OP-ED: 'Trouble For Hire: The Mercenaries Who Murder In Your Name,' By Ralph Peters, New York Post, September 30th, 2007
Peters at his most colorful, but the point is sound: when you feed the Leviathan and outsource too much SysAdmin (because you refuse the well-known uniform burden of nation-building, screw up the reconstruction, and go-it-far-too-much-alone re: allies), you end up with a difficult scene.

Blackwater's failures are a result of pushing off too much of the effort on a State Department grossly ill-equipped for the job.

This is why the Department of Everything Else is inevitable.

After years and years of operational experience building up, you can't call our interventions "crisis responses" anymore. They're simply the new international security environment I dubbed the Gap.

The market stares us in the face, but we change only when abject failures drive us to do so.

Blackwater is both problem and solution: the question is the mix and the new rules required.

Those choices await the next administration.

AFRICOM to help build African Standby Force

By Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, September 30, 2007

STUTTGART, Germany — While it endeavors to have a humanitarian touch, one main goal of the newest U.S. military command, the Africa Command, will be very military.

The command, scheduled to become operational this week, will focus much of its activity on helping to build the fledgling African Standby Force.

It is hoped the force, being organized by the Ethiopia-based African Union, or AU, will be ready by 2010. It would consist of five multinational brigades based in the giant continent. Each brigade would perform missions in its given region, such as peacekeeping when the need arose.

Gen. William E. Ward, nominated to become the first AFRICOM commander, last week told the U.S. Senate in writing that U.S. troops would help the brigades come to life.

“AFRICOM will assume sponsorship of ongoing command and control infrastructure development and liaison officer support,” he wrote. “It would continue to resource military mentors for peacekeeping training, and develop new approaches to supporting the AU and African Standby Forces.”

The comments were in response to previously submitted questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, which on Thursday questioned Ward in person on his vision for the command.

Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, told a Sept. 20 gathering of scholars and reporters in Washington that she hoped the continent would eventually not need to “import” security.

For example, on Tuesday the United Nations authorized U.N. and European Union peacekeepers to reinforce the African Union’s peacekeeping efforts around Sudan’s Darfur region.

“One of the things that [African leaders] have told us was that if we were really serious about supporting the African Union and its African standby force concept,” Whelan said, “then we could show and demonstrate that seriousness by establishing our presence in proximity to the African standby brigades and in their region, so that we could work more effectively with each brigade.”

According to the military, AFRICOM, which began forming in Stuttgart in February, plans to bring an array of ongoing U.S. military efforts in Africa under one command.

For a number of years, the United States has been sending troops to train one-to-one with the militaries of African nations. In the future, it is planned that troops from these nations would comprise the standby brigades.

U.S. troops have led training in reconnaissance, patrolling, maritime security, communications and other tactics. “At a minimum, what we hope is that African nations will be able to manage security in their own territorial waters, in their own land territories, in their own regions and also across the continent,” Whelan said.

There is no shortage of African troops to join the AU’s brigades, according to David Zounmenou, senior researcher for the Institute for Security Studies, a Pretoria, South Africa-based think tank. The challenge, Zounmenou said, is providing troops with vehicles, aircraft, weaponry, communications equipment and other items that cost money. “Members (nations) do not pay,” Zounmenou said. “This problem has been affecting every [African security] initiative for decades. Financial is one of most important challenges.

“We cannot send those troops empty-handed. The [AU] policy document and consensus is already done. The problem is to move to the second phase of the project. That is where U.S. assistance will be needed.”

© 2007 Stars and Stripes. All Rights Reserved.

Aliens' shows its serious side

What's this?
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
Diplomacy tomorrow, comedy tonight.
Or maybe it will be both when the CW sitcom Aliens in America is screened tonight at The Brookings Institution, the same day it premieres on TV (8:30 p.m. ET/PT).

What has caught the attention of a Washington think tank and others outside the CW's young target audience is the central character, a MuslimPakistani foreign exchange student in a small Wisconsin town. Islamic groups and others welcome a positive depiction in entertainment, an area in which Muslims often have been presented negatively, especially after 9/11.

Discussion of Aliens is part of a Brookings initiative "to find ways to encourage more diverse representations of Muslims in popular culture. When I say more diverse, I probably mean something besides a terrorist," says Cynthia Schneider, a former ambassador to the Netherlands who is moderating tonight's event and a Tuesday screening at Georgetown University. It "can help us think about how pop culture and comedy, in particular, make it possible to defuse the negative stereotypes and to see Muslims as just normal people."

The pilot, which includes scenes that satirize perceptions about terrorism, also has been screened at an Illinois high school with a diverse student body and at the Islamic Center of Southern California, where it was well received by a largely Muslim audience.

"This will be the first and maybe even primary source for most Americans in understanding anything positive or accurate about Islam," says Jihad Turk, the center's religious director.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council's Hollywood Bureau advised Aliens on matters of religious and cultural accuracy, such as the manner in which the student, Raja (Adhir Kalyan), prays.

That a situation comedy on the smallest broadcast network is getting such attention is testament to TV's broad public reach and its historical influence on attitudes toward blacks, women and others, says Michael Wolfe, a Muslim whose Unity Productions Foundation makes films that focus on diminishing stereotypes. "It's something TV has been doing for 40 or 50 years. Look how much (The Cosby Show) did to move the whole notion of African-Americans being people, of having common challenges everybody else shares," he says.

Creators Moses Port and David Guarascio say their primary goal was to write an entertaining show, but the idea of a Muslim student seemed timely and opened up comedic possibilities. "Making Raja a Muslim character allowed us a certain level of social and political satire you don't normally get to do," Guarascio says.

Aliens' becoming a topic of more serious discussion "is a little more than we imagined. Generally, as a comedy writer, you don't think they'll be screening your pilot at The Brookings Institution."

