I saw a few Liberia stories pop up recently so I thought I would highlight them.
First, Voice of America has a story with video (also picked up by Chris Albon) about how the US military, using private contractors, is helping rebuild Liberia's military. The UN does not want to become Liberia's permanent police force, so the US is helping Liberia build an army that will hopefully not partake in its past excesses.
My take on it is that the US is using contractors because it doesn't have any Special Forces available. Past efforts training West African militaries have used both contractors (like MPRI) and uniformed U.S. Special Forces. Based on this 2004 interview regarding the now-defunct Pan-Sahel initiative, actual US personnel were used when they were available because it signaled that we took it seriously and weren't just throwing money at the problem. However with the massive strain Iraq and Afghanistan are putting on our ground forces, including Special Forces, it's likely that there just aren't any uniformed military available for the job.
While there's progress, all is not fine and dandy with Liberia's new military. Soldiers aren't happy with their conditions, and progress in training isn't as fast as some had hoped. The UN says it will not withdraw prematurely. One might say... as Liberians stand up, the UN will stand down.
A more positive story regarding the American military's involvement in Liberia is shown in this Navy press release. The Navy seems to be stepping its efforts up in West Africa, probably recognizing that the Gulf of Guinea's oil production will make it a key area in the future. The Navy press release talks about how Navy personnel in Liberia are renovating two clinics, a school, and repairing a road.
And the final, most important Liberia story is that Liberian former New York Dead Bulls striker Francis Doe is on trial at DC United. Doe is very fast and has good dribbling skills, formerly played in Minnesota and Greece, and has two goals in seven appearances for the Liberian national team. DC United has lots of attacking midfielders but needs another finisher to put the pressure on Emilio, so he doesn't stay fat and happy (Emilio was awful last Wednesday against Pachuca). DC United would be wise to pick him up.
8 comments:
DynCorp has been training the new AFL and I am guessing, which I believe is right, that they are not contractually responsible to feed the soldiers when their initial boot camp is finished....I think the government wants them to do so and why they may have also exposed the soldiers to journalists - something that is actually not done as Public Affairs members are the ones who talk with journalists - so this is quite interesting....also Dyn Corp is now hired by state department to train the special force in the Liberian police force - DynCorp had the initial contract to train the Liberian Police and lost it to the UN - as an insider who would like to remain anonymous, it would have been better for the US military to have done the training for various reasons. DynCorp has so far kept itself out of the media because former employees have not wanted to expose what has gone on there as once you do that, you may not be able to deal with the aftermath. The company has made its millions though and this is the real ugly part of the story. If it had been the US military training the AFL, at least it would have cost much less to US taxpayers and I believe the AFL would be trained as well or better. DynCorp has had a policy in Liberia to lay off Americans and hire mostly third-party nationals - which does save some money but I fear that the savings just goes into the pockets of the overpaid higher ups in the company itself. I pray one day that a serious journalist delves deeply into the DynCorp jobs in Liberia - they would find some very interesting facts that the US public would be interested to know!
Thanks for the comment, anonymous!
I agree with you that it'd be very surprising if DynCorp had agreed to feed the Liberian soldiers longer than absolutely necessary. Plus West African militaries don't have the best logistics in the world and Liberia still has higher corruption than normal even for a West African country, so even if the government sends food to the soldiers, a lot of it could be sold for profit along the way.
lastest news is PAE is suppose to feed the soldiers but the news stories coming out of liberia are all very confusing as the journalism is often very poor and this also creates confusion....we will see what happens
um i dontknow what you mean.................but i like pie
yes i do ......a lot favourite is apple pie
bye
post something soon
Well as is often the case, the facts are not exactly on the table here. Regarding the troop feeding issue, both contractors did exactly what they were contracted to do. This included feeding all initial entry trainees three meals a day, seven days a week (DynCorp). PAE was responsible for field rations when troops went to the field for training.
What happened in the press is not grounded in the facts. Eventually the contractors were given the additional task of feeding all permanent party soldiers two meals a day until 2009. Having been deeply involved in this issue I can assure that the press did not accurately report what was required of the contractors, or what was really happening.
Post a Comment