of his anniversary-cum-piss-up he has a teary moment where he confides to Hastings, "All these men...I'd die for them. And they'd die for me."

Dude: Think that chair, lose the crowd, substitute the uniform for a dressing gown,
and add a TV dinner on your lap!

I wonder, now that he has been caponized, whether his men would still die for him? Or will they go limpet-like onto the next powerful general? One thing I would hazard a guess about: I bet you his wife has his back, if only he had the presence of mind to take her out properly in one of the world's most romantic cities - "Kitty O'Shea's" in Paris! Tsk tsk. Poor sausage.

McChrystal makes many a telling admission, likening Afghanistan to a bleeding ulcer. What's most terrifying is that the U.S. fields such politically tone-deaf types to lead a war that demands safer hands when it comes to communication and diplomacy. Silly Global Superpower!

Parting shot:

Yes Eikenberry, you are looking a bit suss too!

Afghanistan: "the Saudi Arabia of lithium"

2010-06-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

I am loathe to succumb to conspiratorial speculation about the war in Afghanistan. In fact, I have always maintained - wholly in the absence of any evidence whatsoever - that the motivations for the war in Afghanistan were revenge for 9/11 and destruction of al Qaida and its enablers.

Then this little doosie appears in the NYT yesterday:

New York Times, 13 June 2010

U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan
By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.
“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”

As if the US occupation wants to fuel conspiratorial fulmination about their reason for being in Afghanistan, the Pentagon fielded some geologists and other experts to see what the mining potential of Afghanistan is; and guess what?

One of of the geologists remarks that, “On the ground, it’s very, very, promising”.

Perhaps the mining division of the Pentagon could counsel the counterinsurgency part on positive thinking in times of crisis.

Luckily, the World Bank had already 'assisted' (not completely written based on precedents from the many developing countries in which the Bank has positively tranformed mining regulatory frameworks, optimistic places like Congo) the Karzai government to rewrite their mining laws.

Integrated Justice; It's Just So Convenient!

2010-05-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

I have said for some time that the war in Afghanistan is a comic's dream.

Reading today's NYT, the following article jumped out at me like an angry Muppet in a dark alley after a big night on mescaline:

"The new American-run prison outside the capital will hold its first trial of an Afghan detainee next week, American officers said Wednesday.

"The Afghan prisoner, who was not identified, will be tried in an Afghan court, before an Afghan judge, and he will be defended by an Afghan lawyer, officials said. The trial is set for Tuesday.

"Vice Adm. Robert Harward, the commander of American detention operations here, said he was not sure yet if the trial would be open to the public.

"Even so, the trial would be a significant moment in the evolution of the American detention system in Afghanistan. The Parwan Detention Center, which opened last year, succeeded the prison at Bagram, which had earned a grim reputation as a place where Afghans were sometimes abused.

"Particularly in the early years of the war, Afghans captured during military operations were held at Bagram for long periods without being charged, without facing trial and without being able to see either their families or lawyers. The conditions there were widely criticized as abusive. Two Afghans died in custody at Bagram in 2002, leading to criminal charges against several American servicemen."

So let me get this straight:

- After extra-judicial incarceration without charge;
- The 'detainee' will indicted for a crime that s/he wasn't charged; and
- The trial will be held in a prison.

The great thing about this integrated 'ex-poste justice' system is that the detainee never needs to leave prison! How convenient.

This must be the rights-based approach to establishing a kangaroo court.

Of course, the Afghans will really appreciate this 'show of fairness' by the occupying powers because it will be justice dispensed "in an Afghan court, before an Afghan judge,...defended by an Afghan lawyer" in an American-run prison in their occupied country.

Makes perfect sense!

Mountain Jam: New Age Combatants, Guerrilla Gurus, and Magic Marker Mastery

2010-05-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

The great thing about this blog is that no-one reads it! I know that sounds silly, but writing in an electronic space that everyone can access and yet remain aloof at the same time has a sublime appeal. Sure as hell beats Facebook, which has to one of the most insidious and viral of e-phenomenon that the i-generation has vomited up. As I recount the descent of this blog from raging commentary that challenges people's points of view (point of views? points of views?) to the ruminant by-product of an overactive mind, I thought I would share the best two books I have read this year.

First of these is Gerard Prunier's "Africa World War", which has some enlightening passages and disturbing observations of the wilful ignorance of the 'international community'. But, I haven't quite finished thinking through this book, and I need more time to properly digest it. It's deep.

The book that I did finish - in a half-day I might add (which speaks for itself) - is Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare at Goats".

Ronson takes the reader on a an amusing discovery of the colourful and kooky characters that the US military spawned in the wake of the Viet Nam War. His primary focus is psychological operations and related metaphysical techniques being researched and developed for adaption to modern warfare. The central premise of the book focuses on Jim Channon, the author and protagonist behind the concept-army known as the "First Earth Battalion" - recently played by Jeff Bridges in the star-studded movie by the same name - and how he stumbled and sought out the innocuous, naive, profligate, and remarkable elements of the New Age movement. Naturally, Channon distilled his discoveries into his own movement! Channon makes for a highly serviceable protagonist for Ronson's literary ends, and Ronson deploys him with calibrated gusto, driving the narrative deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine world of the bizarre, the botched, the overcooked, and the heinous doings of the US, its military, civilian agencies, and the irrepressible imagination of its greatest asset - it's people. The following slide (Channon's hand) encapsulates some of his hero's thinking:

Most of 'Goats' is pretty light-hearted (hilarious in parts - you will find yourself laughing at the most absurd notions that transfixed otherwise very serious men), although several sections, most notably the somewhat tangential section on Frank Olsen and MKULTRA make for a frightening reminder of the telling impunity of the US government and the lengths that private citizens have to go to just to extract an admission that a wrong was commited (in their collective name). Ronson focuses on the First Earth Battalion's Manual, which is a magic-marker odyssey of Channon's stream-of-consciousness reflections on both the times he was in and the people and interactions that were framing his thinking, such as the slide below:

The thing that 'Goats' impressed upon me, especially when reviewed alongside the First Earth Battalion Manual, is the wide berth that people like Channon and his acolytes were given to explore different and obscure fields like New Age movements, meta-physical experimentation (e.g. staring goats to death, remote viewing). I wonder if there were a few arms-length and enlightened people within the US military or civilian-government establishments that realised that within these crackpot and far-out fields there might exist an edge or advantage to gain at a time when anti-Communist paranoia only just outweighed the despair that the war in Viet Nam exacted of America's government and people. Beneath the (and I don't think this is not too strong a word) ludicrous manifestations of this openness to new ideas and new thinking probably lay a cold and calculated desire to understand whether these movements were a threat, whether any of these areas had an underlying science, and what new communication mediums and modes of thinking they employed that might have practical applications which could be adapted to modern warfare technology. What is clearly an inexact science (which I have discussed before) is presented by Ronson as a harbinger to more sinister developments in modern warfare; this really is the only potential hypothesis that Ronson posits. For instance, Ronson notes a precursor to the internet came about in the 80s being developed by some of Channon's devotees/admirers (?), and he asserts that certain developments in psychological warfare and interrogation methods were influenced by findings and recommendations attributable to the First Earth Battalion learning and practices. It's instrictive to bear in mind that the First Earth Battalion Manual was collated and written in the late seventies, just as the full horror of the Viet Nam was coursing through the American military establishment.

