Tom in the EB

The Americans Have Landed was included in today's Early Bird.

(For those of you not in the know, the Early Bird is a military-produced daily summary of news.)

I'd link to it for you, but I'm not aware of any site. If you are, let me know.

Esquire pic picks

Esquire picked many of Tom's photos (but not all 270-some) that they're showcasing under the title Africa Command: The Photo Essays. They're also linking to The Americans Have Landed master page over here. Check out the photos they picked.

4 hikes, 7 bears

Went to Grotto Falls today (very cool falls you can climb behind) and on way back, with Jer on shoulders and Mei Mei on backpack, we (with others) spot a female black bear and her two young cubs (so young they're still brown). They're in a tight ravine that the trail circles around at the end of a valley. At one point mom's about ten feet below us, casually munching, with her cubs frolicking on logs behind her (if she hadn't been between us and them, I would have backed out pronto). So we got some more nice pix I'll try to remember to post later on.

So 7 bears (1 male, 2 females, 2 older cubs and 2 young cubs) in four days of hiking. Really amazing to observe them for so long and so peacefully in the wild. Quite magical, to include the element of danger.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Friday, 9 March

Last day is pure treat.

First, Mukala and an aide show up for breakfast (quite good, surprisingly) at the camp mess with Moon and I. After that we tour the camp (takes about ten minutes, because it’s pretty small--like maybe 20 acres--it’s basically a camp-within-a-camp that still is run by the Kenyans, but awfully low-key, as in--building here and building there but nothing like some U.S. base).

We part, Mukala and I, promising to stay in touch (he’s been to US twice for training).

Then the same crew that went to Lamu yesterday heads back to the naval pier for a boat ride on the Spec Ops RIBs (rigid inflatable boats), which have attached swift boat teams. Moon gets to sit up front and gets a chance to drive. I and the LNOs stand in the back in the stand-up seats that the trigger pullers use when being inserted somewhere.

The boat goes 45-47 knots (roughly 60 mph, I am told) and turns on a dime (like a 30-yard radius that really works your arm muscles as you hold on). It’s not a ride where you can one-hand it without serious risk. The guys up front signal the turns by hand, which helps a lot, because leaning into them is critical for maintaining balance and not falling off (I imagine the water hurts plenty at that speed).

It’s a pretty thrilling ride, as one might imagine.

Then back to the base to get command briefs from the special warfare guys who just gave us the rides, explaining their mil-mil training with the Kenyan navy.

Then I’ve got ten minutes to final pack and eat and after heartfelt goodbyes all around, especially with Moon, who goes out of his way to explain how much he’s enjoyed our time together (he’s nowhere near as grateful as I am for the hours of exchange, telling him I could easily pen a Bob Kaplan-like volume on this trip alone), I’m in a truck to begin the very long trek home.

A staff sergeant runs me back to the pier. There waits Bes, a local charter guy with his medium-length speed boat (basically what I call a john boat with an outboard on back). I throw my luggage (ruck sack, rolling bag and Safari Joe’s package) and off we go, repeating the 45 minute trip to Lamu, but stopping this time across the bay to drop off at the grass-roof terminal they have there. We stop at dhows along the way and pick up people as well, which is interesting.

Bes is nice and takes my big bag on his shoulder for the one-third mile walk to the “terminal,” which is completely open air.

Guess who’s in the terminal? Mukala’s on the same flight, which goes down the coast southward first to Malindi and then up to Nairobi. So we chat more while waiting on the plane (he’s fascinated with the tale of Enterra, which I’m getting pretty good at telling), and then we sit in the back together, comparing family notes (he has two daughters in college and is approaching a 30-year retirement mark).

We finally part ways at the Merinda regional airport, after a quick 30-minute flight. I have to wait a bit for the flight to resume. Then it’s about 90 to Nairobi.

Then I have six hours to kill at the terminal (I write much of this, put together my travel voucher, organize my photos, and start “When Nixon Meets Mao,” which is great.

The flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam is packed, almost claustrophobically so. KLM really has shortened the leg room. I don’t sleep a wink, despite going from 2300 local overnight to 0500 local in Amsterdam.

I do find some place to lay down in Amsterdam and get about an hour, which helps me a lot.

Northwest flight to Detroit is much better. Same cool video system to choose from, a lot more leg room, and I’m not in the middle but aisle on the side (where I finish this diary).

A couple hours layover in Detroit coming up (basically after two nine-hour flights in a row), and then a short hop to Indy to catch a son’s b-day celebration and escort Kev to his weekly volunteering effort at a local art-house cinema. Tonight, I will win the prize for traveling furthest to see the movie: all the way from Manda Bay, Kenya!

All in all, this has been an exhausting but thrilling trip. Way too little sleep over time (five to six was the norm), but everyone was so absolutely nice. Funny to play photojournalist for the first time, but really cool. Always weird to be mixing up consulting (I got asked for strategic advice a lot) with reporting (most interviews were debates where I spoke as much as the other side) with snapping photos (trying to do a legit job) with being the show (like at NDC and elsewhere, where everyone introduced me as the influential author and never as the Esquire guy).

But hey, it’s a nice synergy across the board. I realize the privileges and the responsibilities and the opportunities, so I work it as hard as possible on trips like this, knowing the rewards coming back are immense over coming years.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Thursday, 8 March

This was the day that really made the trip, as far as the story was concerned. Everything was background to this, because today our boots covered a lot of ground.

Up at 0600 for shower in the CLU and then the dry breakfast (KBR stuff doesn’t come on until 0730, which is surprisingly late but the personnel concentrate their PT during the coolest morning hours, which makes a ton of sense because the heat in the midday is stunning, as we’re basically only 2 degrees south of the equator).

Then I hop into a truck with a Kenyan driver, Capt. Steven McKnight, a civil affairs team leader who’s finishing out his year in five weeks, and one of his specialists. Based on McKnight’s brief the day before and the conversations I had with specialists about him, I am expecting to find out over the course of the day that McKnight’s the star of the piece.

Expectations were met and then some.

I get a long tape on him just in the hour drive to the local school where a Marine Expeditionary Unit engineering company, there for an exercise known as Edge Mallet, is spending a week rehabbing a school and doing a MedCap (making their field medical unit available to the locals in a concentrated fashion). He gives me tons of stuff. I take some notes but mostly just hold up the recorder from the back seat (he rides shotgun). His local knowledge is amazing.

When we get to the school, there’s all these Marines working the place over (fixing up a school the US military had helped build three years ago but which the local contracting methods had left in a bad state given some choices regarding cement, foundation rocks, and ceiling construction methods--all of which were either replaced or mitigated somewhat by these comprehensive repairs), plus a load of Kenyan troops, also similarly skilled (actual builders). I wander around with the recorder on, snapping tons of photos and interviewing the company officer in charge, a very cool and articulate female Marine, plus the school’s headmaster. After shooting the kids assembled, I pull out (after asking permission) a big bag of licorice my wife sent along, setting off a frenzy among the kids (primary school), so I end up pulling each stick into three pieces and shoving them into thrust palms, trying to focus on the littlest kids.

All in all, we’re there for what seems like a really long time but then I look at my watch and it’s only eleven.

McKnight wants to run me over to the local regional training center of the Kenyan National Youth Service. He’s had a lot of interactions with them over the year and sees them as a key local asset to build on in HOA’s civil action work. So we drive for a ways on the sandy roads (which are often unpassable in the rainy season) and come up on the training camp.

First a sitdown with the leader Sammy, with whom Steve’s obviously had tons of interactions. Then we tour the place and walk the fields (bananas, watermelons, and a sweet potato-like root plant which Sammy has cut down to demonstrate how the roots are harvested [we eat some raw]).

