_
Posted on 12/21/2007 9:39:33 PM PST by gpapa
Paul O'Friel has simple advice for his Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Team: "Eat the goat, drink the tea," he says. It's O'Friel's way of instilling in his team members the importance of engaging with the local leaders and people in an area of Iraq pulverized not by IEDs, but by poverty and thirst. "There are some villages here that look like they came out of the Middle Ages," O'Friel told me in a phone interview from Iraq yesterday morning.
As head of the PRT in Al Muthanna province, O'Friel is in charge of bringing this forgotten realm of a broken country into, if not the 21st Century, then at least the 19th. Bordering Saudi Arabia to the south and sandwiched between the two better known provinces of Al Najaf and Al Basra, Muthanna is the poorest of Iraq's 18 provinces. Situated so far away from the central government in Baghdad, Muthanna suffers from a lack of attention and funds. But thanks to O'Friel and his team of 18 workers, things are beginning to turn around.
PRTs are the civilian component of the United States' surge strategy, designed to strengthen and rebuild Iraqi neighborhoods blighted by years of warfare and neglect. There are about 28 PRTs operating in Iraq, with close to 700 civilian members from several U.S. departments, like State, Agriculture and Treasury. Their goal, much like their military counterparts, is to directly engage the local populations to ensure that things get done, because for too many years things weren't getting done.
(Excerpt) Read more at time-blog.com ...
Birria? Bueno!
After they finish getting the infrastructure done, they need to distribute tools and seeds, so these folks can start farming for themselves, and not have to depend on the government for their ‘daily bread’.
That’s a great story. It irritates me when I hear people say we shouldn’t be “nation building”. We’re investing in the lives of people who desperately need help. These men are doing the Lord’s work. Makes me proud.
You never know where that goat’s been.
Its not the villages, its the people.
As long as Islam dominates their thinking they will forever be in the middle ages.
It is sad to contemplate, but in a year after we leave Afghanistan and Iraq they will return to the 14th century and it will be hard to tell we were ever there.
And in a few years time we'll be forced to go back in to clean house again for them.
In Spain thirty years ago, both goat and octopus were on the menu. Goat wasn't bad at all—all spiced-up. (Octopus, when it wasn't rubbery, was superb).
Wild song birds were served-up too, but I passed on those—on principle.
I had goat once at a Jamaican restaurant in western NY. It was fantastic. If it wasn’t for the odd shaped bones, it would be hard to tell it wasn’t beef.
I’ve had octopus too... There is a fine line between great and crap.
Very true...both figuratively and literally, but I'm hoping we're not throwing money around as much anymore. Maybe they'll think twice about trashing their villages just so we will pay them $$$ to clean it up (repeatedly).
_
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.