Anyway. The book is at least as amusing as the movie, definitely as tangential and slow in passages, besides being wonderfully creative non-fiction in a mercifully slim volume! It cannot stand up to the rigours of serious research, and probably shouldn't be discussed in the same breath as Prunier's work. One thing I really liked about 'Goats' is Ronson's treatment of the issues, which is reporter-like and spares the reader the neurotic and obsessive tempo of a lot of writing on conspiracy theory.

If you're interested in the images I lifted from the FEB field manual and Jim Channon's own take on the First Earth Battalion - the following links might interest you:

Part 1 of Jim Channon's First Earth Battalion epilogue-monologue

Part 2 of Jim Channon's First Earth Battalion epilogue-monologue

Download The First Earth Battalion Field Manual

1000 Words

2010-05-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

"Ultimately, this situation can only be resolved by negotiation"

2010-05-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

You gotta love the UN.

As a fifth wheel, they serve a purpose. If not for the world, then at least for themselves. Bear in mind the following:

- There are over 22 specialist UN agencies.
- There are over 51,000 staff directly employed (not including the World Bank or long/short term consultants) by UN agencies.
- There are 46 Under-Secretary-Generals (or quivalent rank/seniority). USGs have diplomatic rank equivalent to that of a national cabinet minister. No other government anywhere in the world has that many cabinet ministers for its functioning. The figure of 46 is not exhaustive and there are more USGs or their equivalent - the UN just doesn't have a list of them all that is accessible in the public domain.

So, someone on behalf of the UN (which is 'One' anyway, except in the case of funding, in which case it's 22+ separate agencies) has urged a negotiated solution because "there is a high risk that the situation could spiral out of control".

It's like someone on a trolley in ICU being prepped for emergency cardiovascular surgery after a heart attack making a call on his mobile; "yeah, I'm having a heart attack, so things aren't looking too good".

UNHCR, always on the highest of steeds, offers the stern and wholly unsolicited advice, "Ultimately, this situation can only be resolved by negotiation".

Hmmm. Yes, the UN has spoken. As one. We should sit up and take notice. Because it's the UN.

What's not interesting about the Red Shirts' ten-week protest?

Military attempts to disperse the protesters on 10 April 2010 and more recently have failed; government figures (probably the most reliable in the circumstances) cite 66 people have died and more than 1,600 have been wounded since the Red Shirts began their protests in March.

The police appear to be defending the protesters against the army.

Diplomats and others have approached the Red Shirts to find out what they want; with no change to their pretty obvious demands; "Elections, NOW, NOW!"

The Red Shirts have even trotted out the oldest of negotiation chestnuts in fragile states where the government is self-appointed; UN mediated talks!

The vast majority of the protesters hail from the North and are amongst the rural poor of Thailand.

Let's just imagine, for a moment, what the UN could offer besides from legitimising the protests and turning them into an international incident (because it's not already, it's NOT!):

"We can help you like we've helped Timor Leste, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Aceh, and many other countries. Seriously."

"We have mediators that are taken seriously by all sides, people like Ibrahim Gambari."

The other thing that is so incorrigible about the Red Shirts' protest is the infernal paradox it raises; you can hardly hold an election when the Red Shirts' party affiliates will almost certainly win. Those damned poor farmers in Thailand are really getting in the way with their protesting shennanigans!

Mental As Anything: Paris Principles

2010-05-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

I was checking out one of my favourite sites, Aid Thoughts, and it brought to mind the dreaded Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. This Pandora's Box of turd-flavoured truffles ostensibly defines the responsibility of developed and developing countries for delivering and managing aid along five core principles:

1.Ownership: Partner countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies, and strategies and co-ordinate development actions
2.Alignment: Donors base their overall support on partner countries' national development strategies, institutions and procedures
3.Harmonisation: Donors' actions are more harmonized, transparent and collectively effective
4.Managing for Results: Managing resources and improving decision-making for results
5.Mutual Accountability: Donors and partners are accountable for development results

As with all of these international instruments, it is stupendously garbled and repetitive, but the purpose of this little ruse appears to be a laudable (and some would argue misplaced) desire to empower recipient countries with determining their own policy direction, development strategies, and related priorities.

Yeah right. This really looks like the wool being pulled over the sheep's eyes! And in development settings, boy oh boy has this been aggressively 'mainstreamed' up the tailpipe of UN agencies and donors! Think 'Rocco Does Paris' and you get the idea.

But, let's reflect just for a moment on a couple of committments explictly agreed to in this document:

"Avoid, to the maximum extent possible, creating dedicated structures for day-to-day management and implementation of aid-financed projects and programmes."

...This means avoid NGO/UN/IO-managed projects, and park your programmes under Government- managed structures. Yes, the very same structures riddled with coruption, gross inertia, and absurdly incompetent bureaucrats not in the least bit interested in equitable development, equal opportunity, integrity and all the other other values that kind of matter in the aid/development sector.

"Rely to the maximum extent possible on transparent partner government budget and accounting mechanisms."

...This means that despite the completely erratic capacities of the Government's financial staff, the long history of collusive practices, the daily malfeasance of public officials - you should trust them to manage these taxpayer funds.

"Progressively rely on partner country systems for procurement when the country has implemented mutually agreed standards and processes."

...Yes, ask that hideous group of people known only for their spectacular rorting and self-enrichment to do your procurement, again with taxpayer funds.

This is not mental at all.

Next topic: Battered Donor Syndrome.

Barefoot or Bare-brained: Trusting Your Way Out of Chaos

2010-05-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

The tragi-comedy of errors UN-NATO military efforts in Afghanistan is a minefield of amateurish gaffs and cock-ups.

What's wrong with this photo?

Aside from the obvious - winning confidence and trust whilst still wearing ballistic protection and sporting the latest automatic weapon might have the opposite desired outcome - just take a closer look at these bozos (the ones in camouflage, not the local fellows). They are obviously guests. Now look at the local fellows: You will note that the local fellows have bare feet. This is customary in Muslim communities; entering someone's home (or the mosque) one takes his/her shoes off. We are talking entry-level cultural sensitivity here; even this very elementary of cross-cultural behaviours, the US-NATO cannot manage to get right.

And I am quite certain that there are rules and SOPs about wearing your ballistic vest at all times, keeping your weapon by your side, and never taking your shoes off; but, are these troops here to win a war or comply with procedures?

Another doozie is the following quote from Colonel Randy George (of the Fourth Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division):

“We’re not worried about corruption in itself, but we are worried about governance.”

I can't decide if the tautology and gross misapprehension embodied in this statement is deliciously amusing or vaguely terrifying. Perhaps it's both!

Boss-i-cide: Killing Your Way Out of Chaos (2)

2010-04-19T02:57:00.000-07:00

Last week, I shared a provocative piece that appeared in the New York Times on a certain Ugandan former-combatant-on-again-combatant (aka EX-ex-combatant) deployed with Ugandan and US soldiers to hunt down rebels in the wilds of Central Africa.

Boss-i-cide is actually more common than most people think. Reminds me of advice that an old boss once gave me:

"Only a truly loyal employee would kill himself for the good of his boss. Your boss will fondly remember you for at least a week, and you might even win employee of the month. Which is totally worth it."

This quote may be slightly off-piste, but killing yourself is a really strong possibility when you are 800 miles from home, armed to the teeth, and trying to catch jungle guerrillas on foot. If it's not for loyalty to the boss, then perhaps its out of hatred for the boss!

