Family Transportation

As I roll around the streets of [REDACTED] I've been counting how many people will fit on the motorbikes that make up at least half of the vehicles on the roads of this South Central Asian city. I call them motorbikes because they're not really motorcycles, just bicycle-looking deals with maybe 200cc engines.

I've seen two, three and four people on a bike, but my favorite is the family transportation scenario: a three or four year-old child sitting on the handlebars, the father driving, an older kid behind the father, and then the mother, who is riding side-saddle and holding a baby on her back.

If you tried that in the States, you would probably be arrested for child endangerment. But, l have to say it looks like fun.

Out and About

Ingredients for an evening out here in [REDACTED]:

* One pretty good restaurant
* Three fully armoured SUVs
* Eight police escorts

The food wasn't bad, and the company was inspiring.

Wake Me When We Get to Dubai

The first leg of my 2010 Keep On Truckin' Tour.

"X" Marks the Spot of Latest FRUS Volume

Another day, another new FRUS volume:

The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume X, Vietnam, January 1973–July 1975. This specific volume covers U.S. policy towards Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973, to the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon in April 1975. The final chapter covers the May 1975 SS Mayaguez incident.

This volume addresses the ending of the Vietnam war; a story central to the U.S. experience in the 20th century. Similar to other Foreign Relations volumes, this collection of documents emphasizes the formation of policy over day-to-day diplomacy. Several themes dominated U.S. policy and policy objectives in Indochina during this period: the relationship between force and diplomacy, the struggle between the President and Congress in the formation and implementation of U.S. policy, U.S. credibility in the world, and the limits of American power. These themes dictated the selection of documents in this volume. Soon after the fall of Saigon in April 1975, American officials in several agencies began looking back at U.S. policy toward, and political and military actions, in Vietnam in an effort to understand and learn from the American experience in Indochina beginning in the early 1960s. This volume places those analyses within the broader documentary context.

This volume concludes with documentation covering the May 1975 seizure by Cambodia of the SS Mayaguez and the successful recovery by U.S. forces of the ship and its crew. The documents cover the crisis deliberations in Washington among civilian and military officials that led to President Ford’s decision to use military force to recover the ship.

You can download Volume X (here) courtesy of the Office of the Historian's website, and read it from the comfort of your own home or favorite Wi-Fi hotspot. Is that the greatest thing ever, or what?

Hey, Macarena!

Colombian news media are reporting today on the demise of Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, the most important military leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (AKA the FARC), after a devastating raid on a major jungle camp in the Macarena region.

This may have been another success for the State Department's Narcotics Rewards Programs, which offered 5 million Yankee dollars for Suarez Rojas:

Victor Julio SUAREZ ROJAS, also known as "Jorge Briceno Suarez," also known as "Mono Jojoy" is a Secretariat member, the Chief of Military Operations, and has served as commander of the Eastern Bloc. He set the FARC’s cocaine policies directing and controlling (i) the production, manufacture, and distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world; (ii) the "taxation" of the drug trade in Colombia to raise funds for the FARC; and, (iii) the murder of hundreds of people who violated or interfered with the FARC’s cocaine policies. He authored the written directive commanding FARC members to execute farmers who fail to sell cocaine paste to the FARC.

The U.S. Department of State is offering a REWARD OF UP TO $5 MILLION for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Victor Julio SUAREZ ROJAS.

I don't know whether the reward offer had anything to do with the raid, but if it did, that would be exactly the way I would want my tax money spent. Here are some details from the Huffington Post:

Colombia's military killed the No. 2 leader and top military strategist of the country's main rebel army in blistering bombardments of a major jungle camp, officials announced Thursday, saying rebel informants helped prepare the demoralizing shock to an already weakened insurgency.

-- Snip --

[Colombian President Juan Manuel] Santos told reporters that at least 20 rebels were killed, including other senior insurgents whose identities were not disclosed pending fingerprint and DNA tests, in operations that began Monday night with bombing raids involving at least 30 warplanes and 27 helicopters and ended with ground combat on Wednesday.

-- Snip --

Air force chief Gen. Julio Gonzalez told the AP that Super Tucano and other warplanes dropped more than 50 bombs on the camp.

Commandos found Briceno's body outside a concrete bunker in a camp laced with tunnels and recovered 12 laptop computers and 50 USB drives, said a military spokesman, speaking anonymously because he wasn't authorized to provide details.

The spokesman said the raid was six months in the making and included surveillance of radio communications and human infiltration.

The key to its success was intelligence, including "the collaboration of members of the FARC itself," said Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera. "The FARC is rotting inside."

He did not offer specifics, though other officials told the AP they were discussing reward payments to collaborators.

The U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million reward for Briceno. The biggest reward known to have been paid for fingering a FARC commander was $2.5 million to an unknown informant who led authorities to Reyes' camp [referring to a March 2008 bombing raid across the border with Ecuador that killed FARC foreign minister Raul Reyes].

-- Snip --

[Defense Minister Rodrigo] Rivera said Briceno was caught at "the mother of all FARC camps," a complex some 300 yards (meters) from end to end. He said troops engaged rebels in ground combat on Wednesday and were only able to confirm Briceno's death on Thursday morning. Rivera said five troops were injured with the only government death an explosives-sniffing dog.

Too bad about the dog.

Truckin' My Blues Away

The Keep on Truckin' Man is an iconic image of optimism to old hippies - according to Wikipedia, anyway - and he is doubly appropriate for me today. First, because I am packing my bags for another road trip. And second, because I am truckin' to some of those embassies and consulates that my hero, former Ambassador Ronald Neumann, calls carbomb-prone places, and where I will have to put a big security foot down.

I dislike being the skunk at the garden party. I would much rather be the helpful problem solver when I visit the field, but some places call for being the troglodyte security guy instead. When I worked at another international organization, we headquarters types traveled to country offices only when they wanted us to (and funded our travel), so a TDYer could always count on being welcome. It's a bit stickier for me at DOS, especially when I am called upon to crush the hopes of people who are already working in one of the most difficult and stressful environments in the world, and just want a little lightening of their oppressive security environment.

Gilbert and Sullivan were right. When constabulary duty's to be done, a policeman's lot is not a happy one. But I'll keep my spirits up all the way to my destination by truckin' my blues away.

Gratuitous Rant

I just made a quick Starbucks run during the first few minutes of the streaming video of the Senate confirmation hearing for the new Ambassador to Pakistan. At least, I thought it would be quick, since Starbucks is only 50 feet away from the front door of my Rosslyn annex building, but I was caught in a long line of customers and had to cool my heels for about 20 minutes.

But that wasn't the annoying part. The annoying part was when people would walk in to Starbucks, look at the loooong line of customers snaking through the store, and ask me "are you in line?"

While I know it is petty of me, and unreasonable, and totally uncalled for and unwarranted ... still ... I can't help but be irritated by that question. I always have to bite my tongue so I don't reply the way I want to:

"In line? Why, no. I was just wandering along on my way to some other place when I became lost in thought and forgot where I was going and ended up standing still, right in this very spot. And all these other people in front of me are likewise lost in thought and motionless. And, by some incredible coincidence, we all came to rest at the same time and place, standing one behind the other, all facing in the same direction. So I can easily understand why you would think we are all in a line waiting to order coffee."

If I ever actually said that to someone, I would immediately be embarrassed and filled with remorse.

On the other hand, that confirmation hearing was over in only thirty minutes, so now I'm going to have to watch it after the SFRC posts it on their web site. Arrrgghh.