Peace Corps News

Michael O'Hanlon writes: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq

Michael O'Hanlon writes: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq
In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more.

Phillip Carter writes: Why O'Hanlon's latest good news from Iraq doesn't matter
In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

Today, in Iraq, we face a similar conundrum. Our vaunted military has won every battle against insurgents and militias—from the march up to the "thunder runs" that took Baghdad; the assaults on Fallujah to the battles for Sadr City. And yet we still find ourselves stuck in the sands of Mesopotamia. In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack argue that "[w]e are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." They go on to describe the myriad ways the surge is succeeding on the security front. But in emphasizing this aspect of current operations, they downplay the more critical questions relating to political progress and the ability of Iraq's national government to actually govern. Security is not an end in itself. It is just one component, albeit an important one, of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Unless it is paired with a successful political strategy that consolidates military gains and translates increased security into support from the Iraqi people, these security improvements will, over time, be irrelevant.

O'Hanlon and Pollack report progress from several diverse Iraqi cities, including Sunni-dominated Ramadi, Arab-Kurdish-Turkman Tal Afar and Mosul, and Shiite-Sunni Baghdad. Curiously, the scholars' dispatch ignores Baqubah, Samarra, Kirkuk, and the areas south of Baghdad—places with the highest sectarian tensions, worst fighting, and least progress.

The short, selective itinerary raises questions about who planned the trip, whom O'Hanlon and Pollack were able to talk with, and what they actually saw—as opposed to what they were briefed on during visits to U.S. bases. At best, these two men saw enough of Iraq to get a glimpse of reality there. At worst, they saw a Potemkin Village of success stories, not unlike the picture shown to visiting congressional delegations, that left them with a false vision of progress. Read more.

Read more about RPCV Michael O'Hanlon.

Read more about RPCVs and Iraq.

Michael O'Hanlon claims "soft partition" already occurring in Iraq

Michael O'Hanlon claims "soft partition" already occurring in Iraq
Although senior Iraqi officials have strongly opposed a partition and the Bush administration has no interest in it, O'Hanlon claims that it's already occurring. "It is what's happening on the ground. Iraq is being torn apart; Iraq is being divided along sectarian lines whether most Iraqis want it or not. Al-Qaida strategy in that regard has been working," he said. "Iraq is being ethnically segregated. Ethnic cleansing is on its way, it's happening, and at least a couple million people have been displaced. It's becoming Bosnia in some ways.

"We would rather manage the process than have the death squads and the militias do the separation for us," O'Hanlon said. "The United States cannot impose partition for Iraq. Only Iraqis can decide this," Joseph said. "Iraqis have already agreed to an extent. The constitution already contains the fundamental vision for a soft partition." The plan would call for American troops to stay in Iraq for 12 to 18 months in order to help protect Iraqis relocating to their own sect's region. Although such a move would be voluntary, Joseph said the pressure of being a minority in a hostile neighborhood would eventually sway those who decide not to move.

Regional boundaries would have to be drawn, with outside help, to mediate any arguments over territory. Those who would have to be uprooted, estimated at 5 million by O'Hanlon and Joseph, would then have to be given assistance in building a new life. That would be done through a house-swapping scheme and a job-creation program, which should create 3 million jobs paying roughly $1,000 a year.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more.

RPCVs return to their Countries of Service in Africa

Congo Kinshasa RPCV Beth Duff-Brown writes: I kept my promise. The last time I was here, I told the village I would come back again in 10 years
I kept my promise. The last time I was here, I told the village I would come back again in 10 years. My cook, Tshinyama, is still alive, despite rumors to the contrary. The tin roofs are rustier, and some of the mango trees are gone. But the same bells rang at 5:30 this morning at the old brick church, where I've been given a tiny room and cot, and the choir sang hymns that I knew by heart when I first was here.

We started off yesterday morning, shopping in Kananga, the diamond-rich province in south-central Congo. We went by the Beltexco, a massive provisions chain, so I could shop for the children and buy myself some beans and rice. With Jim's old pickup truck, we bought 200 notebooks - something many children can't afford - and hundreds of pens, rubber balls, powdered milk, soap, onions and oil. The head of Beltexco, when he heard what we were doing, donated 10 cartons of high-glucose biscuits for the kids.

We then transferred everything to a Nissan 4x4 for the 100-mile drive south. A trip that would take about 90 minutes on a paved road takes us six hours. The road is so red and sandy that getting up to 40 mph is rare. There's a debate in Congo on how many miles of paved roads there are in a country the size of the United States east of the Mississippi - some say 300 miles, others say 600 miles.