Maybe this whole business of turning the ex-combatant on his erstwhile rebel comrades has been misunderstood! The real buzz for these intrepid former-rebels is the opportunity of knocking off their boss. Admittedly this example is quite elaborate (i.e. helicopter gunships and so forth), but the principle is the same.

Gets you thinking doesn't it...

Why Are Cars Still Being Manufactured With Cassete Radios?

2010-04-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

Why are cars still being manufactured with cassete radios?

Is it an admission that this simple old technology works? In spite of our iPODs with those infernal little radio transmitter thingies (that disconnect at the slightest bump). The cassette was simple, robust, and lasted. Yet no-one uses them anymore, and car manufacturers still install it as standard!

There's also the possibility that, like so many things that we buy, it's an add-on to validate our need for a certain amenity that is expected as of right. Even if it is useless. Sort of like showers in Africa, when there is no running water!

Which bring me to the incorrigibility of Hamid Karzai. Karzai is the political equivalent of a cassette radio.

He leads a government that cannot maintain its writ or territorial integrity, fails to provide social services without outside help, and he shamelessly depends almost entirely on outside help for everything. The pride of Afghanistan is an outstretched hand, palm-side up.

What he has that no cassette radio has is the gall to bite the hands that continue feeding him!
Afghanistan is a concept. An intoxicating concept of what should be, a dizzying liaison amidst a mess of destruction and misery.

The old cliche, 'who is the fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?' aptly describes Bush-then-Obama's excursions in Afghanistan.

Following Karzai down a rabbit hole and through the looking-glass. We have fancy names for it now - reconciliation, governance, counter-insurgency or 'COIN', and many colourful turns of phrase that omit the bare fact that Karzai and his government are a chimera.

Bush had his weekly phone confab with Karzai, the world's most powerful man indulging his sense of adventure, keeping it close-by, stroking it like a pet python. Then Obama enters the frame; no more phone convos - time for Tough Love.. Deploy 47,000 more troops, nab a Nobel, send in the best and brightest (Holbrooke, Farrow). Time for tough love is it?

Karzai is the dubious leader of an impecunious state that cannot pay its bills, is forever embroiled in bloodshed, and until recently had strategic importance until even al Qaida decided enough was enough. Farcical elections, a poppy-fuelled civil war, rampant fraud, and this mad hatter is still the doyen of international largesse. You either love him or hate him depending on whether you're Republican or Democrat. Whichever is the case, you still pick up the tab. While, I might add, the folks back home are getting retrenched and booted out of emergency!

Even when the enemy ups sticks and leaves the melee (al Qaida), US/NATO decides it may as well keep fighting the Taliban. Participating in a civil war in order to win hearts and minds is the new strategy, 'COIN' it's called (mind you, Karzai's understanding of 'coin' may be little less violent and a lot more mercantilist).

Karzai is an old warlord that no-one really needs, but he came with the purchase, so we keep thinking we need him. Like that cassette radio. He is utterly useless, except for those old tapes you insist on playing, hoping that the right time will come around when someone wants to listen to Neil Diamond. He belongs to the past, yet we keep him in there for the sake of verisimultude.

Again, why are cars still being manufactured with cassete radios?

Killing Your Way Out of Chaos

2010-04-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

My commiserations to those poor sods waiting for spiteful Double Negative commentary, here is a paltry belated offering from the New York Times :

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=576859&f=110

Such are the dim bulbs calling the shots on reconciliation/reintegration and counterinsurgency in places like Afghanistan and Uganda; negatively reinforcing the trauma and violent tendencies of the very people who have taken the crucial step of walking away from the fight. By plunging them back into chaos, the strategic effect of such approaches is akin to a dog chasing its own tail. The utter confusion and violence of the fixers' will always have the unintended consequence of precipitating increasingly complex permutations of conflict and fracturing of civil society.

The message this sends out to all other active and demobilized combatants is that you can never get out, never get ahead.

As if crimson hues of the butcher's apron was the new black, Human Rights Watch reckons foreign troops and former rebels traipsing through the jungle in hot pusuit is a good thing.

Depressing stuff.

Leo's Analytical Approach: World's Worst Country

2010-01-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

In the Economist’s The World in 2010, self-described as a ‘collection of forecasts,’ which present ‘a flavour of the year ahead’ or ‘a whiff of it’ (pg 11) – you’ve got to congratulate Editor Mr. Daniel Franklin on his sense-based expressions – there is an article entitled ‘The worst country on Earth (pg 91).’ The Economist’s answer is: Somalia. It is based on analyses undertaken by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit, which is located in North America. The article’s writer is the Unit’s Editorial Director Leo Abruzzese.

The cluster of factors that Leo puts forth to defend his argument are: civil war, poverty and piracy. [Intruding Q: Did Leo get that three factor approach from McKinsey & Co.?] Three paras are devoted to each of these three factors. The Civil War Para discusses the US’ consideration of Al-Shabab as one of al-Qaeda’s allies and the problems that this poses for People Like Me; the Poverty Para outlines aid dependency in Somalia and the struggles that Aid Workers encounter with regards to security – that argument can be applied to almost all conflict and / or post-conflict contexts, and at the turn-of-the-coin raw materials dependency can be applied to almost all countries in the so-called First-World; and the Piracy Para describes the impact of Somali pirates on world trade. The piece starts by stating that ‘calling Somalia a country is a stretch’ and ends with the forewarning that the ‘world’s most failed state, regrettably, threatens to become a bigger problem for the rest of the world.’ [Intruding Comment: I always admire the whole ‘failed state’ shebang = natural / or unearthly disaster. Was the Mighty-Nation-Sovereign-State God-given in 1648? I thought it was granted by a select number of Bald-White-Tuxedoed-To-The Nines-Gentlemen]. Out of a total of 72 sentences, only six sentences communicate about the conditions of those people on-the-ground in Somalia in terms of food, health, displacement etc.

The focus of this article, and the indicators employed, are all eyes and ears on the impact of Somalia’s domestic state of affairs on Western states, esp. the US, not on familial and social and economic life in Somalia per say. This confuses me. Can someone (anyone!) perform the subsequent straightforward – they’re v. obvious, which is why Leo’s analyses are especially baffling – calculations for me?

Ratio of # of people murdered and / or injured by US personnel across the world to # of people murdered / or injured by Somalis across the world in 2009;
Impact of US-driven credit crunch on global economy compared to impact of Somali pirates on global economy in 2009.

Final point: I like Pirates. They're like new-age anarchist anti-capitalists - intended or otherwise - employing old-age methods. I hope EU/or US warships discover copies of The Communist Manifesto and Modern Science and Anarchism floating in troubled waters. It would make my day! Can you imagine the headlines: 'The Communists and Anarchists are Back, but Black.'

11 Members; 11 Countries; 11 Months - Squad-Led-By-God of 11

2010-01-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

Guzzling my cappuccino – two espresso shots; two tea-spoon-sized-bags of brown sugar; extra paper cup to ensure that my hands are not subject to the steamed milk’s scorching temperature; extra paper cup of ice-cold H20 in the event that my two-cup-method falls short – in a foreign-possessed coffee shop in a part of the majority world (i.e. developing world) that recently emerged from a decades-long violent conflict, three (one male; two females) happy-sun-sodden white low-/mid-twenties march in, introduce themselves to a comparable group-archetype as members of the “Squad-Led-By-God of 11 Called to 11 Counties in 11 Months” and proceed to chart out their mission statement and enthusiasm re current context:

“We’re here to help and learn and undertake the Lord’s message and work – ya know”;
“The opportunities in this country to deliver God’s work are awesome, it was so much harder in Turkey and Israel – Muslims make it all so difficult – they have all their own opinions on whatever – I don’t know what their problem is – ya know”;
“The spiritual is so much more important than the physical – angels and demons are fighting it out y’all – it’s so weird, but so real – I don’t know why everyone goes on about development and money and roads and stuff – people need God – ya know”;
“Life is great – I’m so excited – ya know.”

