Out Back Question of the Week—Answer

Here is the location of last week's Outback Question of the Week.

The answer can be found on Michael Yon's blog post for today, Thursday, 9 July, located here.

The blog post has a picture of a beautiful young lady and the blog post is titled "Girl with no future."

So the answer to the question:

This cake will not be baked in 10 years.

Of what nation was he speaking and what did he mean?

The answer is Afghanistan and the fact that Afghanistan is not going to move into the twentieth century for quite some time.

That doesn't mean we give up and go home.  It does me we accept that what might work in helping our own Gulf Coast recover from a hurricane is not going to work as well and as quickly in Afghanistan.  But, still, we should hang around.  As reporter Michael Yon talks about a village of 20 where there is only one literate person, we should consider the impact of having four literate people.  People are not meant to be thrown away and as long as we are making some progress we should stick around.

There is a big argument out there in the Pol-Mil Arena♠ about whether counter insurgency should be focused on the people or on the enemy.  I am one of those who thinks we should keep our powder dry, but work on helping the people achieve their potential.  But, that does mean helping to keep them secure from bandits and would-be revolutionaries.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠   Political / Military arena, combining military action and political action (to include diplomacy and political, sociological, psychological, economic, scientific, and other appropriate factors.  This is the heart of interagency coordination.