All in all we’re there about two hours, from 1130 to 1330 and out in the sun the bulk of the time. I’m reapplying screen and bug spray and wearing my Australian beach hat, but I am burning up all the same. It is a debilitating heat and it’s scary to think of what global climate change does to Kenya, sitting right on the equator.

We drive back to the base and I get another whole tape of discussion with McKnight, giving me about 5-6 hours for the day. It’s another great discussion, full of quotes.

Back at the base, we get some lunch and I chat up the various foreign LNO officers in the mess.

Then we all pile into vehicles (LNOs, McKnight, two force protection guys, Adm Moon and his aide) and head to the local Kenyan naval pier (pretty basic) to take three long-boat high-speed launches to the local port city of Lamu, across Manda Bay.

It’s a wild, 40-45 mph ride, and it’s better to be back than up front where the teeth fillings are being loosened with each bone-crunching wave slap. It’s like riding a horse or taking out the Boston Whaler I used to run my kids around on back in Narragansett, except we’re all business in terms of getting straight across the bay and then into this long cut-out channel that gets us direct to Lamu. The shorelines are right out of a Dr. Seuss book: a wall of mangroves with interlocking roots that constitute an almost solid wall. All the rock is the coral stuff, which is porous as hell but is still used as foundation stones, including all over the camp (every building is propped up from the ground, where the ants rule).

We land in Lamu and I’m snapping pictures throughout. Pleasant, largely Muslim city, but quite relaxed. Been here for centuries, but marked by a strange amount of both Indian and Italian influences.

First thing we do is pay office call on regional senior warden of the Kenyan Wildlife Service, who’s a big deal locally because KWS is probably the most respected lethal force in the country.

Then we walk through the city’s maze-like allies to visit a school where a civic action program was previously conducted (another comprehensive rehab). For me, same basic deal as the morning: but this time I don’t interview, and spend my time observing McKnight and Moon, figuring that would be the next layer worth exploring.

We bug out after an hour or so, wander some more along back allies (all very tight, with the force pro guys hovering like conscientious tour guides--me always lagging for shots).

I buy some wooden souvenirs (the dhow sign all ships carry locally, and a couple of greetings signs: hakuna matata [which means just what the movie said in Swahili] and the ever present “jambo” [hello]: I got a lot of laughs by holding up the sign preemptively to little kids). Eventually we make our way to an old hotel on the dock where I whip out a 1000 shillings (about $15 USD) and buy drinks for everyone, declaring William Randolph Hearst rich enough to do so. I realize I’m getting a lot of stuff here at basically no cost (lodgings, food, all that travel and most of all--all that time), so I’m trying to signal my appreciation (I’m buying the first round basically every night).

McKnight, Moon and I have a great discussion on the porch of this place, absorbing the Indian Ocean breeze at sunset.

We head back to our launches by passing through an area where the local boatmen are building their dhows by hands, with almost no tools (still). The navy guys all find that stuff fascinating.

Then it’s high-speed back (about 45 minutes) as the sun disappears and we’re back in our cars and then back at the camp for dinner. I’m still interviewing McKnight, this time penning on napkins.

After dinner, Moon does an all-hands, letting me take notes (a lot of trust there based on our hours of conversations). After dinner, I part with McKnight (he’s off early in the a.m.) and we promise to stay in touch. Seriously, this guy gets out of the military and Enterra might give him a good look WRT Development in a Box.

Then Admiral and I, who promised Mukala (the Kenyan BGen we had drinks with last night) that we’d come back the next night, head over to the Kenyan O club with all the LNOs in tow.

Another two hours of conversation til 2300 and it’s a lot of fun. Mukala is really a storyteller, so I do a lot of dueling stories with him, which delights him to no end (he keeps pronouncing with finger-wagging winks: “I like listening to this professor!”) as he jokingly encourages me to give up on Asia and start adopting Kenyan babies so we can be relatives.