Enter a “local.” He appears to be associated with the Squad-Led-By-God of 11. Later I discover that he is a pastor at the squad’s local partnering church. He asks: “Have you all eaten?” Squad-Led-By-God of 11 indicate that they have. He says: “I haven’t.” They express sentiments as follows: “Sorry my friend – ya know”; “It’s past lunch – ya know”; “You should have eaten – ya know”; “You must eat soon – ya know”; “You better get pumped up for tonight’s activities – ya know”; “You better have a full stomach so you can hear our mighty Lord speak – ya know.” Squad fails to tune into pastor’s efforts to extract capital for lunch. He probably has the money; just wants them to pay. Female Squad Member One progresses to describe her calling: “I want to travel around the planet for the rest of my life on behalf of God and help people and increase God’s great and glorious army – ya know.” Male Squad Member interrupts and explains that they must all go round the table and compliment one another. He expresses this with gravity and authority and desperation. It’s startling sudden. They take immediate action. The squad members really need these expressions of appreciation – you can tell – particularly Male Squad Member. Pastor’s stomach grumbles. Seriously. It actually grumbles. Compliments are mostly light and directed towards friendship and love and care – it’s really nice. Pastor is thanked for utilizing his van to drive squad members to a village in a neighbouring district last week – “otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to reach those village people, and they wouldn’t have heard about the Bible, and I’m scared to know what would have happened to them after they left their physical bodies and this world and had to face God’s final judgment – ya know.” All squad members confirm that they have salvaged a number of “village people” from eternal damnation. Enter more squad members – approximately between five-six. One male wears an Israeli Defence Forces’ t-shirt; one male wears a tank-top; all males wear Bermuda shorts and fluorescent flip-flops. Female Squad Member One takes Tank-Top-Male outside and asks: “Would you rather punch your mum in the face or eat a lightbulb?” Tank-Top-Male says he’d rather eat a lightbulb. Male Squad Member is clearly upset. He plugs in his iPod. Pastor shifts attention to Israel-Defence-Forces-T-Shirt-Male situated at another table. He asks: “Have you eaten lunch.” Female Squad Member One interjects: “We’ve all eaten!” Shifting concentration, she states: “I’d rather punch my mum.” I tune out.

Three cups of Tea will get you a Marmot

2010-01-16T01:39:00.000-08:00

Whenever I, as a development worker, return “home”, I have to deal with well meaning commentary on the profession from neighbors, friends, and Billy Bob the local supermarket checkout clerk.

In America, this usually involves a discussion about why America spends “so much money” (I won’t bore you with the oft quoted less than 1% of the budget stat) on developing countries when we have so many needs in the good ol’ US of A, and someone gazing at me dewy deer eyes saying how “brave” I am for doing such good work. All of this is annoying, but manageable.

And then Three Cups of Tea was published. Suddenly, suburban book club members and NY stockbrokers alike are instant experts on development. One person can make a difference! Now I am confronted with conversations along the lines of “why should we believe an organization can ever make a difference when one man did it all alone up there in Pakistan drinking tea with the natives”.

Yes, I said it. I’m a development worker who hates Three Cups of Tea. Sound the alarm. Call Oprah – this is newsbreaking!

If you haven’t read it please don’t. For the curious, here is the propaganda website: http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

It sounds like an amazing story, doesn’t it? So heart warming. So human.

So why do I hate it? The dude, bless his poor lumbering heart, got ripped off. He ain’t no saint. He came to the same old conclusions all development professionals have known for years – invest in women, invest in communities, empower locals. Fight Islamic extremism in poverty alleviation and improved access to education. Talk to the locals.

Duh.

The mass appeal of this book is based on thee things:

anti government/big organization backlash: why should the American tax payer pay TAXES to help countries develop when people can do it themselves? While drinking tea?
People would like to believe that they too have the potential to become the great white hope and save the world with no instruction manual.
The Lebowski factor. The guy is an oaf. A big, strong, lumbering American who probably speaks with a lazy twang. Do not tell me that if he had been a quick talking Chinese- American anyone would have liked the book as much. It just ain’t so. We want our cowboys, this book provided one.

Actually, there is a resemblance between the Dude and Mortensen:

(It’s a comfort knowing the dude is out there somewhere, isn’t it? The dude abides).

When you work in the field and you meet yahoos who have been inspired by this kind of book and have ditched everything to “DO something”; and have to stoop to the level of this book to discuss what you do…. you get a bit sensitive about this sort of thing.

I don’t begrudge Mortensen for doing what he did. Bully for him. Really. But please, don’t assume that the dude approach to development is how things should work – or I may have to throw a marmot into your bathwater.

Best practices,lessons learned and the Forum des Conneries

2010-01-15T05:51:00.000-08:00

Two sacred cows of development are "best practices" and "lessons learned". Regardless of your nationality, and whether you are a grubby NGO worker in the field or a desk jockey at HQ, I can guarantee you that somewhere in your office there is a document that refers to "best practices". Everyone writes them. Everyone funds them. Its standard discussion material in round tables on conflict, microfinance, health...whatever the sector, there are BEST PRACTICES and LESSONS LEARNED.

I'm sorry, but it’s all a load of crap.

Not because the findings are not valuable, I'm sure they are (again, and again, and again). The problem lays in the stick your finger in a light socket rule of human psychology. Don't touch the iron, Johnny..it will burn you. I know the vanilla smells great, but trust me, it tastes terrible. She's a bar girl, for god's sake - She doesn't love you! Etc. No one believes that someone else has found a best practice. There is always a better way, and dammit , I SHALL find it (and write a book about it). So donors must - they cannot resist- doing the same old thing, slapping a shiny brand on it and calling it new. And a best practice.

Come to think of it, I am surprised there is not yet an annual prize for best Best Practices development publication. Something to consider, surely.

It goes without saying that arrogance also plays a role in the Best Practices Lessons Learned arena. The implicit assumptions are:

1) that the funder/author is qualified to judge what constitutes a best practice (what exactly are the criteria?) and

2) that someone has actually learned something.

The message is: we did an AMAZING Job on this; everyone should do it just like us!

What about what we did that sucked? How come we never talk about that?

I once had a discussion about this with some of what Artful Aid Worker would classify as Real Aid Worker friends in West Africa. We started trading stories of really bird-brained projects we had worked on (or even designed). We ended up agreeing that what would be really useful is to share those experiences in a Forum des Conneries (idiocies, more or less). It would at the very least remind us that we do not always get it right, and heck, maybe we can even laugh about ourselves a bit instead of touting how much we have learned.

The "Conneries" are endless, and please, do chime in. To get the forum rolling --three I have personally witnessed:

An animated film, locally made, of comparative conflicts around the world. It sounded like a good idea. However, in the African example the implementer thought it too sensitive to use Hutus and Tutsis. So they opted for Pygmies instead. I need not tell you what an African Pygmy animated by someone decidedly NOT African looks like. To add to that, the entire dialogue was in poetry. It was...stunning.