We arrive at dusk, and the priest at the mission does what most Congolese do when they meet a stranger from a foreign land: He welcomes me in and makes me at home. When word gets out that I've come back, people from around this village of about 3,000 people gather at the church rectory, quietly whispering my name and asking if it's really me. Read more.

Constance G. Konold revisits Cameroon
In December 2003, I made a sentimental trip back to my former Peace Corps posting in Central Africa. Comparable in population size only to my hometown of South Bend, the city of Garoua and the village of Pitoa where I had taught English are dusty sub-Saharan outposts cornered by Nigeria, Chad and the Central African Republic.

Thirty-five years ago, joining the Peace Corps was so daring for its time that I knew I was doing it over my father's protests from the grave. Friends were impressed when FBI agents called on them to check my references. I had recently earned my master's degree from the University of Notre Dame, but when I was assigned to "the Cameroons" (those recently joined French and English colonies were once known as that), I thought I was headed to islands in the South Pacific rather than a country in Africa.

My arrival -- just as Angela was finishing her first three months of Peace Corps service -- was portentous. I was amused and alarmed to see her mirroring events and emotions I had experienced. I found myself parroting Peace Corps Proverb No. 1: Stick out the hellish first three months and be rewarded with a lifetime of heavenly memories. I skipped the corollary to that which is: You can never go home to mall-heaven again. This she will learn in two years when erstwhile friends will inspect her as an oddity from a safe distance and her family, after an initial attempt at enthusiasm, will eventually change the subject whenever Cameroon is mentioned.

When we met, Angela was suffering from Peace Corps doldrums. A volunteer's mother had just been trampled to death by an elephant in the nearby bush. Five volunteers had just been sent home HIV-positive. She was underemployed with only eight hours of work per week, teaching math and biology in English at the Garoua high school. And when she taught, she had to deal with 60 students per classroom. She was trying to fill time by learning the Fulani language, Foufulde, or improving her French.

Pretty, slim, bright and blonde, she was also dealing with the frustrating realization that platonic friendships are deemed fairy tales in this culture where polygamy is still condoned. And there didn't seem to be any potential women friends beating a path to her door. Angela also was upset that the locals labeled her "nasara" or foreigner. That very morning I had been thrilled to be greeted by "Nasara! Nasara!" as I strolled the legendary Pitoa market, a weekly crossroads of Hausa, Fulani, Fali, Kirdi and M'Bororo ethnic groups. With time, Angela will learn that nasara is not pejorative but merely descriptive. She will learn how to feel comfortable being the only white face in the crowd.

Despite the physical and emotional challenges of Peace Corps service, I told Angela that those two years were the best and most informative of my life. I wanted to take myself totally out of context to test my mettle, to find out if I was a survivor without the framework of my family and community. I gained a clear view of myself and my country from a new perspective, through a different ethnic and cultural lens. What I learned gave me the self- confidence and flexibility to live a fascinating existence in many foreign countries on several continents with people from all walks of life. I also gained in friendship thanks to my Peace Corps volunteer network which, to this day, remains a precious touchstone for me in the U.S. while I continue to live abroad.

The new breed of volunteers, many of whom are mall-trained and addicted to the Internet, are apt to complain if they so much as lose cell-phone service. My generation-old tales of having to harvest peanuts with a machete, deal with hot- and cold-running cockroaches, learn to dunk eggs in a bucket of water to test for freshness, buy live chickens rather than possibly tainted butchered ones, and not think of the flies that had swarmed on the gorgeous pieces of beef fillet on my dinner plate might now be nothing more than engrossing hardship stories used as a Peace Corps leadership tool.

Since our meeting, Angela has decided not to throw in the towel. She has come to see Cameroon as one of the most hospitable countries in the world and that it is possible for Cameroonians to excel intellectually and professionally. Read more.

Return to Guinea-Bissau by RPCV Matthew Bremen
I spent this past summer as a U.S. Department of State intern in Guinea-Bissau, where two years before I had finished a stint as a Peace Corps volunteer. Upon arrival, as soon as I left the aircraft, it felt like being home again. It was 2:00 a.m. on a hot and humid night. Familiar faces, smells, and sounds surrounded me. Although it had been two years, it felt like I had left Bissau only yesterday. During the usual hour spent waiting for my backpack, I realized that my experience this time around would be quite different. Not only was I whisked through customs by one of the U.S. Embassy drivers, but my apartment in the U.S. Embassy compound was more comfortable than the apartment I had just left in Washington DC. My work would be quite different too. Needless to say, my Peace Corps days were over. It was time to get used to being a part of the diplomatic community.

