Letter #4 to Friends & Family: Three Arduous Weeks in an Interesting Place

The last twenty days have raced by and left me rather drained. It has been exciting. As I closed the previous letter, I stated that I had flown over the foot-hills of the Hindu Kush to Kunduz, about forty miles south of the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan (formerly a Soviet Socialist Republic).

Talk about the Weather! The Tajiks remind me of the Kurds in Iraq as a product of a frontier spirit bred in high mountains. Because the weather was forbidding in the winter, the Tajiks learned how to work hard to survive. Living on the steppes of Central Asia, however, guaranteed summer weather at the other extreme, often peaking past 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Nevertheless, the plateau on which Kunduz is perched remains fertile after thirty years of bombs, terror, Hell. This area, in its day, produced abundant rice, cotton, wheat and melons; not to mention plentiful livestock and poultry. The agricultural sector, at least in this more fortunate part of Afghanistan, is coming back faster than did Northern Iraq’s.

Hot Guns in the Winter-time. Kunduz is known by the Germans, who run the Provincial Reconstruction Team of which I am a small part, as the ‘Kandahar of the North’. That is true and not true. The Pashtuns represent a plurality in, not a majority of, the province. The relatively large, seemingly out-of-place Pashtun population, reflects the forced migration imposed by King Abdurraman in the late nineteenth century. As Saddam Hussein tried to with his ‘Arabization’ of Kirkuk, so did this Pashtun tyrant one hundred years before. Others have tried the same, from the Mongols to the Yugoslavians. Among the many, mostly dismal, cases of forced migrations, perhaps one of the better cases is that of Afghanistan since ethnic hatreds do not seem to have taken root. The Pashtuns have a code of behavior and personal ethics called Pashtun-wali. To this code, these people, dating from the time of Herodotus, remain fiercely devout. Yet, that does NOT mean many, or even most, are sympathetic with Taliban.

Enough Pashtuns do sign on with the Taliban to render Kunduz the least secure province in Northern Iraq, and, apparently getting worse by the day. On several nights during my initial three weeks, one has heard the fire-fights between the Afghan security forces and the insurgents -- the Taliban is not alone in raising Hell -- many of whom are drug-running gangsters. People are very nervous. The camp in which I live is embedded within a larger Afghan Army base. The men manning the check-points are edgey, very edgey. The base and the U.S. camp typically closes down at 6 p.m. Two nights ago, I drove up to the first of two checkpoints through which I proceed when returning to the U.S. base from the German PRT, at about 9 p.m. (i.e., prime werewolf hour).

Wake-up Call. I quickly – and almost painfully learned – how innocent people wind up shot dead at check-points. I was driving a stick and tending to a down-shift in gears as I wheeled around a sharp hairpin turn, built by design to slow the vehicle down. Suddenly, I heard a yell and double bolting-click and looked up to see a teen-age Afghan soldier yelling at me with a cocked AK-47 pointed straight at me. Hmmm. These are moments when God’s gift of reflexes and quick-thinking really pay off, big-time. While a slight undulation of fear rippled through me, I instinctively turned down the headlights (not off), turned on the overhead light inside the car, put on my safety lights and held my empty hands up in plain sight. The soldier looked for a second and realized I was okay; he relaxed, apologized and let me through to the next check point.

Only in the mile-long drive between check-points, on a pitch-black dirt road, was I permitted to shiver with fear of the reality that if I had not been paying attention or reacted the wrong way in the frightened eyes of a young man in the cross-hairs of the Taliban, I would likely be doing time, heavy time, in Purgatory. When I recounted the story, people were appalled at the behavior of the Afghan guard and I really do not see why. The overwhelming numbers of people whom the Taliban (i.e., latter day Khmer Rouge) murder are the police, soldiers, dissenting imams and public officials. These deaths are not quick but slow and protracted due to a brutal calculus of inflicting pain and spreading intimidation. Who wants to be de-capitated over a span of 5-10 minutes? That is often the worst element of the Taliban, corrupted by the easy money of drug-taxes and the warped entertainment of imposing suffering on alleged apostates.

