IMHO, not a good thing for the United Nations. Things HAD improved with an outsider of Sir David's qualifications trying to make headway...
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Type: Posts; User: redbullets; Keyword(s):
IMHO, not a good thing for the United Nations. Things HAD improved with an outsider of Sir David's qualifications trying to make headway...
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Thanks, I'll use this one too. I guess I'm categorizing based on actual automobiles and wagons in what I'm writing, but an attempted hit on another major international historical figure is great...
Thanks for posting this. I'm finishing up a piece about IEDs that looks at both the fact that they're here to stay, the genie having been released from the bottle long ago, and then going into a...
I would recommend rounding up some of the old Kurdistan hands on this, like Peter Galbraith, as there are a few academics and humanitarians who responded or attempted to rally political will during...
Not familiar with this one, but we know InerSOS from the mine action community. I'll query my friends about this one.
One thing I do know, since we're directly involved in a couple of them, is...
I'm late to this one, too, but since I lead an NGO with activities in Iraq (since 2003) and returning to Afghanistan (left in late-2006 - project ended successfully, we didn't run away), I have a...
Here's an unfortunate wrinkle around PRTs and their staffing.
Both in Afghanistan and Iraq, due, I suppose to the lack of enthusiastic volunteers, contractors occupy some positions on the teams. ...
I don't think the military would need to value non-lethal power as much as lethal power - just value it more, as a contiguous part of overall military operations. Additionally, I think it would help...
I'm halfway through The Siege of Mecca, by Yaroslav Trofimov. Its a fast read that contains some trite opinions and generalizations regarding terrorism, al Qaida and Islam in general. However, I'm...
I've been attending CIV/MIL conferences with increasing frequency, and am a panelist at one next Monday for AFRICOM and State. Your quote above reinforces one of the major points I'm going to try...
I don't know how much other NGOs spend on their security - for the larger organizations, this is more a country-by-country issue, dependent upon a very wide range of insecurity levels. An...
Sorry to join this one so late - have been swamped with work and travel, and haven't gotten up on line much.
I will probably repeat stuff I've written before here, so apologies. Externally...
This approach to things is the first lesson I learned when I hit the ground in Kurdistan in 1994, having left the Army and begun working for USAID. It was hardly a new concept then, and is a...
Attacking through Turkey would have made little difference. Our problems in Iraq were/are not rooted in the axes used during the kinetic/manuever phase. The Iraqi security forces still would have...
But makes it rather fun to drink the "special tea" in the Chinese restaurants.
Cheers,
The Peters' commentary squares with what my colleagues and friends possessed of extensive intimacy with Pakistan have been saying for a number of years before Bhutto's return. But, the general media...
I'm clueless when it comes to Pakistani politics, but my closest colleague would qualify as an expert in most people's books. He lived there for many years, and is married to the daughter of the...
Mainstream media is saying that she was killed. Earlier report was from a press statement by her husband saying she was critically injured.
I'm sorry I came in late to this one. My personal favorite is from Ricks' Fiasco. My friend Paul Arcangeli on page 17:
" 'I actually was surpised to find, the first time I met him, that he was...
Thanks, Stan. I'll e-mail the others to you - still a bit protective of them as I want to get in a good position with them to tweak the humanitarian community for having failed to address the issue....
My organization has conducted something called Landmine Impact Surveys for several years - these efforts werre actually the original reason our team was brought together in late-1998. Our last...
Stan:
Its funny, its been so many years since I've thought of landmines and UXO seperately in the macro sense that I forget that was how it used to be.
I think we should show you the toy our...
The major US office that funds this sort of thing, the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at State has been taking a comprehensive approach to this for some...
Thanks, Stan. My response is similar in vein to what I said to Rex - in a humanitarian context, with such high victimization reported to be occcuring in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the...
Thanks. The purpose of the study is to actually examine this and figure out what, if anything can be added to/extracted from MRE and other types of awareness campaigns to reduce exposure, in...