army peacemakers

Check out the April 10 issue of the New Yorker for an article by George Packer about lessons from an iraqi town called Tal Afar. In the absence of a coherent strategy from above, some army commanders used a hammer and some used their eyes and ears to figure out what was needed and how to build it. Shia and Sunni are butchering each other in some towns, and sitting down to exchange accusations without bloodshed in others. I love these little driblets of truth, however grim, that show freedom of speech is still alive!! But what I loved most about this was the nitty gritty description of how one commander went about taking account of the human side of the invasion, and building incremental, fragile peace in Tal Afar against all odds, as if he'd just taken a course from Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding!

If you find this interesting and want to learn more about Army Civil
Affairs Units and the way they work, Prof. Jayne Docherty of the CJP recommends the book "Waging Peace: A Special Operations Team's Battle to Rebuild Iraq" by Rob
Schultheis.