Drugs and the Afghan Version of the West Side Story. Though opium must be ‘haram’ (i.e., against the laws of God and the strictures of the Prophet), the Taliban is financing its destruction of Afghan society, with a tax on poppies and heroin. Though $100 million sounds like a lot of money – and it most assurèdly is – that sum represents 3% of the total industry. This small increment sounds like a toll charge to allow the stuff to pass through. Kunduz, however, remains a poppy-free province. That sounds great until one digs a little deeper and realizes that the province is making a boat-load of money transporting the drugs through to Tajikistan and beyond. The Taliban’s hold over a certain portion of the Pashtun population often correlates more with tribal allegiances and convenient alliances. For example, the southern district of Kunduz province, similar to a county in the United States, has a river that runs right down the middle of it. Aliabad, as this district is known, is ‘contested’ heavily.

Our troops and those of Germany are fired on all of the time. The river, however, hints at what is really going on. The western side of the river, with no bridge to serve it, is isolated, an ideal setting for the Taliban to raid, rape and intimidate with impunity. The East side, while precarious, has aligned with the Afghan government, such as it is, and remains relatively calm. The fighting between the two sides of the river reflects more the historical animosity of these peoples long before the Taliban came along. 0ne side conveniently sides with, perhaps acquiesces to, the gang of the one-eyed bandit while the other hangs with a shakey government propped up by the two of the best Armies in existence. Each side can carry on with traditional strife through alliances of force or convenience. After some exposure to all of this scratch-n-sniff politics, one begins to wonder which party (native or alien) is the proxy of the other.

Initial Impressions of Pashtuns. Underlying all of this duplicity, bred in what my colleague Brennen Searcy of Louisville would describe as a culture of suspicion, is one constant among the Pashtuns: the ethos of the mountain warrior – a man whose education requires guns not grammar; whose sense of honor is finely tuned to the fettered wiles of the beautiful women in his midst; and, who see little need for change, any change whether for good or ill. The Pashtun ethos hearkens back to Rousseau: why should I soften myself and corrupt my manly strength with arts and education? Who needs to read? I haven’t had to learn; why should you? This well-meaning anti-intellectualism damages many a fine mind, especially those of the women. So the ideal of the noble savage, often more like a noble scavenger, haunts a war-worn land.

The Burkas of Ballet. Yet again, in another fretful irony, is the burka worn by women. In Iraq and across Arabia, many women veil themselves in traditional black dress that, at its extreme, covers everything except the eyes, nose and hands. This “hijab dress” is unattractive. The burkas I have seen, however, are usually lapis-coloured blue or white; they are quite sheer and light. Some burkas even cut away the front half way between the navel and the breasts, exposing what one could easily imagine as a rather enticing dress. Further, on the full-length burkas, the feet that emerge in a young mother’s leading stride often has high-heels or becoming sandals adorning them. In Arabia, the women do not wear the tent-like burkas but must swelter in one hundred thirty degree heat in these black, very frumpy habits. The burkas in Afghanistan, while symbolically more oppressive, are far less so physically. In either case, I can not quite get my head around a culture that lets ten year olds run around in sun dresses but then imprison girls when they reach puberty.

When the Forgotten Are Remembered. A week ago, the Police Mentoring Team that has put me up – and, I might wisely add, has put up with me – embarked on a very special mission, the memory of which will last with me for as many days as God allows me on this planet. Task Force Warrior, one hundred fifty American soldiers and twenty-five Afghan support staff and nestled on the Afghan Army base, dispatched a delegation of the company commander, CPT Ezequiel Moya of Austin Texas, and a dozen soldiers to join the Provincial Chief of Police, General Razakh, on a very special mission. CPT Moya, class act that he is, invited a delegation of three senior U.S. government civilians; yes, I was one of them. The other two were the Senior State Department Foreign Service Economic Officer for Northern Afghanistan (and versatile team player), Mark Biedlingmaier, and the Senior Regional Agricultural Advisor, Richard Fite; both originally from Philadelphia…a grudging concession by this Pittsburgher to deem these gentlemen as, well, gentlemen. Richard and Mark were in town to review additional staffing for the U.S. side of the Provincial Reconstruction Team. We went to visit an orphanage.

Chief Razakh handed out back-packs, shoes, candy, toys and other gifts to a hundred boys and girls without parents so much earlier than God had written. These gifts were donated quietly by the American Army company; CPT Moya’s first priority was for General Razakh to enjoy himself and forget about the various death threats he receives. Further, Americans over here are a quiet bunch – we really are a modest and generous people; sometimes the grueling debate over debatable policies obscures that fact. Despite the many failings we exhibit, we can remember the forgotten, comfort the lonely, give solace to the sad ones amongst us. Yes, the world is a far better place with an America in it. I just wish that the CPT Moyas, Richard Fites, Mark Biedlingers – and so many of you, men and women alike whom I like or love – were actually guiding our policies.

Letter #3 to Friends and Family: Getting there is hardly all of the fun

Kabulistan—from the inside.

Inside of what remains the over-riding distinction. In this case, the U.S. Embassy compound in AfghanLand. Only the Embassy in Baghdad – college campus that it is – exceeds to the chaotic compound in Kabul. More of that later; first the trip over to Afghanistan since there really is not much to tell about the briefings, most of which were sensitive.

The flight over: non-stop Washington to Dubai. About a dozen of us left on the twenty-eighth of December, representing the United States Agency for International Development, the Department of State and the Department of Agriculture. In fact the USDA (Agriculture) has its own foreign service and is deploying almost as many experts as USAID is dispatching generalists. My lovely sister, Clairey-bug, gave me a ride to D.C.’s international airport, not so affectionately known as Washington-Dullest. Since I was a preferred something or other, I got to use the airline’s déclassé lounge where, as a freshly minted development officer, I attended to weighty matters of state like yelling at T-Mobile to cease billing me automatically for a service I ended a long time ago. United Airlines over-booked my flight and so United honoured me with a “special” up-grade to business class to extricate itself from its predicament. Once aloft, I made fast friends with the flight attendants and we chatted up a storm or coffee and mini-Kit Kat bars.

Sixteen hours in Purgatory: welcome to Dubai. After eighteen hours on boarding flying, writhing and disembarking, the dirty dozen (i.e., we) received attentive service from the hotel, which was beautiful, sleek and almost chic. Since we checked in late at night, Dubai-time, we were unable to take advantage of the amenities. What struck me as darkly ironic about this ‘’ hotel, however, was the presence of all of these Christmas decorations, complete with festooned trees, in a city that funnels at least some of the funds to the Taliban terrorizing so many Afghans. The hotel itself was wide and spacious in the lobby and very “upper glass”; that is to say: the best of neo-sixties kitsch and so I hardly felt homesick. Next day, we departed for Kabul on a two hour-plus-change flight. Safi Airways had no leg-room or freebies nor, thank God, did it feature a G.I. Joe movie.

Arrival in Kabul: a city that has grown as many fifty times over in forty years. At first blush, Kabul seemed safe enough. We hung out in front of the new international terminal – out in the open. The only disturbance arising from being wide open was the complaining by self-appointed security experts doing just a fine job of informing twelve bedraggled people the many gruesome manners in which they could be murdered. Some men are seduced by sirens and others by scenarios. The largest threat facing us, however, was not jihad but jet-lag. The new terminal was constructed through the reconstruction aid of the Japanese and thus remained clean and modern and thoroughly unremarkable throughout.

The U.S. Embassy Compound is a massive complex in of Kabul proper, near the Great (General Ahmed Shah) Massoud Circle. In the center of that round-about stands a twenty to thirty foot monument that likely dates from the era of Soviet domination. It is a granite brown vaguely conical stele crowned by what looks like a globe resting on wheat fronds. Very ugly; very last millennium. Since the fall of the Taliban, however, this unsightly phallic symbol has assumed a new role – not one of virile domination ushered in by a vanguard of grain-growing, flame-throwing revolutionaries – but one giant flip of the bird to the fallen fanatics of Mullah Omar and his anything but gregarious gangsters.

General Ahmed Shah Massoud, a moderate Tajik and national hero against the Red Army, quickly came to oppose the Pashtun warlords and, eventually, the Taliban to the South. General Massoud died fighting the Taliban until the end; that is, until a suicide assassin blew him up just before the 11th of September 2001. A genius himself, General Massoud understood well that Republics of Virtue do not fare too well. Unfortunately, al Qaeda realized this fact, too, and assassinated him. The day of his death is celebrated in Afghanistan today, reminiscent of similar venerations of saints past in the West.

Arrival Shanty-La, or the U.S. Embassy complex. The Embassy consists of a new building of yellowish stone and colored glass, calculated to be the least aesthetically appealing target imaginable. This ‘new’ building flanks the predecessor, the Old Embassy Building, which resembles Stalingrad’s answer to Lincoln Center in New York. Grey with multi-story arches that just don’t work. But the stolid structure has lasted during forty years of Hell quite intact. Other than the larger office buildings are three storey apartment buildings showcased from downtown Bucharest and a few remaining hardened structures. ‘Hardened structures’ absorb the impact of rockets and mortars, not that I am dying to be “myth-buster” on this count. Otherwise there are rows of containerized housing units used as offices or dormitories.

