The Helmand Province (merged thread, not UK or USMC)

[Dayuhan]

An up beat, nay optimistic report by the UK head of the Helmand PRT, which opens with:

How close to the ground is the head of a PRT?

It would be interesting to know if those views are shared by those who aren't the head...

[Stan]

Unlikely that anyone else feels that way !

When we pulled out of Eastern Zaire, only the locals were worried and only the command was pumping the BS. As far as we were concerned, seconds following our last wheels up, the place would go to Sierra.

Not only did it in a big way, it still is going down the tube.

I just realized why I hate journalists (err, public affairs)

[davidbfpo]

Dayuhan asked:

It would be interesting to know if those views are shared by those who aren't the head...

and Stan posted:

Unlikely that anyone else feels that way!

A lurker has added:

There was a big, if not huge rift between the PRT and the military from her belief that the Marines, British and others should have focused more of the development side of things. This was counter to many soldiers who believed that their role was to set the security conditions, and the PRT was expected to get out from its warrens in Lashkar Gah and do what they are charged to do.

[davidbfpo]

The PRT Head on earlier blogs has twice referred to:

Our monitoring shows that by the end of 2012, only 5% of people in Helmand reported that they would support a Taliban return to power.

In January someone asked for details of this polling - no reply to date:http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/catrionalain...tion-building/

[Stan]

My sixth grade teacher would have called it an incomplete on my final grade!

I think we are at over 80 billion dollars and counting, but yet most of the construction is little more than four walls and a roof a decade later.
The finance folks in DC are doing “high fives” and the soldiers are “smelling the barn”.

What we’ve done similar in Africa is a band aid with a Western infrastructure not only incomplete but by local means unsustainable. Why in God’s name would we build a road in the middle of nowhere when for centuries they were doing fine without one ?

We are not bolstering the local government; we are literally financing a political campaign.

Good lord, that guy is little more than another African dictator in Swaziland with the shortest life expectance rate known to man !

When we do Exit Stage Left, those four walls and roof will become building material for the guy down the street, or, at the very least, will become a great surface area for graffiti!