Phi Beta Iota: We thought we would look at one month's English-language news reporting on the term <stabilization and reconstruction> in relation to top countries of concern to the USA. Here is what we found. Our general conclusion: the US is doing all it can in Afghanistan; the Strategic Communication in Iraq is totally hosed, no one knows how to get the word out on all the good things being done as we transition from advise & assist to exit; and we are totally out to lunch on Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. As is its custom, the US Government is waiting for those three places to explode into a fiery inferno rather than ramping up what General Al Gray, USMC, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, called “peaceful and preventive measures.”
Afghanistan
AFG IJC Op's Update, Dec. 1: Reconstruction in Zabul Province; Casualty Update
Afghanistan and Pakistan: Anatomy of a Proxy War
Afghanistan stabilization may depend on Indo-Pakistani reconciliation
Afghans Assess Roles for NATO, U.N., Regional Actors
Agencies sending more civilians to Afghanistan
Canada must keep up aid after leaving Afghanistan, say locals
Contractors Watching Contractors
‘Germany Is Not Armed for War'
Indo-Pak-Afghan knot: threat to region’s stability?
Korea refutes Taliban statement
Lithuania will continue working towards stability in Afghanistan
Local shuras, jirgas and local community efforts in Afghanistan
Nation-Building in Afghanistan
On Afghanistan, Obama finds friend in India
Predoiu: Romania to increase number of troops in Afghanistan by 100
Provincial reconstruction team builds up Zabul to benefit Afghans, future generations
Remarks at the American Enterprise Institute
The Regional Alternative to Escalation in Afghanistan
Top UN official: Civil effort needs restructuring
Turkey not to send troops to Afghanistan
U.S. asks Gulf states for help in Afghanistan
US envoy says China can help Afghans
Iraq
Blair adviser: US did not expect to stabilize Iraq
Inherited wars, inherited corruption
Iraq hopes Babylon ruins translate into tourist dollars
Rethinking the American Way of War
U.S. and Iraq become partners in education
U.S. Brigade Makes Steady Reconstruction Progress in Iraq
Somalia
No articles with term “stabilization and reconstruction”
Sudan
Testimony by John Prendergast at the Review of the U.S.-Sudan Policy Hearing
Yemen
UAE to give Yemen Dh2.4b development grant