This is a cool little article that mentioned the work that MPRI is doing currently in Africa as part of the ACOTA program. It just shows how important companies like this, or Bancroft Global, Dyncorp, Halliday Finch or Sterling Corporate Services are to the task of trying to stabilize Somalia. –Matt
U.S. trains African soldiers for Somalia mission
By Craig Whitlock
May 13, 2012
The heart of the Obama administration’s strategy for fighting al-Qaeda militants in Somalia can be found next to a cow pasture here, a thousand miles from the front lines.
Under the gaze of American instructors, gangly Ugandan recruits are taught to carry rifles, dodge roadside bombs and avoid shooting each other by accident. In one obstacle course dubbed “Little Mogadishu,” the Ugandans learn the basics of urban warfare as they patrol a mock city block of tumble-down buildings and rusty shipping containers designed to resemble the battered and dangerous Somali capital.
“Death is Here! No One Leaves,” warns the fake graffiti, which, a little oddly, is spray-painted in English instead of Somali. “GUNS $ BOOMS,” reads another menacing tag.
Despite the warnings, the number of recruits graduating from this boot camp — built with U.S. taxpayer money and staffed by State Department contractors — has increased in recent months. The current class of 3,500 Ugandan soldiers, the biggest since the camp opened five years ago, is preparing to deploy to Somalia to join a growing international force composed entirely of African troops but largely financed by Washington.
A big hat tip to David Isenberg for finding this one. Great little paper and the real value here is all the history between the UN and private military and security companies listed in this thing. Here is a snippet about PAE in Africa which I thought was interesting.
PMSCs in UN humanitarian operations …..The role played by PAE in MONUC serves as a more recent illustration of how a PMSC has been deployed in a UN peace operation. In June 2004 Congolese students released a wave of violence in central and eastern parts of the DRC in protest at the UN mission’s failure to prevent atrocities in Ituri province. The frustration of the Congolese civil war was directed towards UN associated personnel and facilities. PAE was an integral part of the UN operation. It ran six airfields for the mission and its employees drove UN vehicles and were considered UN workers by locals – and hence were also subject to attacks. The violence in Kisangani included burning the UN headquarters in the city to the ground, UN staff housing was attacked and burned, and over 70 UN vehicles were stoned and set ablaze. As the UN military contingent withdrew, 300 UN staff fled to the local airport where they demanded emergency evacuation from the city, fearing they would be killed by the rioting mobs. PAE workers prepared for and carried out the evacuation of the UN staff, while the PAE teams stayed behind to complete their contract. This example in particular illustrates a fundamental dependency on commercial companies for essential tasks in certain peacekeeping operations, and suggests that at times private contractors may face more risks than UN personnel.
The other thing that I liked about the paper is that it showed the hypocrisy of the UN and their view of this industry. Here they have the UN Working Group on Mercenaries which criticizes everyone for using PMSC’s, and yet in the same breath, the UN had companies like Executive Outcomes on their vender list. Or they use PMSC’s all over the world to help secure operations and protect personnel.
Anyway, here is the paper and definitely check it out. Let me know what you think in the comments section. –Matt
Thanks to Clay over at the FJ Facebook Page for pointing this one out. I wish the families success in their case. –Matt
Appeals Court Lets Contractor’s Family Sue Palestinian Authority Over His Death
August 14, 2011
An appeals court ruling allows a case to proceed against the Palestinian Authority by the family of a contractor killed by a roadside bomb while providing security to State Department employees during an October 2003 trip to the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, the three-judge panel, members of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, released a ruling explaining that the family of Mark Parsons can sue the Palestinian Authority under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1991 over questions of material support by the PA to a terror group. The decision overturns part of a lower court’s summary judgment in favor of the PA.
“Although we agree with the district court that the family’s conspiracy claim theories are too speculative to survive summary judgment, we believe a reasonable juror could conclude that Palestinian Authority employees provided material support to the bomber,” reads the ruling.
Mark Parsons and two other members of DynCorp International were killed by a roadside bomb while protecting a convoy that included State Department employees on their way to interview Palestinian Fulbright Scholarship applicants. A roadside bomb exploded as the convoy traveled past the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, about a quarter of a city block away from a manned PA security checkpoint.
Very cool and it is about time. Although I do have a few misgivings about the blog itself, and this is stuff that can easily be fixed. First, there needs to be an RSS feed for the thing. I continue to see companies make this mistake, and it is just a simple little deal that makes a blog more useful. Guys like myself hunt for RSS feeds to put into our readers, and if you don’t have one then we just kind of forget about your site.
Some other ideas is to have a moderated comments section. If you check out my comments section on this blog, you will see that folks have the choice of entering a name and email, or signing in using Twitter or Facebook. This is the way to go, just because the easier it is for readers to sign in, the easier it will be for them to interact on the site. I use Intense Debate, but there are others out there.
Which is the other thing that kind of strikes me here. Who is the author? Is it Ashley Burke, the media relations person or who? So definitely sign off on who wrote the posts, and most of all, get that individual to interact with the readership. Especially if the CEO writes a post. Blogs are great tools for interacting with your readership. And the best thing with moderated comments, is that you can filter out those who have no interest in having a reasonable conversation or who are spammers.
Some technical issues would be to have a more complete site map at the footer, and have clear links going to the DynCorp corporate page, and clear links going to the blog. So really make it easy for the reader to know where they are at, and give them a map and clear signage as to where to go throughout your websites. An archives is important to, and put a search box on there so folks can search through your posts. Also, I did not see any tags, and that isn’t cool. All of this stuff is important to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and if DI wants to own the story about the ‘their’ company, then they need to do the things necessary that pleases Google Search.
Which along those lines, DI should also set up an official Twitter and Facebook Page. Even a Linkedin Page would be cool, although they might already have that. Either way, get hooked up on all the top social networking sites, and then link all of them together so that every time you make a post on the blog, the post automatically goes to those sites. Google Search really likes that kind of stuff, and it will help in SEO. You would really be top notch if you linked your jobs to all of those sites, and put a RSS feed on your career section. That way, as soon as new jobs come up, folks can find out about them and jump on it. (US Training Center has an excellent jobs section, that has all of the important information and tools that job seekers like) Oh, and don’t forget about a newsletter or some kind of subscription service. Those are very easy to set up using stuff like Feedburner or whatever.
Just some ideas, and it’s a step in the right direction guys. It is also a challenge to the other PSC’s and PMC’s in this industry. If DI has a blog, where is your blog? –Matt
About Inside DI
June 10, 2011
Learn more about the people of DynCorp International, our most recent company news, key contract wins, the causes we support and other fun facts.
Link to blog here.
Rest in peace to the fallen. Brett was part of a very important effort in Afghanistan to train the Afghan police forces. He has paid the ultimate sacrifice and the US and Afghanistan both owe him and all contractors whom have paid the ultimate sacrifice in this war a tremendous amount of gratitude. My heart goes out to the friends and family… –Matt
Brett Benton
Kenton PD mourns loss of former sergeant
Jun. 6, 2011
By Brenna R. Kelly
No one wanted Brett Benton to leave the Kenton County Police Department.The well-liked officer had been there for 10 years, started the department’s K-9 program and had been promoted to sergeant.“He was one of the best and brightest that we have, no question about it,” said Chief Ed Butler. “He was the kind of police officer you like to have work for you as the chief.”But Benton had a plan.He and his wife of nearly nine years wanted to move to from their Dry Ridge home to Madison County.