Administering the Ambassador’s development project fund exposed me to a different type of development work. The Special Self-Help fund assists local groups by providing financial aid to build schools, wells, dispensaries and other public works. The process was complicated from the start because of budget cuts at the Department of State. Upon my arrival, I was expected to solicit and review proposals, make site visits, oversee the final selection process, and do all the paperwork necessary to commit the funds, including drafting the grant agreements all in three months. As many of us have learned while working at the local level, development initiatives are most sustainable when launched from within the community. I was lucky to team up with a Foreign Service National with nine years of institutional memory from working on SSH programs in Guinea-Bissau. I soon began to understand the philosophy behind the fund.

Returning to Guinea-Bissau as a State Department intern allowed me to gain a broader understanding of development work. Whether or not one agrees with the source or management of "development project" funds, understanding a foreign government or international organization’s objectives is important. While waiting at the airport before I was to leave for the United States, a friend of mine asked if I would return to Guinea-Bissau. "Of course," I replied, knowing that I would, although not knowing when or in what capacity. After I said tearful good-byes and took in the sounds and smells of the country for one last time, my plane took off. Looking out of the window during takeoff I noticed a change. There were far more zinc-roofed houses than I recalled from before. In Guinea-Bissau, zinc is more expensive than thatch, and zinc roofs can be seen as symbols of prosperity. With the proliferation of NGOs, varied international support, and a greater emphasis on local initiative, positive change does seem to be taking place.  Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Volunteers who return to their Countries of Service.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Global Warming

Congo Kinshasa RPCV Beth Duff Brown writes: Global Warming Effects Hunting for Inuit
Nattaq and other Inuit, the Arctic people of the United States, Canada, Russia, and Greenland - in Alaska where they're known as Eskimos - have been warning the world for more than a decade about the shifting winds and thinning ice. Hunting patterns thousands of years old are in jeopardy. 'Our way of life is at stake,' says Sheila Watt-Cloutier, just nominated with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change. Watt-Cloutier will argue before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington on Thursday that the United States, as the world's largest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, is violating her people's rights.

While for many global warming is a distant threat, for the Inuit its impact is a reality now. 'It's about real people who live on top of the world,' she said this week before leaving for the hearing. The commission, part of the Organization of American States, has no authority over the U.S. government. But Watt-Cloutier says she's looking for a moral and political victory, to help make climate change a bigger issue in future elections. Nattaq is one of 63 Inuit from Canada and Alaska on the OAS petition she is representing, filed on behalf of the world's 155,000 Inuit. Read more.

RPCV Mike Tidwell's house, once an ordinary 1915 bungalow, has become perhaps the closest thing to a "zero-carbon" home in the area
Across the Washington area, homeowners alarmed about utility rates and greenhouse gases are seeking to slash their power use or produce their own energy from renewable sources. Among them, Tidwell and a handful of others have succeeded in creating homes that require only minimal energy from power plants and fossil fuels. Tidwell, an environmental activist concerned with climate change, has outfitted his home with energy-efficient appliances, a corn-burning stove and solar panels. Now, the two-story house sometimes produces more electricity than it needs and sends the surplus to Pepco's distribution system.

Tidwell and his then-wife started with a $7,500 home-equity loan. They replaced incandescent light bulbs with more costly compact fluorescent bulbs, which work in the same fixtures and provide the same light but use a third as much energy. They bought an EPA-designated "Energy Star" refrigerator, which cost $150 more but used less than a third as much power. For heat, they replaced a natural-gas furnace with a $2,400 stove that burns corn kernels. Because corn consumes carbon dioxide as it grows, burning it doesn't release new greenhouse gases, he said. The corn, of a type used for animal feed, is grown in Mount Airy and brought to Takoma Park in a truck that burns soy-based biodiesel fuel. In town, the corn is stored in a 25-foot-tall silo owned by a community cooperative. In especially cold months, Tidwell has to get a load once a week. Author Mike Tidwell, founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action  Committee, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more.

Congressman Thomas Petri working on bill to ease global warming
Thomas Petri has co-authored legislation with Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., called the Keep America Competitive Global Warming Policy Act, a bill that gradually imposes restrictions on the carbon-based pollution that many scientists believe is causing global warming. A little over a week ago Petri and Udall met with leaders of major businesses and environmental groups in Washington, D.C., to discuss global warming issues and the framework advanced at that meeting calls for a mandatory cap-and-trade program with specific limits on greenhouse emissions. Petri said businesses that succeed in reducing emissions would be allowed to sell unused emission allowances to other businesses that are having greater difficulty complying with limits.