Op-Ed Columnist
Et Tu, Toyota?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
What is it about Michigan that seems to encourage assisted suicide?

That is all I can think watching Michigan congressmen and senators, led by Representative John Dingell, doing their best imitations of Jack Kevorkian and once again trying to water down efforts by Congress to legislate improved mileage standards for Detroit in the latest draft energy bill.

Look, I get pork-barrel politics. I understand senators from oil states protecting the windfall profits of oil companies. Ditto for farm subsidies. It’s an old story: Protect my winnings, and I’ll reward you with campaign contributions. I get it. I get it.

What I don’t get is empty-barrel politics — Michigan lawmakers year after year shielding Detroit from pressure to innovate on higher mileage standards, even though Detroit’s failure to sell more energy-efficient vehicles has clearly contributed to its brush with bankruptcy, its loss of market share to Toyota and Honda — whose fleets beat all U.S. automakers in fuel economy in 2007 — and its loss of jobs. G.M. today has 73,000 working U.A.W. members, compared with 225,000 a decade ago. Last year, Toyota overtook G.M. as the world’s biggest automaker.

Thank you, Michigan delegation! The people of Japan thank you as well.

But assisting Detroit’s suicide seems to be contagious. Everyone wants to get in on it, including Toyota. Toyota, which pioneered the industry-leading, 50-miles-per-gallon Prius hybrid, has joined with the Big Three U.S. automakers in lobbying against the tougher mileage standards in the Senate version of the draft energy bill.

Now why would Toyota, which has used the Prius to brand itself as the greenest car company, pull such a stunt? Is it because Toyota wants to slow down innovation in Detroit on more energy efficient vehicles, which Toyota already dominates, while also keeping mileage room to build giant pickup trucks, like the Toyota Tundra, at the gas-guzzler end of the U.S. market?

“Toyota wants to keep its green halo and beat G.M. in the big trucks, too,” said Deron Lovaas, vehicles expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As the world’s largest automaker and inventor of the best-selling hybrid car, Toyota has a responsibility to lead, follow or get out of the way as Congress debates the first substantial fuel-economy boost in decades. Shamefully, Toyota has joined forces with older automakers that are getting their lunch handed to them in the marketplace, in part because they’ve consistently shunned fuel efficiency.”

Irv Miller, a Toyota vice president, used the company’s corporate blog to refute charges that it is “trying to move America backward on gas mileage.” “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said, because Toyota also favors improved mileage standards.

Not so fast. Here are the facts: Thanks to the Michigan delegation, U.S. mileage standards for passenger car fleets have been frozen at 27.5 miles per gallon since 1985. Light trucks are even worse. The Senate energy bill calls for U.S. automakers to achieve a corporate average fuel economy of 35 m.p.g. by 2020. The Big Three and Toyota are lobbying to kill the Senate version and replace it with a loophole-laden increase to 32 to 35 m.p.g. by 2022. (Only the U.S. auto industry would try to postpone innovation.) The difference between the two is millions of gallons of gas.

Don’t be fooled. Japan and Europe already have much better mileage standards for their auto fleets than the U.S. They both have many vehicles that could meet the U.S. goal for 2020 today, and they are committed to increasing their fleet standards toward 40 m.p.g. and above in the coming decade. So Toyota, in effect, is lobbying to keep U.S. standards — in 2022 — well behind what Japan’s will be.

Representative Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said to me that Toyota could meet a 35 m.p.g. standard in Japan and Europe today, “but here — even though they bombard Americans with ads about how energy efficient Toyota is — they are fighting the 35 m.p.g. standard for 2020.”

Mr. Markey said he has tried to persuade Toyota that “a lot of people have bought Priuses or Camry hybrids to fight global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil” and “they would be shocked to find out” that Toyota is lobbying against the highest m.p.g. standards for America.

Sad. If Toyota were to take the lead on this front, it could enhance its own reputation and spur the whole U.S. auto industry to become more globally competitive. Hey, Toyota, if you are going to become the biggest U.S. automaker, could you at least bring to America your best practices — the ones that made you the world leader — instead of prolonging our worst practices? We have enough people helping us commit suicide.

October 3, 2007
Shiite Bloc Sharply Criticizes U.S. Outreach to Sunnis

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
BAGHDAD, Oct. 2 — Iraq’s largest Shiite political bloc threw its weight against the American effort to cooperate with Sunni tribes today, stating in clear, sharp language that Sunnis from militant backgrounds should not be allowed into official police forces.

The United Iraqi Alliance, the largest political bloc in Parliament, whose members control the government, said that the American military’s recruiting of Sunnis in sensitive areas in and around the capital amounted to empowering men with histories of militancy.

“We refuse and denounce giving protection to those terrorists who committed hideous crimes against the Iraqi people and allowing them to be responsible for security,” the statement read. The groups were, the statement said, “the reason for the bad security situation.”

“We demand the American administration to hasten in stopping this adventure.”

The statement was the first broad public criticism by the country’s most powerful group of Shiites of the American effort to change the course of the war by setting local Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The effort has been largely successful in Anbar, a vast desert province in western Iraq that is almost exclusively Sunni, and senior Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, have proudly showcased the cooperation.

But the military is beginning to recruit Sunnis inside the capital, the center of Iraq’s political and economic power and nearly a quarter of its population. The development is upsetting Shiites, who fear that empowering Sunnis with militant pasts will deepen the war and shift the power balance that has favored Shiites over the past year.

Recruitment drives are being carried out in more than a dozen Sunni neighborhoods across the city. Late last month, 744 Sunnis became policemen in Baghdad’s westernmost neighborhood, Abu Ghraib. On Monday, the military announced that more than 300 applicants had been approved for training in Amiriya, a neighborhood further east.