I am in Tanzania for a few weeks doing a political analysis of the country for USAID. I read the US government’s Country Assistance Strategy for Tanzania this afternoon. It was a bit maddening:

• Even though Tanzania does not have a problem with terrorism, the country’s problem with terrorism was in the first paragraph.
• Even though Tanzania is politically stable, the first paragraph notes that Tanzania’s (non-existent) problem with terrorism could undermine its stability.
• Even though there are no extremist movements in Tanzania, the first paragraph highlights this non-existent problem.

As a result of Tanzania’s fictional problems cited above, the US assistance strategy is to help fight terrorism in Tanzania – a problem which does not exist. Ugh!

This is a little scary. According to General McChrystal, the post-capture plan for Marjah, the Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, is government in a box. The Guardian editorial page has looked inside the box and is unimpressed:

So what is in the box? Once the fighting has ended, Isaf has dedicated “district development teams” to move into Marjah. A US team is working alongside a group of Afghan civil servants which the Karzai government is allegedly meant to deploy. To encourage them to serve in what must be a highly risky secondment, their average monthly salary is being quintupled to about $300. Once all this is done, the plan is for the US Agency for International Development to help farmers plant crops by opening up the canal network, a project started by the US half a century ago, but which it has yet to complete. As if that were not enough, Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister, urged elders from Marjah’s main tribes to give him their sons so that he can recruit 1,000 local police officers, whose job will be to keep the Taliban out.

I can see why the editors at The Guardian are skeptical. I am as well. So is Joshua Foust – a real Afghanistan expert – at Registan.net:

Which brings us back to the discussion about civilian casualties above. Considering how ISAF was embarrassingly unable to figure out why or how it was going to handle the civilians in Marjeh, right up to their inability to postbelievable or consistent population estimates, I’m left with the same thought I had two weeks ago, when ISAF signaled they were really serious about Marjeh this time: what’s the end game? Simply throwing an expatriate Helmandi who lived in Germany for 15 years into the mix – which is the current plan – doesn’t actually address the serious shortcomings the military-led governance issues have had.

Meanwhile, the civilians continue to bear the brunt of this offensive: the Coalition is destroying the barely functioning Taliban “shadow” government in the area, and so far their plan for a viable replacement haven’t moved beyond the vaguest of platitudes. Please, I am begging the readers here: if you know of some plan to leave something functioning in ISAF’s wake, something Afghan-led with a realistic chance of lasting once the 10,000 (or whatever) troops have to leave this tiny area, please let me know about it. Because right now it looks like they’re fighting with no end game in mind. And that’s pretty scary.

I guess there’s always luck…

As I have written before, I am a fan of Al Jazeera. However, a recent report criticizing US aid efforts in Haiti made me pretty angry. The report criticized the US for “taking over,” “deciding who lands in Haiti,” and turning back aid from other nations. The US is pushing its own agenda and is not taking the needs of Haitians into account, according to a former defense minister.

Excuse me, what possible agenda could the US have in Haiti other than aid and reconstruction? It has no natural resources, is one of the poorest countries on earth, and is strategically irrelevant for US national security. What on earth does the US have to gain from aiding Haiti at this moment? Perhaps you say praise. Well, this may be true, but how does the US gain praise if it is turning away aid from other countries? Maybe the US is doing it because it fears mass exodus of Haitians to the US. This is plausible, but if this is the reason, the US agenda is to improve governance in Haiti to reduce demand for emigration. Is this a bad thing? Perhaps you argue the US is attempting to assert its dominance over Haiti. Sure, the US has a history of doing this, but usually for a reason. Why does the US care if Haiti is on its side or not? What does Haiti have that the US wants?

Moreover, I agree that the Government of Haiti should lead the relief efforts. The only problem is that the government doesn’t exist. The president is using a police station as his headquarters because all government buildings have been destroyed. There is no telecommunication infrastructure and Haiti has no army – not a weak army, but no army at all. Sadly, very sadly in fact, the earthquake destroyed the capacity of the Government of Haiti to lead the relief efforts. The UN is a bit better off, but it is in no position to lead the efforts, either.

Finally, I know its not pleasant to hear, but it is important to have infrastructure in place before starting large-scale relief efforts. Currently, the US military is probably the most well-equipped organization on this planet to be able to do this on a moment’s notice. I don’t like the militarization of humanitarian relief efforts and I don’t agree with it, but that is the world we have. Save the moral high ground talk until after the crisis. Just sending food onto the street without some plan for how you are going to distribute it would simply cause chaos.

This report was a gratuitous shot at the US. I am sure the operations are far from perfect, but look at the scope of the disaster. Expecting perfection not very realistic. I haven’t seen any other country offer anything close to the level of assistance the US has and if any other country wants to, let it come forward. Save the criticism for a worthy cause.