Paying people to resolve their own conflict. Aside from the incentive to keep talking, talking talking (eg: earning a salary) and not resolve anything, uhm..hello? this is THEIR conflict. Given the sacred cow of sustainability, its difficult to understand how this happens in the first place. Its one thing to support meeting costs, another to give people who ALREADY have jobs money to fix something they should, in theory have a stake in solving.

Paternalistic judgments on who suffers most from a conflict that impose selection of beneficiaries. Can someone tell me why, really, its more difficult for a woman to be alive and taking care of her children than for a man to be maimed, tortured, humiliated or just plain dead because of a conflict? Does it really make a difference if the person who has been tortured is in the "ruling class" or "elite" group versus one of the traditional oppressed? Are the psychological effects of torture somehow related to class and former income?

I do believe in best practitioners of development. A best practitioner of Development knows which practices are worth adopting, which can be adapted to local situations and made useful, which to file on the shelf next to the Milli Vanilli cassette tapes.

The best development professionals do not need to tout their successes and sell them as lessons learned. End the proliferation of Best practice and lessons learned pamphlets. Save the trees. Or at the very least, save filing space.

UN-LIKELY

2010-01-15T03:09:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one - what the hell is the UN not doing that it should be doing in Haiti with 9,000 blue helmets already there?!

It's tragic they lost so many of their own in the earthquake (viz. conservative estimates are 34 peacekeepers), but why can't the other 8,966 peacekeepers roll up their sleeves and pitch in?

Or is there some reason they can't, like;

- It's not within their mandate;

- Someone hasn't filled out the right form;

- "For safety and security reasons...."

- It's "pending" or "in process"

- Amiable platitudes need to be broadcast on BBC/CNN/AJ/etc. by some UN Aid Lord prior to any token, poorly managed gesture can be made

- Funding is not approved

Oh, for God's sake! C'mon UN, get off your backsides for once!

Links again

http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CTOP/ntopNews_uUSTRE60D5VB20100114

STOP PRESS!! INEXACT SCIENCE UPDATE

2010-01-13T23:37:00.000-08:00

It appears that the unintended benefits of Inexact Science are even more potent than initially reported.

A man currently detained in Saudi Arabia is claiming that his terrorist leanings were motivated by the memory of his Inexact Science Experience.

Mohammed al-Awfi said his Inexact Science Experience started six years ago at the Bagram U.S. military base in Afghanistan before he 'graduated' to Gitmo (we should all know by now that extraordinary rendition is when that fortuitous tap on the shoulder comes in the form of the Inexact Science Opportunity).

BBC journalist Peter Taylor reports that, "Al-Awfi claimed his U.S. interrogators... sat him on a chair, made a hole in the seat, and then pulled out the testicles from underneath which they then hit with a metal rod."

But that is not all - there's more!

Taylor goes on to report that al Awfi alleges, "They'd then tie up your penis and make you drink salty water in order to make you urinate without being able to do so, until they make you scream."

Al Awfi was amongst a select group of the best of the best Inexact Science Experiential prospects. He then moved up to the Science's Higher Learning Orbit, through the Deradicalization and Rehabilitation Campaign in Saudi Arabia.

The DRC in Saudi Arabia reportedly "involves counseling by Muslim clerics to alter their thinking, extensive contact with their families, and practical help to reintegrate them into society."

Taylor notes that, "When I asked al-Awfi why the rehabilitation program had not worked for him, he said it was because the memories of what he had suffered at the hands of Americans were far more powerful than any corrective inducements he had received in the program."

This sort of testimonial is proof undeniable of the efficacy of the Science.

It came as no surprise to his trainers that after passing through DRC in Saudi, in January 2009 al Awfi joined the Yemen-chapter of al Qaeda, as a Commander no less.

The Unspoken Public-Private Partnership between Inexact Science and prominent insurgent networks such as al Qaeda is by now well documented. What's interesting here is the affirmative action by al Qaeda that accredits Inexact Science graduates and reinstates them with a corresponding al Qaeda rank.

Linksagain:

http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CTOP/ntopNews_uUSTRE60C5WO20100113

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23554

Quick Peacemeal: Inexact Science

2010-01-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

A recent Pentagon assessment using Inexact Science (more on that later) has shown that about one in five detainees released from Gitmo have joined or are suspected of joining militant/insurgent groups.

"There are 198 detainees left at Guantanamo, which once held 750...Among those still being held there, roughly 91 are Yemeni.

"A previous Pentagon assessment last April showed that 14 percent of former detainees had joined or were suspected of joining militant groups, up from 11 percent in December 2008.

"The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the revised Pentagon assessment showed that percentage had grown to about 20 percent.

"Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell...said the vetting process for releasing detainees was an 'inexact science,' adding: 'You know, we are making subjective calls based upon judgment, intelligence. And so there is no foolproof answer in this realm. That's what makes this so difficult.'"

As an aid worker, I am pretty sure that there might be lessons learned from The War on Terror on self-sufficiency and sustainability. Gitmo is now providing that critical feedback loop we aid workers all strive for: By disaffecting new terrorists and feeding them back into failed states and fragile spaces which (as we all know by now) incubate insurgency and terrorism, and in turn, these spaces become new and challenging contexts for Surgettes to apply their COINtastic solutions and do nation-building. Perhaps there's something we could all learn from this approach; I believe the military calls it iterative learning or something.

I also take this opportunity to Welcome three new bloggers to Double Negative, all chums committed to the kind of positive thinking that permeates this forum.

Rank and File is a Female Combatant , so she's really vulnerable. If she posts her views, nobody better be critical!

Five Finger Discount is a Specialist in Inexact Science. Look out for her seminal piece exploring Secret Portals and the War on Terror.

Centre Half-Forward is the more cautious and diplomatic member of the team. He often writes posts in draft form and errs on the side of not pressing 'Submit'. Not that submission is a problem for him... As our resident Conflictologist, when he does eventually submit, it never offends anyone!

Links again:

http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CTOP/ntopNews_uUSTRE6044MI20100106 http://www.cfr.org/publication/21111/center_for_a_new_american_security.html

Aid Lord Perception Index

2010-01-12T02:48:00.001-08:00

A friend recently sent me an email in which he asked the innocent question:

“Why Don’t We In Civil Society (NGOs, INGOs, campaign groups) Begin Assessing the Competence of Senior Figures on the International Circuits?”

He went on to argue that:

“International entities such as the UN, OSCE, World Bank…are hierarchies, with one or two people – almost always male – sitting at the top of the pyramid. These people hold immense power over the organisations’ staff who therefore, understandably, never criticise them for fear of their careers.

“These people at the top are virtually unassailable. They simply revolve from one top post to another, year after year after year.

“As things stand, there is no-one ‘out here’ in the wider world assessing such individuals’ performance. Their Governments go on sponsoring them, probably blind to their failures. The same names can be seen in top posts for decades.

“I suggest at the very least the world’s civil society sector should try to develop an objective assessment process for these international figures. "

I think the idea is sound. I am glad someone else maintains their rage against impunity in the face of what is far too often no-outcomes, let alone poor and destructive aid/development/recovery/post-conflict programming (“Do No Harm” notwithstanding, which I think sets the bar absurdly low).

