Archive for the 'NGOs' Category

Comporting with population-centric counterinsurgency doctrine, the U.S. is gearing up for an increased civilian presence in Afghanistan, even as the military presence begins to abate in 2011.

The U.S. may be planning for a large scale military withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, but there’s every indication a significant diplomatic corps will remain in the country long afterwards.

The heavily fortified U.S .embassy in Kabul is undergoing a lightning-fast expansion in order to accomodate hundreds of American civilians arriving as part of the new counterinsurgency strategy.

Here’s what U.S. ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, says about the expansion: “Late 2008, the United States embassy — our mission here in Afghanistan — comprised of about 320 civilians and a majority of those were in Kabul. Now, about two years later, we have 1,100 civilians, still increasing.”

The idea is to create a military-civilian partnership — after the military clears an area of insurgents, civilians go in to help build up the local government, justice systems, and other institutions.

The problem is, Americans involved in this effort are arriving so fast that they’re hard pressed at the embassy to house them. A huge construction project is underway to build more offices and housing complexes. Until they’re ready, small trailers have been moved onto the current embassy grounds. Each holds at least two people. Others are crammed into existing buildings.

But who are these people who are flooding Afghanistan’s only real secure infrastructure?  “At least 100 relief workers in Afghanistan have been killed so far this year, far more than in any previous year, prompting a debate within humanitarian organizations about whether American military strategy is putting them and the Afghans they serve at unnecessary risk.

Most of the victims worked for aid contractors employed by NATO countries, with fewer victims among traditional nonprofit aid groups.

The difference in the body counts of the two groups is at the heart of a question troubling the aid community: Has American counterinsurgency strategy militarized the delivery of aid?

That doctrine calls for making civilian development aid a major adjunct to the military push. To do that there are Provincial Reconstruction Teams in 33 of 34 provinces, staffed by civilians from coalition countries to deliver aid projects. The effort is enormous, dominated by the Americans; the United States Agency for International Development alone is spending $4 billion this year, most of it through the teams.

The so-called P.R.T.’s work from heavily guarded military compounds and are generally escorted by troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.”

The plight of the aid worker is bleak, with increasing deaths, increasing numbers, lack of infrastructure and the need to use the protection of U.S. troops who will be there in smaller numbers beginning in 2011.  In fact, aid workers say that COIN doctrine leaves them exposed, and Red Cross claims that the security conditions in Afghanistan are the worst they have been in 30 years.

Spreading violence in Afghanistan is preventing aid organizations from providing help, with access to those in need at its worst level in three decades, the Red Cross said on Wednesday.

“The proliferation of armed groups threatens the ability of humanitarian organizations to access those in need. Access for the ICRC has over the last 30 years never been as poor,” said Reto Stocker, Afghanistan head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which rarely makes public comments.

“The sheer fact the ICRC has organized a press conference… is an expression of us being extremely concerned of yet another year of fighting with dramatic consequences for an ever-growing number of people in by now almost the entire country.”

Stocker said many areas of the country, particularly in the once peaceful north, were now inaccessible not only for the ICRC but for the hundreds of other aid groups in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month the ICRC in Geneva warned the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan was likely to deteriorate further in 2011.

So Red Cross doesn’t believe that this proposed smaller footprint, high value target campaign by SOF troopers is likely to make any substantial difference in their security in 2011 and beyond.  There is great concern among civilian aid workers.  The Taliban can’t distinguish between U.S. government contractors and NGOs, and really doesn’t care.  They’re all the enemy to the Taliban.  Security is failing for all of the aid workers, and they are flooding Afghanistan in a tip of the hat to FM 3-24, as they all await the decreased presence of U.S. troops while they attempt to deliver aid and governance to the people.

And things are going just swimmingly in Afghanistan.

From the Houston Chronicle:

A Texas search and rescue team and other similar units mobilized to help earthquake victims in Haiti have been told they are not needed.

Members of Texas Task Force 1 have been on standby in Houston since Thursday to head to the devastated island nation.

But the United Nations mission in the country has declared the search and rescue teams already in the nation are sufficient to handle to the task and the Texas team and others prepared to deploy would not be needed.

The Texas unit, which has been on standby at Ellington Field in southeast Houston, was made up of 80 members including doctors and engineers. Four dogs were also part of the team.

On the other hand, thousands of Marines have landed in Haiti, and when all is said and done, tens of thousands of U.S. forces will have contributed to the effort.  To be sure, there are security problems that contribute to logistics problems.  No one has been more diligent to focus on logistics than me.

But in a time when we are so concentrated on the use of NGOs to aid in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (and other trouble spots across the globe), isn’t it telling that NGOs cannot even get a pass into Haiti to assist when it isn’t technically a war zone or counterinsurgency effort?  Quite obviously, the assertion that teams are no longer needed is a lie, and we simply cannot support or deploy the teams.

For those who have followed my objections to the MEU and sea-based forcible entry concept for Marines, I am not and have never been in favor of humanitarian missions for the Marines.  The Marines are trained infantrymen, and they are needed in Afghanistan.  It’s better to do Haiti and similar missions with the National Guard or other forces.  But in the absence of feasible solutions for Haiti other than U.S. Marines, the advocacy for NGOs participating in counterinsurgency (and in particular Tom Barnett’s views on the Leviathan-Sysadmin bifurcation) suffers a deadly blow, does it not?

So much for NGO engagement.  We cannot even find a way to use trained rescuers and doctors in a natural disaster, much less when people are actively engaged in an insurgency.