With new screening procedures at airports and Newark Airport shut down, the war on flying (a.k.a. security theatre) continues. David Brooks and Glenn Greenwald have recent columns on the danger of this type of hysterical overreaction to terrorism. I agreed with their points, but didn’t really understand the magnitude of what they were addressing until today, listening to the news people on the teevee talk at me. It was the first time I had seen the news on TV since the bombing attempt. It was completely out of control: Obama needs to fire his entire cabinet, airports around the world need to get really, really serious about security, we need to invade Yemen, the borders are insecure. The spittle was flying fast and furious.

Walking to work I had time to internalize what I saw. My reaction while watching TV was the pressure to fight terrorism is really intense, and I suspect that is the superficial point that Obama’s critics are trying to make. After thinking about it for a few minutes it dawned on me that the criticism is good politics for the Republicans and probably has very little to do with terrorism. I won’t go as far as Brooks and Greenwald to say that the politics of fear is undermining democracy (after all most of the war that we see is security theater at the airport), but I do agree with their larger point about that we ask to be treated like children. My advice: watch the Food Network or the Travel Channel instead of the news. You are far more likely to get killed by lightening or in a car crash than by a terrorist, so why not relax and watch Adam Richman attempt to eat a six pound burrito?.

based on the number of retweets I’ve seen of his ‘War on Flying‘ post.

Flying is about to get even more annoying.

In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed a new layer of restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability of international passengers to move about an airplane.

Among other steps being imposed, passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps…

In effect, the restrictions mean that passengers on flights of 90 minutes or less would most likely not be able to leave their seats at all…

Does this mean I will not be able to hold a book or magazine for the last hour of any international flight coming to the US? That’s just great. I tend not to like to talk to people sitting next to me on a plane. I guess I’ll have to change this or get used to staring into space for an hour every time I fly. Also, I guess I’ll really have to watch my liquid intake before and on short flights, since I won’t be able use the bathroom.

As one might anticipate, getting on the plane is about to get more annoying as well.

…American Airlines said the T.S.A. had ordered new measures for flights departing from foreign locations to the United States, including mandatory screening of all passengers at airport gates during the boarding process. All carry-on items would be screened at security checkpoints and again at boarding, the airline said. It urged passengers to leave extra time for screening and boarding.

…Air Canada said…to be prepared for delays, cancellations and missed connections because of the new limits.

That’s just great. Another round of screening, and more missed and cancelled flights. I can’t wait for my next international trip. But, you might ask, don’t I worry about terrorism? Yes, I do. Nonetheless, I think we need to be reasonable about it, not bring international travel to a standstill every time some idiot tries to light a firecracker on a plane. Perhaps that seems reckless to you. Well, think how easy it is to blow up something. If Abdulmutalla wanted to really make a big splash, he could have easily bought some dynamite after he arrived in the US and blown himself up in Times Square; that would have been a big deal. The basic point is that it very easy to commit enormous acts of terrorism in the US, but we see almost none. What this tells me is that terrorism is not such a big threat. Al Qaeda spent $200,000 planning 9/11 and we have spent at least $1 trillion fighting “the war on terrorism.” Somewhere in a cave in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is laughing hysterically – and he’s right.

Kevin Drum nails it:

Apparently al-Qaeda doesn’t need to bother with real terrorism anymore: just light off a firecracker on a plane and the U.S. government will react as if a major city had been leveled. Why not just ban air flight entirely and be done with it?

Ted Piccone argues that Obama’s approach to democracy and human rights requires a difficult and delicate balancing act in the Global Post:

As pragmatic politicians who know that it usually takes compromises to get things done in Washington, Obama and Clinton want to preserve their ability to maneuver through human rights minefields on the world stage without being held hostage to inflated rhetoric that could expose them to charges of hypocrisy. At the same time, they have laid down an important marker that they will treat these issues not as isolated causes but as part of an integrated, interdependent whole.

…solutions to the inevitable conflicts between human rights principles and hard national security interests will be hatched on a case-by-case basis, with an open willingness to try new approaches when old tactics fall short. This is wise, given that the political context in each country is unique and requires tailored strategies. This means our diplomats in embassies around the world really need to do their homework and get out of their secure compounds and cocktail receptions. It also means a much more well-resourced development policy with a fortified battery of analysts, practitioners and aid experts who can sustain the long-term work of investing in legal reforms and strengthening civil society.

David Shorr at Democracy Arsenal pithily calls this “the walk-and-chew-gum problem” because it requires the US government to secure contradictory objectives at once in many countries: pushing for political reform without sacrificing cooperation in important areas. I think the more difficult challenge is reversing the Fortress America mentality at the State Department. The Fortress America mentality prioritizes security above all other objectives. In dangerous countries, it often means that embassy officials have very little contact with the society in which they are living.

I was in Ghana a few years ago, a very safe country. I drove by the recently-completed Fortress America in Accra with two Ghanians.  It looked like a prison: high walls, lots of security. We had a pretty interesting discussion about the embassy. One said it projected arrogance because of its size and menacing architecture. The other Ghanian said it projected fear because the embassy was walled off from the rest of the city. Both points seem accurate to me: in my opinion, arrogance and fear is a good way of describing US foreign policy since 9/11. It’s hard to have “tailored strategies” when you are walled off from the country where you are working. Can Obama tear down the embassy walls?