Obviously certain institutional donors, UN agencies, highly successful consultancies, and/or international organistions will probably not support this from the outset. But you never know.

In terms of means and spaces, the internet and the blogosphere is the perfect place to do this.

The funny thing about accountability is that in the majority of donor countries, there are ample precedents; think about all the municipal regulatory structures providing oversight, compliance monitoring, and professional standards supervision in the many areas of the public and private sectors. The broad aim of such regulatory controls is to circumscribe and assess the outcomes of the industry in question against wider policy, public interest, and community expectations.

Indeed, why is it that in this particular industry, i.e. international aid and development, a huge gap exists in terms of supervision and regulatory controls?

Centre Half-Forward (Welcome!) and I kicked around some possible indices for an Aid Lord Perception Index:

Salary + fringe benefits/funding raised (not including base or institutional funding from permanent endowments, compulsory member states’ contributions, etc.)

Travel costs per year/#new deals signed

Travel costs per year/new deals signed in $

Average number of reporting lines between Aid Lord in question and a project manager directly responsible for a specific project

Total headquarter costs/total funding

Total number of emails sent by him in the last six months

Recipient government perception responses (qualitative)

Donor government perception responses (qualitative)

One concern I have are outliers or anomalies. These are organizations whose business model will make them look unduly ineffective – such as organizations that spend most of their resources on policy development. The other group of possible outliers and anomalies are organizations that move huge volumes of materiel and get paid accordingly, e.g. logistics, food, etc. These organizations, particularly during emergency/disaster response, may look really effective, but this may often has little to do with their respective Aid Lord.

Methinks there are many things to consider.

Perhaps the worst perceived Aid Lord(s) could get an award. Possible awards could be:

- If not already obtained, Man of the Year in Time Magazine;
- Return business class trip to tribal administered areas in Pakistan for a speaking
tour alongside Ronan Farrow;
- Round-the-world aid convoy with British MP George Galloway;
- His own ten-acre plot in Gaza to do whatever he wants with; or
- His own hut in a Millennium Development Village with residency requirements.

The best perceived Aid Lord doesn’t need to be awarded because he’s paid well and he's DOING HIS JOB. But, if rewarding mitzvah is your thing, perhaps he could win a symbolic set of golden keys to Jerusalem or something. Or mayor of Kabul (actually, that’s taken – the ballots have spoken).

Links again:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/1009/Special_liaison_Holbrooke_appoints_Mia_Farrows_son_as_liaison_to_NGOs.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/201016165325573953.html
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/10/peter-galbraith-on-afghan-election-fraud

Alas, Today's Terrorists Don't Write

2010-01-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

I never thought of terrorism along these lines:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=2AB221C13D4D53E51973B72BF6628111.w6?a=526631&f=112&sub=Columnist

Roger Cohen is tremendously provocative columnist, whose favourite pieces of mine range from drone wars (although, he started his piece about how the US weaponised the fruitfly) and a deliciously sarky piece about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Anyway, Cohen's irreverent musing links intrepid revolutionaries of yore with displacement/resettlement of today's pre-terrorists and their subsequent anti-Western militancy.

I know of no written treatise/manifesto/exegesis penned by Zawahiri, Bin Laden, Haqqani, Mullah Omar, al Sadr, Irwandi Yusuf, Prabhakaran, Kony, or Mehsud (or his lucky donkey); no equivalent to Mao's guerrilla bible from 1937.

By comparison, today's guerilla, or 'insurgent' if you prefer, is a dull sociopath.

Still, the point Cohen makes is really interesting; to what extent is displacement or resettlement in the West a feature of modernday terrorist experience and subsequent thought patterns? Certainly travel to places like Waziristan, Peshawar/Rawalpindi, Quetta (oops all Pakistan), and um, Sudan?, London?, the seething airport lounges of Lagos; are these the paltry incubation sites for anti-Western militancy?

Hardly.

No wonder the poor sods are so dull and disaffected! Ho, Mao, Che, Castro, and Friends had Cuba, Argentina, Paris, Moscow and many other FUN places to scheme and conspire. Perhaps if we offered today's pre-terrorists (starting perhaps with Gitmo ex-cons - sorry I can't say "con" because they were never convicted - I meant "detainee") happier sanctuaries, they might write more. Then we would learn more about them (and learn what's wrong, for crying out loud!).

This Happy Potential Terrorist Sanctuary would have psychoanalysts fluent in Urdu, Arabic, and Arabic. We could construct an adventure course where we would play corporate trust games - they always look like fun (learning to trust sniping co-workers to break your fall off a jungle gym). Even contemporary writing classes and workshops; where we explore other ways of expressing oneself without resorting to C4. Day care would have to be made available; Bin Laden could really use this - the dude is really lacking parenting skills.

I think I'm onto something. Perhaps I should start working on a proposal - "Camp Ray of Sunshine" or something. I suspect that hosting it in Cuba might give everyone the wrong impression so we'll choose somewhere fun and lively, and remote (naturally). Galapagos might work actually.

Links again:

Bin Laden and Parenting:
http://us.macmillan.com/growingupbinladen

Cohen on Drone Wars and Fruitflies:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13iht-edcohen.xml

Cohen on Obama's impromptu Nobel:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/opinion/13iht-edcohen.xml

Fear and Loathing in Africa

2010-01-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

What is it about vacuums, editors/publishers in the US, and Africa?

Altitude sickness.

As soon as its 'African' they lose all their critical faculties and instincts of inquiry. They get so high on their moral pedestal, the air thins out.

If the Ishmael Beah hoax (at the very least he was fast and loose with his factotums) was not enough, they are prone to the dumbest of assertions. Seriously, it's altitude sickness or lack of oxygen or something.

Case in point: Dambisa Moyo's contribution to the body of work that is Self-Loathing Ex-World Bank Employees Seek Redemption in Print.

The introduction/foreword by Niall Ferguson says of Dambisa; "an African view of Africa's Problems".

By her own account, this is a woman born in Zambia, whose father has a PhD from University of California, and a mum who is a leading banker. Dambisa spent big chunks of her formative years in the U.S. Her CV amongst other things reads;

- MBA in Finance and Bachelors degree in Chemistry from American University;
- Harvard for her Masters in Public Administration;
- PhD from Oxford;
- Two years working with the World Bank; and
- A stint with Goldman Sachs.

That's an African View?

It's the view of an exceptionally privileged Zambian-born woman who trawls through contemporary American thinking on Africa and comes up with a different point of view. It’s a pretty long bow to draw when one describes this rarefied viewpoint – however well-meaning the compliment is intended – as somehow representative of a homogenous ‘African view’.

At worst, Dambisa’s book entitled Dead Aid is 154 pages of circular corroboration. At best, it’s a thorough desk review of all the most prominent thinkers; another way of looking at it, is that it is an instructive example of how to schmooze and tip one's hat to all the Big Thinkers in the Faculty of Aid and Development.

Being that as it may, some people will find this slim volume controversial because it is openly critical of aid by advocating a 'tough love' approach to causing development and stability in Africa. Again, this is not in and of itself ground-breaking when one considers the genre; Self-Loathing Ex-World Bank Employees Seek Redemption in Print.

The main thrust of her argument is that aid to Africa in all its forms negatively reinforces corrupt/conflict-fractured/poor African states so 'we' in the West should impose stricter conditions and make more time-critical demands upon these regimes/states. Wean Africa off the big bosom of the West, so to speak.

As I flicked pages restlessly - and with a trace of exasperation I will admit – through Dead Aid, I couldn't help but imagine the ambience in which the book was written;

- The soft tap-tappa noise of perfectly manicured fingers on the soft keys of laptops, singing in syncopated chorus with all the other laptops in the sort of cafe that serves drinks called "grande" "frappacino" and "doppio". Everyone greets one another and the Barista named William with "Hi-ee!" and cute little wash-on, wash off hand waving. William, probably a carrot top (never set foot in Italy), says his obligatory 'ciao';
- The swatch and rustle of patent leather cases, belts, clasps, satchels, handbags, and clutches. Embossed with names like Prada and Hermes;
- Entering into atriums and climate-controlled rooms; the sterile whooshing drone of electric doors, lifts, and elevators;
- The twinkle-clinkle and steady murmur of the kind of restaurant where the wine and the water comes from France or Italy (or some other thinning glacial spring in Europe);
- Lunch consists of Ligurian olives, rich fetta, Sicilian parma and swino nero, bread with names like ciabatta or baguette or panini, bufala mozzarella, marinated peppers and aubergine, washed down with coffee that came from a machine named Gaggia;
- Meat with citations like loin, rump, and fillet (as opposed to 'goat' or 'beef');
- Chuckling friends, colleagues, irony, and private humour.

Here are some ambient noises and dynamics I don't hear when I read Dead Aid:

- The dull roar of a diesel engine as you clock up 750km per week;
- Papa Wemba or Mama Afrika on squealing cassettes;
- The soft thud of stool hitting the latrine's hand-dug pit;
- The whine and ratta-tatta of heavy rain hitting corrugated iron sheeting;
- The stiff clicks and taps of a manual typewriter while you wait two-three-hours-maybe-all-day to meet yet another incompetent senior bureaucrat;
- Chickens, chicks, turkeys, and all manner of fowl jabbering in a constant background cacophony;
- Lunch, if you're lucky;
- Dinner is upland rice, a sloppy broth, and a long slender rooster thigh so taut you need elbow room to break it apart;
- Mzungu! Omuzungu! Mono! (For obvious reasons, mind)
- Eh! Ah-ah! Percussive exclamations in stereo with the poultry
- People hold hands when they greet, and fix you in the eyes;
- Guffawing, full body laughing, probably at someone making a gaffe.

What is it about self-loathing and the former World Bankers? So many of the big names she cites all too frequently are all dyed in the wool self-loathing ex-World Bankers - Collier, Easterly, Sachs...and now, Moyo. At least one of them is African, I suppose!

There's a willful quality to the Bank's recruitment practices. I often wonder if they consciously hire to self-loath. Their keen sense of hubris can only be described as compulsive. Do they persist in funding the woeful programmes around the world in order to feed their self-loathing?

Dead Aid is to self-loathing ex-World Bankers and their acolytes like the tantalizing Ninth Most Highly Effective Habit (is it the Ninth or is Stephen Covey already in double digits?) is for grasping middle managers with personality disorders.

Are editors and publishers at all aware of how over-represented former World Bank self-loathers are amongst their bare-all 'woe Africa' stable of writers?

It would be funny if their ideas weren't so deprived of oxygen. I get dizzy just reading the titles and dizzier still when reading how earnest and seriously they take themselves.

Although, I must say Dambisa is seriously good at sub-headings. You can see the argument unfold by just reading the table of contents.

To be fair, the book should be judged, not on the background, attractiveness (maybe I'm shallow, but it counts; Dambisa is a hotty – somehow it makes the text fly off the page!), or the good living of its author; rather it should be judged on its standalone merits.

And here it is. Dead Aid is a Big Name literature review of Africa's liaisons with the West’s donors and the vicissitudes of executing our naïve intentions in Africa. There is no significant primary or secondary analysis in amongst the 154 pages. Even the anecdotes are, for the most part, dry and passionless. That said, it's easy to read and mercifully short.

Links again:

http://www.slate.com/id/2185928/
http://michellebaltazar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/83-dambisa_moyo1.jpg

Too Big to Fail

2010-01-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

Even their own generals doubt their own ability to collect intelligence.

At least according to Major General Michael Flynn, deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan for the U.S. military and its NATO allies:

"Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy...ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced ... and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers."

Is Afghanistan – just like Vietnam before it – too big to fail?

Made me think about an interesting post on dumb-as-rocks aid/development in Afghanistan. It is stating the numbingly obvious when I say that the constantly changing and deteriorating security climate in Afghanistan is a significant impediment to aid and development or “nation-building” as the US/NATO counter-insurgency effort terms it. The whole chicken-egg riddle of you can't have development without security (and vice versa) is nonsense too. It's a conversation that sucks in oxygen for no good reason at all. In a fragile security environment you can have stability interventions. Usually such interventions are highly contextualized. Contextualization means understanding the context – social networks, local/tribal solidarities, patterns to ethnic and cultural dynamics, and the recent historical calculus that has led communities and their allegiances to where they are now.

Hard to do when your bombing them out of the sky. Doubly hard when there are not even pilots flying the planes.

One of the pillars of effective counter-insurgency, or “COIN” as it is called at the moment, that of intelligence-gathering, is losing its burnish. The tragic events last week in which seven CIA officers only underscores that the Taleban are not really on the run. In fact, they are taking advantage of the poor intelligence-gathering practices of US/NATO.

Ready-made interventions that conveyed well in other contexts frequently don't work in complex conflict-riven contexts. This is because interventions need contextualization. This means that the success, fleeting or otherwise, in Iraq in 2007 cannot be super-imposed on a fundamentally different context.

Where are the precedents for the touted military-led nation-building that the US insists will work?

Aside from WWII and parts of the Balkans, the US government (and NATO by extension) simply cannot point to a reliable or sustainable precedent for their much vaunted military-led nation-building. If you doubt the substance of what I am asserting check out Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index; all the bottom-order countries are post-conflict.

154 Yemen (ok, not yet – but coming soon!)
158 Cambodia
168 Haiti
176 Iraq
176 Sudan
179 Afghanistan
180 Somalia (the very bottom)

Another way of grouping them together is “post-US-conflict”.

The question is whether armed or military organizations are well placed to contextualize their interventions and achieve civilian objectives through the use of force?

The argument the buzzcutters will contend is that other organizations (invariably citing wooly NGOs and their fluffier comrades at the UN) are far too process-oriented to be able to realistically make meaningful aid interventions in fragmented and rapidly shifting contexts.

Interestingly, at odds with many of his colleagues and contemporaries, Major General Michael Flynn, senses that no matter how intricate their analyses (if and when they can get it right), no matter how swift their feedback cycles, no matter how attune their leaders are to the context; the chilling reality looms. NATO/US can’t win this war. Their keen sense of denial is akin to a consciousness of guilt.

Just like in Viet Nam.

Billions of taxpayer dollars later, after the expiry of so many young lives, and at the behest of a local population with almost no say in what is happening to them; what will be left?

Afghanistan reinvented for the Nth time.

Why does the current debate and approach in Afghanistan and Pakistan bother the Artful Aid Worker so much?

Simply put, ‘the Surgettes’ are already gathering the evidence for Viet Nam Redux. No manual or doctrine – no matter how many copies it has sold or how media savvy its authors are – can paper over the debacle that is already the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Their so-called “population-centric” approach is symptomatic of a military mindset that is dominating a rapidly deteriorating space.

For an aid-worker who works on post-conflict recovery and reintegration, albeit not in a war zone (for reasons obvious to me, but not to the Surgettes) the way that “nation-building” projects are described and implemented always presumes military objectives as part and parcel of “the process”.

Take for instance, road-building; we are told that “the process is the outcome”. This is to say that the road itself is a secondary objective – what happens during the road construction is the primary objective. The processes the Surgettes applaud are “permanent presence”; bringing “the fight” to US/NATO troops on favourable terms, winning local support in order to precipitate an intelligence-cascade, and “integrated campaign management” which appears to suggest that government is a participant-spectator not really running anything important. Many of us are left with the unambiguous conclusion that the nation-building approach is clear, hold, build, KILL. And at least from where I look at it, that’s enemy-centric.

Furthermore, the entire corpus of contemporary counter-insurgency theory with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan relies on the alignment of too many fundamental/critical/key/must-have/important requirements.

For instance in his intriguing book The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, prominent COIN expert David Kilcullen, prescribes the following conditions-precedent for his COINtastic solution to work:

"Priotization is critical"

"our strategy must seek first and foremost to build... an Afghan state capable of managing its own problems"

"Effective COIN requires security forces who are legitimate in local eyes"

"Population-centric...human-security 24 hours a day is critical"

"Integration with Pakistan strategy is also fundamental"

"Building the planning and oversight capability of the Afghan government is key"

It just goes on and on. From a technical viewpoint, the presumption of so many enabling factors being in place or created concurrently for this approach to work is fanciful in the extreme. I have never experienced such a celestial alignment of enabling factors in difficult working environments.

Military agencies should be trying to get out of there (Afghanistan and Pakistan) as soon as possible, and not being tasked with whatever their toxic strain of “nation-building” is supposed to mean. Counterinsurgents and military types don’t really understand what socio-economic reintegration and community stabilization involves, and even if they did, they can’t do it because their are the wrong agents of change.

If they are truly population-centric, then they would understand – they’re really not winning the hearts and minds. In fact, their approach is having the opposite desired outcome.

Leave it to USAID, DFID, and all the other international and non-government agencies that, despite their wooliness and many shortcomings, actually know what and how to develop and work within fragile and difficult spaces emerging from conflict.

Links again:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13iht-edcohen.html
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CWOR/nworldNews_uUSTRE5BF2TR20091216 http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CTOP/ntopNews_uUSTRE60403V20100105 http://aidwatchers.com/2009/09/good-news-aid-agencies-are-beginning-to-catch-the-dumb-as-rocks-projects/
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CPOL/npoliticsNews_uUSTRE6042Q720100105 http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=20932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kilcullen

A Not Unwelcome Beginning

2010-01-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking and procrastinating for years about writing a blog, worried about potential repercussions. The stern warnings and reasons not to were brought home to me by a not unwelcome reminder email that read something like:

"...there continue to be too many improper and unacceptable uses of email, often involving emotionally charged exchanges ...which unnecessarily exacerbate personal relations and inhibit solutions to problems... bear in mind that, once written and sent, an email takes on a life of its own, and often cannot be recalled, and risks being forwarded to others who may be tempted to join the altercation..."

Then I read some numbing epithet that I received via sms, totally unsolicited mind you from a complete stranger, along the lines of "life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly..."

So I thought, 'I'll give it a go. And if it all goes horribly wrong? And I am forced to speak in high-minded principles, then explain in syrupy concession-laden tones? Then so be it. What is the material difference between that state of affairs and my usual course of dealing? Nothing - so as often say to confused staff, "Approved, please proceed".

By way of introduction, I am an aid worker.

There are three types of self-described aid workers - actually there are more, but it sounds so much more decisive to speak in threes - which may be calculated as follows:

Donor Aid Worker: This aid worker is usually wearing really nice clothes and access to a flushing toilet is taken for granted. This person can tell you what foie gras is or has traveled on business class at least once or has read at least one book by Collier, Easterly, Moyo, or some other really important and absurdly prolific intellectual meridian of aid thought.

You may calculate Donor Aid Worker using the following formula:

Loads of education + preppy + selfish + self-entitled + slack + risk-terrified + uncritical + intelligent + obsequious = Donor Aid Worker.

I'm not saying it's fool proof, but it works alright. So long as you intend the equation to result in Donor Aid Worker. If you wanted some other result, then there could be a problem, the main thing is that you are purposive about this and other stereotype arithmetic.

Well Paid Implementing Aid Worker: This aid worker is usually expatriate, even if it's a Kenyan working in Uganda (or vice versa). You would be amazed what frequent air travel does to one's expectations and sense of well-being. It's a wonder that more refugees don’t feel more important as a result of air travel. Then again, UN pilots have a disturbingly ’grounded’ manner about them that could negate the 'Air Travel Effect'. And, calico bags really detract from the jet-setting experience. Anyway, this person is usually a Donor Aid Worker aspirant.

Ergo, you may calculate Implementing Aid Worker using the following uncannily alike formula:

[(doing/just-finished Masters + officious + self-entitled + groveling + critical in meetings + intelligent + post-paid mobile phone + knows what ‘ergo’ means) x frequency of air travel]/risk-repugnancy (NB. as a scale of 1-5, where 1 is 'seeks concurrence on everything' and five is 'regularly makes decisions') = Well Paid Implementing Aid Worker.

Then we have Actual Aid Worker. Poor sod. Actually if he's gay, the chances are that he is probably not open about his sexuality because being open about one's sexuality usually accrues around the Well Paid Implementing Aid Worker altitude. Being openly gay is something of a luxury for Actual Aid Workers. But I digress. Actual Aid Worker knows what a pit latrine is as a user, unlike Donor Aid Worker, who only knows how to appraise a WASH proposal. Actual Aid Worker as his/her name suggests probably has a pre-paid mobile phone, and has probably never left her/his own country.

The formula for Actual Aid Worker is really simple:

[competent + knows all CSOs s/he partners with by name + thinks all bule/farangi/mzungu talk like instruction manuals + has never commented on a blog) x average miles traveled each day]/USD1,500 (NB. 95% of Actual Aid Workers makes less than this) = Actual Aid Worker.

I’m a self-loathing Well Paid Implementing Aid Worker. Not that I don’t love my job, I just loathe my species that’s all. It’s more complicated than it sounds, and I prefer to pay someone when I talk about it.

For instance, I let things get to me. When I find out that a prestigious U.S. based NGO wins a sh-tload of money to do the absolute bare minimum to keep some Donor Aid Worker out of trouble, I get bouts of self-loathing.

But, I wail, the mandate from the donor state’s citizens was to get jobs for vulnerable youth emerging from war and help an astonishingly corrupt government stabilize an extremely fragile part of Asia/Africa/somewhere ‘Eastern’.

So what does the Donor Aid Worker and his/her cohort do? Outsource the entire thing to one organization. Rather than break it up across multiple implementing agencies thereby introducing competition, rather than disaggregating the M&E for the sake of accountability, rather than directly engaging civil society as implementers - what does the donor do? They choose the modality that removes as much decision-making and responsibility from themselves. Gutless and totally at odds with what the donor state’s citizens expectations of their government.

So there you have it a rambling blog post with no resolution. I really wanted Double Negative to be like the clever title suggests, ultimately positive, albeit unnecessarily.

I guess the upshot is that I wrote about it - I expressed myself - and I feel a bit better now.

AAW