Toughening up the recruits. Most of the briefings, however, took place at the CAFE, an acronym for Compound across from the Embassy. This sprawling complex of tin belly-crawlers represents USAID’s operating headquarters in Kabul. Again, the buildings were grey temporary structures; initially white but around long enough to be discoloured by Kabul’s smog. The air pollution was much worse than anything I had ever encountered in Baghdad, Calcutta or even inside the steel mills of Pittsburgh. In the morning, the mountains were majestic in their snow bestowed ruggedness. The Hindu-Kush Mountains spill over from the Himalayas and exhibit the austere post-card beauty to prove it. Yet by four o’clock in the afternoon, shrouded by smog, those mountains had left for the day. Perhaps Mother Nature keeps bankers’ hours with the help of millions of people burning tires or animal droppings (for central heating) and in the absence of catalytic converters. With the exception of four briefs interspersed over two days, these ‘sensitive’ presentations paralleled Kabul’s air quality in being full of smoke, barely tolerable and always around.

FINALLY, after ten days, up North we go. The people in the Embassy and in USAID were uniformly helpful, dedicated and professional. In all seriousness, I left Kabul for Kunduz as fully prepared as one could be, given the time constraints imposed by the civilian surge, except for my unrivalled gift of misplacing business cards. About eight people converged on the USAID airstrip adjacent to the Kabul Airport very early on Monday morning, at 0’dark-thirty. We soon boarded a small prop plane and flew up to Kunduz. The Kunduz airfield is small, Spartan and likely Soviet. The flight up was spectacular, though photographs cannot do justice to the mountains that encircled us. One sobering note, however, was the lack of snow. These are high mountains, some exceeding 10,000 feet but the snow-cap was more like a yarmulke; that means too little water in the spring-time. While the Kunduz valley is well irrigated thanks to the public works of the U.S.S.R. twenty years ago, water issues loom large here like everywhere else. More of that to follow in future letters.

Afghanistan: Progress not Perfection

As a robust national debate over Afghanistan continues, a policy dilemma weighs upon President Obama. If allied forces depart from Afghanistan, Islamic jihadists will enjoy at least a propaganda victory with a sobering fall-out. If U.S. forces remain or increase in Afghanistan, indicators point toward an eventual stalemate and defeat of Western interests in any case. 

Should allied forces prevail and magically establish a nation state superseding an ancient culture of fierce local allegiances compounded by millions of refugees angered by depredations of tyrants-past, al Qaeda and other terror-gangs will simply move shop to some other failed or pseudo-state like Somalia, Yemen or the Sudan. 

So who wins? 

Yet much of this dilemma emerges from rigid yet competing doctrines of conventional warfare, labor-intensive counter-insurgency, etc. N.A.T.O. must confront certain facts of strife before the West blunders down the same path as did the erstwhile U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan. 

First, President Obama is not dithering. His momentous decision – with no clear path to a positive outcome – requires the prudence afforded by time, deliberation and debate. Deliberately confounding caution with cowardice comes across as a bald attempt to goad the President into taking aggressive actions when, time and again, such actions have proven unproductive. 

Second, General McChrystal’s sixty-six page proposed strategy was neither leaked nor mindlessly kinetic. This well thought out request, heavily redacted, does not represent a desperate call for more troops hoping that “this time, things will be different”. It argues instead for a post-kinetic partnership with an implied time-frame of 12-18 months. 

Third, the West has misplaced the Afghan conflict. This valley or that city is not the battlefield; the future is. There has been no lack of Western resolve in men or materiel. The failure in Afghanistan has been one of neglecting the hopes and aspirations that the people themselves hold for their families.

Fourth, people view Afghanistan as a nation-state. It is not. Afghanistan remains a cauldron of fractious tribes, disaffected refugees, Islamist gangs and local warlords circumscribed by centuries-old borders of the Russian, British and Persian empires. As such, any lasting change will have to work its way from the ground-up with a view toward local loyalties. 

Fifth, a hollowness of purpose, premised on the immediate advancement of U.S. interests as a measure of success, blights the righteousness of U.S. policy. Morally vacuous reasoning allows the ends to justify the means, encourages duplicity, discourages long-term advancement of liberty and promotes the seduction of the kinetic quick-fix. 

At the end of the day, however, our short-sighted and often venal policies dishonour our citizen-soldiers, blacken our name and lead to abuses of might making right...WRONG! That said, what can the U.S. government do, if anything, for NATO to succeed in Afghanistan? I would offer the following ideas: 

• grant General McChrystal’s request for more troops tied to a time-line for withdrawal to dispel the notion of permanent occupation; 
• draw-down in Iraq by year-end 2010 to reinforce the bona fides of U.S. intentions in Afghanistan
• support financially the Iraqi Sunnis paid off by the U.S. Army during the 2008 surge to demonstrate the effectiveness of community-based policing in reducing conflict; 
• disperse the military trainers to mentor local police forces in weeding out gangsters; 
• supplement the troop surge with as many civilian field workers as possible;
• dispense with convoys and body-armor for civilians and military trainers, in exchange for protection by local leaders, knowing that some, perhaps many, field workers will be murdered along the way;
• focus primarily on little, attainable gains that bring hope to Afghans and build their faith in capacity-building; 
• encourage a re-write of a flawed constitution along the lines of a Swiss confederation headed by a constitutional monarch;
• use tolls and other explicit fees financially to incent tribal chiefs and ‘warlords’ into supporting national infrastructure projects; as well as, 
• win the control of the country-side first and eventually to starve the Taliban out of the cities. 

Why must we fight? 

Should the U.S. and NATO fail to prevail against the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Pashtuns will rise against their government in pursuit of a Taliban caliphate. When Pakistan falls, more will be at stake than the frightful possibility of Taliban possession of 155 nuclear warheads. 

The expansionist ideology of the Taliban will either energize the Punjabis or intimidate them into acquiescence. Then will come an invasion of Kashmir. India will strike back forcefully, possibly activating Chinese intervention into the sub-continent and likely precipitating World War III. --Written September 2009.

UPDATE 2021: link to April 2009 proposal for integrating the Sons of Iraq added for explanatory purposes.

Getting Ready; Closure on Iraq

Closing Thoughts on Security Cooperation with Iraq

Introduction: current situation. The current rush-to-consensus on applying Plan Colombia may prove over time to be pre-mature and a product of group-think.1 In working with the Iraqi government (GOI) to create a “sovereign, stable, and self-reliant” nation, the U.S. government (USG) must assist and support the GOI in avoiding three national catastrophes:
• a regional war between Arabs and Persians fought on Iraqi soil;
• a civil war between the Arabs and Kurds; and,
• a continuing relapse into civil conflict creating a culture of chronic conflict.2

The danger of the third point is clear: half of the failed states that emerge from civil war relapse into (often-times bloodier) conflict within ten years. Iraq may be starting to relapse. Why?
1. Iraq’s contentious factions remain trapped in a "security dilemma", complicating the prospects of long-term conciliation. A security dilemma exists when paramilitary and other armed groups outside the law tend not to surrender weapons during programs of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (“DDR”).3 The dilemma lies in a militia being defenseless in the face of a rival that has retained its firepower through DDR.

2. Specifically, in Iraq, we do not know what the Ministry of Interior really did to weed out the death squads brought in during Bayan Jabr's tenure of 2005 and 2006 or thought to be lingering in the Ministry of Defence.4

3. The Norwegian government and the Iraqi Ministry of Planning have documented an absolute surfeit of weaponry dispersed throughout the extra-legal fighting elements. Any actual surrender of arms is likely to be nominal. The presence of pervasive poverty sharpens the temptation to resort to violence as a means of dispute resolution.

4. The Maliki government has squandered the reconciliation started by the U.S. program of funding the Sunni ‘Awareness Movement’ with concerned local citizens (a/k/a CLCs). This surge-related program protected the Sunni population from possible sectarian genocide and, more importantly, began bringing disaffected elements into the political mainstream while establishing the fundaments of community policing.

5. Community policing re-frames the current insurgency into a crime wave -- not an insurgency -- effectively to cut these murderers off at the source. Whether the rationale is ethno-sectarian or economic, people who kill people are still criminals. Neighborhood residents are the best eyes-and-ears for the police, as proven by the Kurdish cities.

Review of Plan Colombia as a Template. Colombia and Iraq share evident similarities -- high numbers of internally displaced people; drug (or illegal oil) trafficking as a source of funding for militias; widespread corruption; human rights abuses; vulnerable oil infrastructure in need of protection; and, widespread homicide. A few crucial differences, however, trump these circumstantial parallels.

Additionally, aside from recent tactical gains against revolutionary groups, the ultimate success of Plan Colombia remains contested.5

Plan Colombia was basically a de-novo militarization by the USG of the counter-insurgency in Colombia. Over six years, the United States invested $5-6 billion in military aid, a significant portion of which funded the fumigation of millions of acres of arable lands producing illicit cash crops; not so in Iraq. Over a six year period, the USG allocated $18 billion to the Iraq Security Forces Fund. Thus, Iraq’s equivalent to Plan Colombia has likely taken place already.

With the funding and equipping to date of the Ministries of Interior and Defence (MOI and MOD) as well as the 100,000 CLCs exceeding $18 billion, $3 billion (or Iraq’s population-based equivalent to the aid under Plan Colombia’s) of funding over six years should prove to be superfluous. Such a situation would be like Noah, on the thirty-ninth day of rains, walking top-side with a pitcher of water to tend to some plants on deck. Instead, such a USG posture would more likely spoil the prospects for long-term stability as U.S. policies would be perceived – as they already are by many – as taking sides in a civil conflict.

Training more men to kill other men, as suggested by applying Plan Colombia, will not enhance the rule of law in Iraq. The current police force exceeds sustainable levels; the police stations and other infrastructure in place can not handle the levels of forces using them. One of every 25-30 Iraqis is in the security forces (i.e., the military and police; or, ISF), meaning more police per population than any of the world's five most dangerous countries.

At the height of Plan Colombia, there were -- at least -- one hundred people for every member of the security forces. Iraq lacks the extra-governmental institutions reaching all levels of its society. Colombia has the Catholic Church and many mature peace-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs), allied with wealthier benefactors in the U.S. and Europe, to build a climate of reconciliation that can supplant a culture of conflict.6 Iraq’s NGOs are nascent and under-funded.

Lastly, U.S. interests (i.e., the war on drugs and “nar-corruption” sweeping Northward from Colombia) remain more immediate and vital with respect to Colombia than they do with Iraq.7 A (Not-So) New Way for a New Day. The ideal end-state toward which U.S. can point Iraq includes the following elements:
• police primacy through democratic, communally-based law enforcement;
• an end to ISF-sponsored violence against prisoners and detainees including torture, false arrest and neglect during custody;
• widespread enforcement for the protection of fundamental human rights; and,
• ethno-sectarian tolerance strengthened through mutual support.

These elements define President Obama's ideal of “an Iraq that is sovereign, stable, and self-reliant”. It may be prudent not to assume an eventual stay-behind U.S. force. Such a residual force would be unwelcome and, given its small number and attenuated lines of communication (LOC), far more vulnerable.

A possible exception might be small U.S. Army training contingents in Kirkuk, Baghdad and Basra. These units would gather intelligence while preventing potential regional peace-keepers -- about 20,000 in all (if requested) -- from indulging in a land-grab of Iraq. Such an oversight force would tap into the peace-keepers’ LOC.
This alternative approach minimizes the constraints mentioned earlier by establishing a post-kinetic partnership between Iraq and the U.S. starting in 2012.

This alliance will aim for peaceful co-existence within Iraqi society to relieve the poverty and essential service shortages that now detract from the GOI's legitimacy and rule of law. The Office of Security Cooperation (OSC) would ideally consist of a security assistance component (8-13 people) supplemented by liaisons with civilian agencies (27-32 people) harnessing USG and NGO-sponsored resources.
Toward an Alternate Legacy.

A legacy of goodwill counts in the long-run. One U.S. approach could leverage each uniformed military trainer deployed from the U.S., U.N. or NATO (about 3,000 in all) with at least five field-workers drawn from the Peace Corps, USAID, DFID, diverse NGOs and the Iraqi population. These volunteers and the uniformed military would cross-train each other in grass-roots economic development and civil-military operations.
Iraqis could then re-build their villages and their lives in practical ways. In the Iraqi mind, these basic benefits would gradually begin to associate the United States or the West with reconciliation and prosperity.8 The USG would strive, through this radically different OSC concept sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, to impart a legacy of democratic policing, law-&-order, human rights and communal self-improvement.9 The annual cost of this legacy-building would total less than 10% of the average yearly ISFF burden.
================================
REFERENCES
1. Irving Janis; Yale & Berkeley; 1972: who did extensive work on the subject, defined it as: A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink)

2. Paul Collier; Oxford University 2004: “Around half of all civil wars are due to post-conflict relapses…The risks of conflict relapse are very high during the first post-conflict decade – typically around 50%.” (http://www.un.org/esa/documents/Development.and.Conflict2.pdf)

3. Matthew Kirwin; Michigan State, 2006
“There are several factors that have led to the conflagration of a security dilemma in Cote d’Ivoire. First, a weak state and economic crisis compelled certain groups to revert to a primordial attachment to ethnic and religious background, which supersedes national identity and creates intense power struggles. This reversion to ethnic identity caused the parties to identify each other as offensive threats. Due to the dire economic situation in states such as Cote d’Ivoire, the struggle for the control of resources has become intense. “Any economic improvement by one ethnic group is frequently perceived as an example by the center: the ethnic security dilemma has an economic component, as all sorts of motives and fears are read into any change in the economic status of each ethnic group (Saideman 1998: 135).” Therefore the distribution of resources to one ethnic group and not another decreases the security of latter and increases the security of the former. Control and distribution of resources is primarily the responsibility of the government. Political appointments therefore confer power to the appointee and his entourage, which in turn can be interpreted as a security threat to certain groups. At one point other ethnic groups assumed that the government of Gbagbo and his ethnic group had a stranglehold on the means of entry into the police and gendarmerie.”
(http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol15num1/kirwin.pdf)

4. James C. Jones; U.S. Institute of Peace 2009; Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (page-365)
“Indeed doubts exist about the degree of real paramilitary [i.e., ‘government coddled militias’] demobilization. Recent reports the emergence of new groups, or reemergence of old ones, throughout the country. Moreover, investigations as well as informed testimony under the controversial Justice and Peace Law have revealed disturbing links between lawmakers – most of them [President] Uribe supporters [in favor of Plan Colombia’s militarized program] – and paramilitaries. And there is strong evidence of widespread paramilitary penetration of governmental institutions.”
Please note that the writing of Dr Jones is likely to be biased against the government of Colombia (GOC); he was under investigation by the GOC for possible ties with leftist guerillas opposing the rightist paramilitaries. The Department of State gives the GOC higher marks but states in its 2009 narcotics report:
“The GOC does not, as a matter of government policy, encourage or facilitate the illicit production or distribution of narcotic or psychotropic drugs or other controlled substances, or the laundering of proceeds from illegal drug transactions. While criminal organizations are greatly weakened, concerns remain over their corrupting influences. In September 2008, two CNP [i.e., Colombian National Police] generals, Antonio Gomez Mendez and Marco Pedreros, were fired as a result of alleged ties to narco-paramilitary leader, Daniel “El Loco” Barrera. Separately, several members of the GOC were found to have supported right-wing paramilitary groups. Seventy members of the 2006-2010 Congress and 15 current and former governors have been investigated in the “para-political” scandal, with 34 congressmen and eight governors jailed as a result of the aggressive investigations.” (http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2009/vol1/116520.htm)
Deborah Haynes; The Times of London, 2009: “….in January the human rights office of the Defence Ministry found more than 1,000 detainees at three centres in Ninevah, northern Iraq, including about 550 who had orders issued for their release…Many prisoners were held in cramped and unhygienic conditions. More than 700 were eventually freed.” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6737870.ece)

5. Associated Content News; “Top 5 Nations Where Safety is Last” 2007:
“Colombia. Infamous for its guerillas, illegal cocaine "industry", and corrupt government, no wonder Colombia ranks as ‘The Most Dangerous Country in the World’. Bombings targeting civilians are common and terrorism is a way of life for most citizens who have grown accustomed to the chaos. It has a high rating for kidnappings with ransoms, with businesspeople, tourists, journalists, and scientists being frequent targets, though no one is actually excluded from kidnappings. Hot spots include ATMs, taxis, restaurants, and simply walking down the street. Those who try to resist robberies usually get shot and killed. Bogota, Baranquilla, Cartagena, and Medellin are statistically categorized as the most dangerous cities, with Medellin holding the title of the Drug Capital and ‘Most Dangerous City in the World’. With 11 murders a day in a city of merely 2 million, its murder rates is quintupled that of New York City. In recent years, murders rates in Colombia have dropped, but not enough to pass the title to South Africa. Though what was previously mentioned [falling homicide rates] may be misinformation, as critics have accused President Uribe of manipulating the crime [rate], making Colombia seem safer than it really is. What is behind all the heinous crimes? An expanding drug market and a plethora of terrorist groups, and a government that does nothing about it. Colombia averages 47 murders a day in a nation of 45 million, giving it the crown of ‘Most Dangerous’.” (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/159175/top_5_most_dangerous_countries_in_the.html?cat=9)
U.S. Office on Colombia; 2009
“The…Working Group on Extrajudicial Executions has identified new modalities of extrajudicial executions where killings are no longer publicly reported, as happened in the case of false positives, but rather hidden, with measures taken to conceal the identity of those responsible. One example is the increase in cases of forced disappearances of human rights defenders and social leaders, with the person being subsequently killed and put into unidentified graves in the majority of these cases. In many of these cases members of the armed forces are alleged to have been involved either directly, through cooperation, or at the least through acquiescence with paramilitaries. According to a recent report by the National Commission for the Search for Disappeared People, between January 1 2007 and October 21 2008 alone, there was a total of 1,686 people forcefully disappeared.”
(http://www.usofficeoncolombia.com/uploads/application-pdf/2009-%20June%20EJE%20memo.pdf)

6. Arturo Carrillo; U.S. Institute of Peace 2009; Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War (pages 148-149)
“As a result, by 2000, the Colombian non-governmental human rights movement was a critical player…Colombian NGOs had powerful allies in the Colombian Congress as well as among foreign governments, intergovernmental organizations…[e.g., U.N.]…and, of course, international NGOs….”

7. Bruce Bagley University of Miami; 2001: “During most of the 1980s the Medellin cartel dominated the Colombian drug trade and its principal trafficking routes passed through (or over) the Caribbean into the United States via south Florida and elsewhere along the U.S. Atlantic seaboard. As these "traditional" smuggling routes came under increasing pressure from U.S. drug enforcement over the second half of the decade, a gradual shift away from the Caribbean routes to new ones passing through Central America and Mexico and across the U.S. southwest border took place. By the early 1990s 70 to 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled out of Colombia entered the United States from Mexico while only 20 to 30 percent continued to come in via the Caribbean.” (http://clas.berkeley.edu/Events/conferences/Colombia/workingpapers/working_paper_bagley.html)

8. Eugene Burdick and William Lederer; The Ugly American; 1958
“But despite the dual meaning, the ‘ugly American’ of the book title fundamentally does refer to the plain-looking engineer Atkins, who lives with the local people, comes to understand their needs, and offers genuinely useful assistance with small-scale projects such as the development of a simple bicycle-powered water pump. It is argued in the book that the Communists are successful because they practice tactics similar to Atkins'. According to an article published in Newsweek in May 1959, the ‘real’ Ugly American was identified as an ICA technician named Otto Hunerwadel, who served in Burma from 1949 until his death in 1952.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American)

9. Bonnie Bucqueroux; Michigan State, 2004
“By embracing strategies that decentralize and personalize police service, police departments that have adopted the community policing philosophy have been able to engage communities in comprehensive, collaborative, community-based problem-solving aimed at crime, fear of crime, and disorder. Many efforts involve assigning individual officers or teams to specific beat areas, to foster a sense of ownership and responsibility. The marriage of police and community brings together the power of the formal criminal justice system with the informal social control that communities can exert. Police departments have also been a catalyst in forging new partnerships with other professional and civic institutions (municipal agencies, non-profit groups, the business community, schools, and the faith community).“
(http://www.policing.com/articles/rcj.html)

10. Ned McDonnell; Letter to President George W. Bush, 2006
“The three themes of this rationale – crime prevention, national sovereignty and economic development – are based on precedents in…New York City…The Ministry of Interior has been infiltrated by militias backed by Iran...Trustworthy policemen, vetted and approved by local inhabitants, will empower Iraqi citizens to turn over the insurgents who are nothing more than people enjoying the blood-sport of – and financial gain from – killing, destruction, kidnapping and mayhem. This plan will save time, energy and money which can then be better allocated to Afghanistan to complete Operation Enduring Freedom in support of a tenuous democratic government….”