Petri said the legislation that is being proposed is very similar to what European countries are doing to help the environment but admitted that it would be impossible for every industry to reduce all of their emissions. “The whole idea of making limestone is to heat it, and it emits carbon,” Petri said. “But we need it for cement and a variety of other things. So if you had a one size fits all and you said you can't emit, they would be out of business and it would disrupt our economy.  “This is more of a balance approach that will enable people to emit if it is really necessary, but will kind of discourage them from doing it and encourage people to use technology to reduce emissions as much as possible,” he added. “It's a place to start. It doesn't make everyone real happy but it looks like it is going to get pretty broad support.”

Petri admitted there is a large amount of controversy surrounding global warming and that most people think carbon-based emissions have some sort of an effect on the issue. “It is true the Earth warmed and cooled a number of times before people got involved, but it's also true that there has been a big increase in carbon-based emissions into the atmosphere,” Petri said. “Mostly everybody thinks that has some contributing factor to global warming.”  Congressman Tom Petri of Wisconsin served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia in the 1960's. Read more.

Read more about what Returned Peace Corps Volunteers are doing about Global Warming.

RPCVs comment of President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq

Senator Dodd's Prepared Remarks at Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on the President's plan for a Surge
The time for blunt force is long past.  Instead, we ought to withdraw our combat troops from urban centers of sectarian conflict, where they are simply cannon fodder. We ought to focus on training reliable Iraqi security forces whose allegiance is to the greater Iraqi people, not to any specific sect. We need to redouble counterterrorism efforts and border security to deny al-Qaeda a failed-state foothold. And, perhaps most importantly, we must engage Iraq’s leaders and its neighbors to promote political reconciliation.

If the only solution to Iraq a is political one, diplomacy is the only weapon we have left.  What has the administration been doing in the last four weeks? Since the time the Iraq Study Group’s report was released, almost 100 American soldiers have been killed and by many estimates, four to five thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed in the widening strife.And the President’s solution to all of this was to ignore the most important recommendations of the Iraq Study Group – namely “robust diplomacy,” and instead settle on an escalation of our current combat strategy. This is a tactic in search of a strategy, and it will not bring us a stable Iraq.

Senator Dodd served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic in the 1960's.  Read more stories about Senator Dodd.

Caption: Senate Dodd at the at Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing with Senators Kerry and Biden.

Michael O'Hanlon writes: A Skeptic's Case For the Surge
However mediocre its prospects, each main element of the president's plan has some logic behind it. On the military surge itself, critics of the administration's Iraq policy have consistently argued that the United States never deployed enough soldiers and Marines to Iraq. Now Bush has essentially conceded his critics' points. To be sure, adding 21,500 American troops (and having them conduct classic counterinsurgency operations) is not a huge change and may be too late.

But it would still be counterintuitive for the president's critics to prevent him from carrying out the very policy they have collectively recommended. Rather than deny funding for Bush's initiatives, Congress should provide it now -- but only for fiscal 2007 (meaning through September). By that point, or even the August congressional recess, we should know if the surge is showing promise. If it does, Congress could consider continuing its support. If not, the moment will be right to force the president's hand and move to a backup plan. If the surge fails, we will need a whole new paradigm for Iraq policy, and it is hardly too soon for Congress to start fleshing out our choices. But for now, Congress should also give the president the money and support that he requests.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more by Michael O'Hanlon.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Michael O'Hanlon writes: Iraq is one of the top five deadliest places on earth

RPCV Michael O'Hanlon writes: Iraq is one of the top five deadliest places on earth
"The simplest conclusion to reach is that Iraq, now one of the two or three most violent places on Earth, is in civil war but not yet all-out absolute civil war. Does it matter? Politically, here at home, I believe Americans care less about semantics and more about whether they sense we have a credible strategy for victory — or at least for achieving some measure of stability in Iraq.(Research from various scholars, including Duke University professor Peter Feaver who now works for President Bush, backs up this generalization about what most determines American public support for the nation's wars.) I think the answer is that clearly Americans do not believe we are winning. They do not believe we presently have a strategy that will change the trajectory in Iraq. In other words, we already knew we were losing, whether one called this a civil war or not. The important question is can we turn things around, not whether we can find some way to spin events in Iraq into a more positive picture than the facts warrant. But let's call a spade a spade: Right now we are part of a losing operation, and Iraq is in a civil war. What is more, American voters know it — meaning that 2007 will probably be make or break time for this country's willingness to continue the war effort."

Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa.