American Heroes

WASHINGTON — According to Hillary Clinton, “the safety and well-being of Americans has to be our highest priority.” Oh, really? That comment, proffered by our secretary of state Tuesday, is overshadowed by the serious…

The attack on two agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of US Homeland Security in Mexico on February 17th has resulted in a warning by the U.S. embassy in Mexico city for the central state of San Luis Potosi and surrounding areas.

A new report from the University of San Diego sheds more light on the subject: Of the more than 15,600 drug-related killings that took place in 2010 in Mexico, more than 80 percent of them occurred in only four of the country’s 32 states, all in the northern part of the country near the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, the majority of the deaths happened in only five cities – Juarez, Chihuahua, Tijuana, Culiacan and Acapulco.

Despite the attack on the ICE agents last week which took the life of 32-year-old agent Jaime Zapata, the vast majority of the murders in Mexico are due to the various cartels killing each other or fighting with the police and military. As long as you aren’t caught in the crossfire or happen to be perceived as a threat to the cartels, you are probably quite safe most places in Mexico.

But perception is a powerful thing, and the continued violence has caused a sharp decline in the Mexican tourism industry – which is making life difficult for millions of this country’s citizens who rely on tourist dollars to survive.

On my recent trip to Mazatlan – another resort town on the Mexican riviera north of Acapulco, street vendors and taxi drivers are almost frantic in their pursuit of the tourists who are in town. Most of those are from Canada, which probably has to do with the -40 temperatures up there (what’s the threat of a few stray bullets compared to that?).

I went to get my hair cut on Saturday in the resort community where we are living in San Carlos, Mexico. The shop was empty, and when I walked in the stylist was in tears. I asked what was wrong, and she replied simply, “there is no business.”

It’s a scene that is playing out across the country, even in areas that are relatively safe, because Gringo dollars typically make up about ten percent of Mexico’s economy. But considering that the illicit drug trade may also comprise about ten percent of Mexico’s economy, they are now in a situation where two sectors are in direct opposition to one another.

For this reason, more than one Mexican I spoke to expressed the wish that Calderon would simply back off the drug war and leave the criminals alone so things could return to the way they used to be – corrupt but stable.

Hopefully those in power can learn the lessons of history – that appeasment has never proven to be a smart move long term.

WASHINGTON — For days after protests started in Cairo, the Obama administration struggled to find its voice about the “revolution” in Egypt. When the O-Team eventually decided Hosni Mubarak had to go, the White House…

Back in September 2009, I posted about the rise in the use of civilian contractors in Afghanistan. Back then, there were twice as many contractors on the payroll of the Department of Defense serving in Afghanistan than there were soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines combined.

Since then the use of these non-military forces has continued to rise-and in 2010, DOD contractors were being killed at a faster rate than U.S. military personnel. (I can’t find final numbers on the total for contractors killed there in 2010 – but as of June they were running ahead of military casualties.)

This isn’t surprising since the Pentagon and the white house have proven willing to employ contractors for just about everything in the theater – not just as cooks and truck drivers, but helicopter pilots, security guards and many other positions that once would have been the exclusive domain of military presonnel. In fact, there are over 10,000 contractors in Afghanistan who have been given permits to carry firearms, and while they are prohibited by international law from engaging in “offensive operations,” the line between defense and offense in the war-torn country is very hard to draw.

keep in mind that only about ten percent of the contractors hired by the Department of defense are Americans. The rest belong to a host of third-party countries, and there are also a large number of Afghans on the payroll. Some lawmakers are uncomfortable with this, claiming it represents a national security risk.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently instructed the Pentagon to cut its contractor spending by at least 10 percent across the board. But this may be harder than it looks, since nobody seems to know exactly how many contractors they actually employ. Estimates range from 250,000 to 1 million contractors are on the payroll worldwide. That’s a pretty big spread.

Bottom line: Today’s military cannot operate without contractors. But maybe somebody at the Pentagon should keep better track of how many are drawing a paycheck from the U.S. of A.

WASHINGTON — On Thursday morning, the heads of America’s intelligence services went to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on worldwide threats to the United States. We…

Provincial Reconstruction Teams have been active in Afghanistan since 2002, working in remote areas of the country to develop infrastructure and build medical facilities and schools for Afghans who have never known such things. In 2008 I traveled with one PRT in the Panjshir province to villages that had never seen Westerners high up in the Hindu Kush.

They were doing good work, but the lack of security in many places put that work in jeapordy. Taliban forces would often end up gleaning the benefit from millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. And while the work might have built goodwill among the locals, that goodwil was often directed more toward the United States, not the Afghan government.

Last year, General Petraeus shifted the strategy somewhat to try and put more of an Afghan face on the things that are going right in that country, with an eye toward the fact that the U.S. will eventually leave.

Now President Hamid Karzai is calling for the PRTs to pack up and head out. It’s not that he doesn’t want the benefits they provide, he just wants to control the massive amounts of cash to which the PRTs have access. Unfortunately, Karzai’s track record for corruption makes U.S. commanders skeptical, to say the least.

Consider last month’s revelation that the Karzai administration has been trying to tax U.S. aid to his country – to skim a little off the top, so to speak. This is illegal under U.S. law, and has been largely ignored by the contractors who have received the tax bills. But it speaks to Karzai’s desire to exert more control over the purse strings. Only nobody trusts him with the money.

Corruption is still rampant in the Afghan government, and that won’t change anytime soon. To make matters worse, the aid we provide often ends up having the opposite of its intended effect – such as the fact that the irrigation canals dug by USAID in the 1940s are a large part of what enables Afghanistan to grow the poppies that make it the world’s largest producer of heroin. Oops.

Despite all this, our men and women in uniform are continuing to make progress, and the coming spring “fighting season” will be crucial in tipping the scales in favor of victory in the shadow of the Hindu Kush.

One thing is for sure, however, our troops will not be leaving come July, as originally announced by their commander in chief. In fact, negotiations are reportedly underway for permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan, something commanders there have been counting on for years.

A medical missions team from Montana showed up this week in the small fishing village on the sea of Cortez where I’ve been living since mid-december.  This group has been coming down every February for many years, providing free medical clinics to the needy in our area.  This year the group is smaller than normal, likely because of the violence that has been in the news lately, to include the killing of an American missionary in Mexico last week.

And while many missions groups are curtailing their Mexico missions trips, or cutting them out altogether, the need here is still very great.  With tourism down sharply, also due to the violence, this means unemployment is high and getting higher, and many of the poorest Mexicans can’t even afford sufficient food, much less medicine or other necessities.

But perhaps this presents an opportunity for churches in the states to get away from  the short term missions philosophy which has taken hold in the last couple decades in America.  With there being many doubts as to the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of what many long-term missionaries call “missionary tourism,” perhaps you should encourage your church to find one of the many lifetime missionaries who has opted to stay here in Mexico and continue to minister despite the violence, then have a “virtual” missions trip where you raise and send money to help support these missionaries, many of whom have seen their support dwindle due to the recession.  Perhaps the missionary can put your funds to better use, then send your church pictures of the work they are doing here.

Think about it.   Financially, it makes sense.  And the need is very great. 

WASHINGTON — When Barack Obama went to Cairo in June 2009, he was lauded for seeking “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” His speech was spiked with apologies for what he believes…