Back to the hut at 2330, I download all tapes and pix, pack up, and watch a bit of Star Trek VII (Generations) before dozing at 0100.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Wednesday, 7 March

Sleep in til 0900, then shower and pack and run through the resort to meet Moon and Goss at Safari Joe’s. Great guy and way cool shop. I buy a load of small stuff, with some low-end jewelry (I can’t afford the Tanzanite right now, so go with the Malachite--both of which are unique to single mines in Kenya). Joe has everything packed into a box, sealed up and tied off with a carrying handle. It’s my second carry-on from that point on.

Moon and Goss and I drive to Nairobi. We go through a special security and then we have some time to kill as the C-130 is late from Addis, with the liaisons aboard. When it lands on the tarmac, it’s a long and complex scene about loading up these huge pallets with gear and supplies for the well-digging engineer teams working down on the coast out of Manda Bay, where HOA has a COL (Contingency Operations Location) in an old Kenyan naval base.

So I hang out on the tarmac, watching this whole scene and interviewing anyone I can as time passes. No hats allowed. I have enough sun screen everywhere except my emerging bald spot, as I later discover …

Finally, the pallet thing is done and we get on, finding seats in the netted benches up front. All the liaison officers (two Ethiopian, one Djiboutian, one Brit, one Frech, the South Korean Marine) are there to tour the Manda Bay ops along with me and Moon (everyone’s first time), so it’s a jolly bunch.

Not much discussion on plane, due to intense sound that requires us all to wear ear plugs. I share some snacks with my Ethiopian major friend, Tesfa.

Lotsa dipping and chop on the flight down. No one told me the bit about low diving the airstrip (a remote field strip with a skeleton crew of our mil in tents) to make sure there’s no animals on the strip and then pulling up into one of those sharp banking turns before doing it all over for the real landing. I thought we had aborted for some reason but since no one on the place seemed worried, I just shrugged and rode it out. My stomach was good, so I figured, it’s just the way it is and I’d follow the professionals’ lead.

When we landed, some laughing from the LNOs (they like to rib the Americans in a friendly, professional way, which is fun to observe).

Cool to watch the rapid unload of the pallets. I snap many photos.

I hit the tarmac, shooting photos in all directions. I’m not exactly Mr. Aggressive Photojournalist. One officer walks up to me swearing in exasperation: he says he’s pissed he doesn’t have his books here for me to sign. I relax my sphincter muscles and keep on shooting. The Marines are in the area for an exercise and some mil-mil and civic action (coming up for me on Thursday), so there’s helos and all sorts of stuff going on. No big numbers on the strip, but it’s just fun to have some visuals to take advantage of.

Into these monster Toyota Landcruisers that seem right out of safari land. Short drive to the COL, which used to be called Camp Simba by the Kenyans. They still have facilities in the area and an O Club just outside the main gate. Instead of Camp Lemonier’s more substantial wire, this place is a lot simpler.

Moon and I take a quick couple of command briefs from the Navy commander who runs the place (my favorite part is warnings about baboons and spider monkeys who come and go as they please, oblivious to security and apparently unstoppable in terms of perimeter defense; the bits about black mambas and puff adders scare the shit outta me; and finally the notion that ants run the place and issue stinging bits has me a bit worried). Then we do the walking tour, with even more warnings on the ants (no worries, as I get through the whole time with no bites and more than a few photos taken of the baboons and monkeys). I’m snapping and taking notes and recording as we go along.

Then it’s dinner at the KBR-run mess. Actually pretty damn good. The mil here, like at Lemonier, have only good stuff to say about KBR, and I mean, unprompted testimonials. I see all the expeditionary construction going on (pretty small facility, actually, but settling in) and note how the Seabees and KBR work hand in glove, and I am admittedly impressed.

After dinner Moon and I go to the Kenyan O Club for drinks with a Brigadier General of the Kenyan Navy named Ngewa Mukala, a Keith David sound-alike who is a walking one-man show of African tales and philosophy and interesting observations about military life on the continent (think of Forrest Whittaker’s charming side of Amin, absent the scary stuff, and you approximate this guy’s winning charm). By now you know about the column I ended up writing about my “two wives” based on the discussion we had.

Moon and I share an “SWA” or southwest Asia wooden shack (see pix) that night (apparently so named because either used a lot there or built there). We both have walled off mini-dorms. Pretty nice actually, with no bugs whatsoever and nice AC, which the commander is adamant about keeping at 72 degrees. Any higher and the zoo starts coming in, he says.

Compared to the M*A*S*H-like green tents many others have (soon to be replaced with shacks like ours), it feels like a palace. Actually, I like this expeditionary base a whole lot more than Camp Lemonier, despite the more bare nature of the place).

I sleep just fine. The CLU-encased head is great, even if it’s quite a walk in the near-pitch dark from our shack. Makes you more aware of that 3am visit.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Tuesday, 6 March

I skip breakfast and meet Moon and his aide for the drive to the American Embassy. They have a 0900 meeting and I sit in a conference room on the first floor, outside security, to work my brief.

Then USAID and State and defense attaches all come in to the room at 1000, expecting a brief from me, apparently. Crossed wires, I tell them. Then I get their cards and whip out the recorders. Everything is background only, but it’s a spirited discussion. Goss, the admiral’s aide, observes and subsequently brings Moon in to pick up on the conversation. Pretty soon he’s running the interview, which I have to gently stop. Truth is, it’s not an interview but more of a debate with me as facilitator.

We’re out of the AMEMB, and are driven to local mall, where other car shows up with Hart and his POLAD. Everyone gets their own at a food court and joins up at tables. Security detail seems cool on the locale. I get Chinese and it’s great. Later a latte and a brownie. I am feeling downright normal.

Another long drive, this time with me and Fred, the POLAD in the back seat. I work the brief like crazy, diddling with a couple of slides.

We pull into the National Defence College base. I am introduced to the commandant, and then taken to the hall, where already, about 40 officers are in the stands (one of those rising lecture halls). It’s 1400 and I diddle with slides right to 1420, then check the AV, then am escorted to the commandant’s office. I’m wearing my black travel pants, my jungle boots (I brought nothing else) and a black short-sleeve collar shirt, so I’m in my “futurist” fashion mode. POLAD Fred, after previous night’s discussion with admirals, brings his blue blazer. I slip it on just as I’m escorted into the commandant’s office.

Inside are Hart, Moon, the POLAD, the commandant, the minister of defense, and the heads of the navy, army and air force. Everyone is in suits, so intro’s all around. Then I go into visionary mode and start “weaving the mist,” as Steve (my boss) likes to say. It’s a quick ten and then we head down to the lecture hall. As I wait outside with the commandant, everyone else takes seats up high. Then we enter, everyone stands like at NDU, I am directed to a side table, and the commandant gives a long and detailed intro that lasts almost 15 minutes.

I go 75 and do 30 Q&A. It’s an inspired and rather vigorous performance by me. I have no idea where it comes from because I’m feeling pretty funky and up to that point I do my best, non-threatening, question-tossing reporter shtick. Hart knows what I’m capable of and loves it. Moon seems very surprised by the delivery, like I’m suddenly transformed.

I am. The scene has to psyche anyone: I’m holding court on 50 of the continent’s best and brightest generals. About 35 from Kenya, and the rest spread from all over Africa. I just get this very intense vibe from the audience. When I presented hardcovers of both books to the commandant earlier, he was thrilled, saying he had just ordered ten copies of each for the library but they had not yet come, so the students were instructed to download a bunch of my articles from my site. He said he wanted to read them first, but then he’d send to the library eventually. He had seen my two years ago at NDU in DC, thus he was pumped to nab me for the talk. HOA was happy, because this became excuse for first official HOA-NDC contact. After my talk, Hart and the commandant exchanged plaques, which got to me a bit. Hell, I did all the work!

Later Hart gave me his new personal coin, which I liked just fine. Still, how many times do I lecture at foreign defence colleges? Basically once every two years or so, and I usually get the cool plaque or piece of crystal. But I’m cool with the outcome.

Frankly, the questions, which I took in threes from the officers, were among the best I’ve ever gotten. I wrote them all down, but am saving for Vol. III!

It was kind of weird, this whole show, like I’m working for HOA and the AMEMB all of a sudden, giving this big-deal speech where plaques are exchanged and so forth, when I’m really a reporter in country to do a story--a strange mix that’s typical for me, but still it seems weird.

Most important, everyone seems thrilled with the outcome and keeps saying so, so I’m high as a kite as I always am after a good, big show. Pumped as hell, we’re back in the cars, zooming away.

We head to Hart’s hotel, where we disperse for about an hour while the admirals make calls regarding the accident.

I do the Internet café and get off a whole email to Vonne. It takes 20 minutes to pull off, that’s how slow the connection is. Still, for just over $4, I’m reasonably happy.

At that point I bug out with Hart and the POLAD and visit the local AMEMB at his personal residence in Nairobi. It’s a classically beautiful British home in Kenya, with--according to the ambassador--plenty of local wildlife in the back. Unlike the almost too-smooth Symington back in Djibouti, this guy (Ranenberger or something like that) is willing to let me take notes over the wine. I don’t pull a recorder because I think that would ruin the mood (simple drinks in the guy’s living room). Fortunately, this ambassador is also a quote machine (thus my disappointment with Symington), and the discussion between he and Hart is great (I understand my privilege and required discretion as I basically get to sit in on their time, as everybody in the room is working for the USG except me.

On the way out, we bump into a senior civilian from European Command who’s just coming in. She’s excited to meet me once my name is mentioned, and goes out of her way to tell me how often the concepts from my books are brought up in senior meetings at the command. Following the college talk and the good gouge from the ambassador, I’m pretty much on cloud 9 at this point. Ego-wise, the highlight of the hybrid trip, the baseline for any strategist being the utility of his work to practitioners.

Another drive to another local fabled Italian restaurant. Long dinner with great conversations among everyone in our party. I am getting to like Tusker beer quite a bit.

Back in room again around 2300. Download my tapes and pics, but few today, since I was the show for the most part. But it was payment for all the quasi-VIP treatment, plus all the arranged access.

You know. Nic Kristof was just through HOA (Sunday column while I was here, I am told) and Tom Friedman stops by in April. Betcha neither ended/end up delivering addresses at the National Defence College in Nairobi!

Watch some Star Trek V and hit the hay around 0100.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Monday, 5 March

Up at 0700 for breakfast with Mal, the PAO. I give him my walnuts and macadamias, because I have to lighten my load a bit for the next segments of travel. I give Wright my dried fruit and pecans.

Then it’s a meeting with all the coalition liaison officers, who later show up in Kenya and share many adventures with me. But this first meeting (interview) is a bit stiff, so most of what I get from these guys comes later over the many meals, time on boats and planes, etc.

The line-up includes two Brit majors (very English in a working class way--one I see only here, the other guy comes along for the big trip “down range”), a movie-star handsome French colonel, a South Korean Marine also out of central casting, two Ethiopian majors (one older and more jocular, the other more shy but the Swahili expert who teaches us all stuff as the days wear on), a voluble Djiboutian major, and the estimable Colonel Simon Koskei of the Kenyan infantry. We go two hours. Eugene sits in. The Americans purposefully leave so the coalition guys will speak as openly as possible. It helps and I get some great stuff. I am swimming here, but getting my bearings with each interaction.

After that last session, I head to airport with Adm. Tim Moon and his aide and Koskei for flight to Nairobi with stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They travel in civvies. We’re going Kenyan Airlines, cause there’s no planned C-130 flight down that way on Monday and I need to be in Nairobi for my talk at the National Defence College, which is being treated as a big deal by HOA, as both Hart and Moon and the POLAD, plus local mil officers attached to the American embassy, will be there.

As I fill out exit visa, I decide to go with “business executive, software company,” since I can pull out my Enterra cards. Then I get to the window and see my “friend” from last time. He gets the same supervisor and then have some fun with me that goes on for a bit. At one point, the supervisor writes “Required” on a piece of paper and holds it up, asking me to confirm. I have no idea what he’s trying to get me to say, because they seem pretty pumped about catching me in my “lie” (“Oh yes, now you are business executive--right! We remember you, Mr. Journalist!”). Then it hits me: he thinks I write for “Required” magazine. Big laughs all around and much eye rolling, winks and nods. They think they’ve tagged James Bond, but finally I’m allowed to move along.

Nice conversation/interview with Koskei on flight to Addis (throughout this trip I am constantly pulling out my pads from inside my vest and scribbling furiously during all sorts of side conversations, just letting them happen casually). We go from sea level to about 9,000 feet. Fascinating to watch the countryside pass by. Pretty green up there.

We just hang on plane during quick stop to drop and load passengers. Whole bunch of Nordic college girls get on, so admiral’s aide Lt. Abby Goss has to sit between me and Koskei, so I take advantage and interview her on flight to Nairobi.

Lotsa ancient volcanoes to spot along way. Then we pass over the Rift and I am fascinated all the more. Africa has a cornucopia for the amateur geologist, my dream alternative life.

We land in Nairobi. Mil officers in civvies from AMEMB meet us. The admiral, colonel and aide skip visas because they have DoD identification. I have to wait in line and pay my $50.

When outside, we’re guided to giant white Toyota Landcruisers. These are armored but look normal in every other way. Long drive to restaurant, during which I interview Moon really for first time. Lotsa just talking about this and that and every so often an interview breaks out. I’m not the interviewing type. I’m the discussing type who lets the conversation cross over as naturally as possible, so I’m rewarded much on this trip by all the bridge periods where I’m just sitting next to somebody or hanging around and I strike up a conversation.

When we get to restaurant (nice outdoor Italian place) we get the word about an accident in remote Ethiopia involving a civil action team. Three vehicles on remote mountainous road. Car with force protection guys (Guam rifle company) and Ethiopian driver goes into ravine. Two US soldiers dead, one later airlifted to Germany who is stable. Ethiopian eventually gets treated in Djiboutian French hospital. Over the next night and day with Hart, his POLAD, and the attending AMEMB military personnel, they make about 500 phonecalls to accomplish helo rescues, airspace clearances--the works. I take notes and ask questions discretely.

Other than that, a great and long dinner conversation with Hart, Moon and the the POLAD. Very spirited. Great notes. I even chat up the security guys guarding Hart now and then on the side. All very useful

Then driver takes Moon and his aide and I to Safari Park hotel. We get there around 2230 and check in. Very nice in a slightly worn, Disney sort of way. Gigantic, gorgeous grounds with accompanying trees. Like an Africa paradise of sorts. Most who stay there are tourists with beaucoup bucks. Plenty of stores built in. Moon says not to worry on souvenirs. He’s informed Safari Joe that I’ll be by Wednesday morning before we fly out. Safari Joe is an Indian with a fantastic wood carving shop in the resort who gives U.S. military a big discount because they steer so many his way. Supposed to be the way to go, according to all I ask, so I feel accounted for on that score.

Hit my room, which is Africa resort nice (huge canopy bed with netting), but you look close and you see all sorts of beat-up stuff. I notice the Raid can in the closet. This trip and bugs! My wife will laugh when she hears of it, because I’m sort of a freak in my middle years when it comes to bugs. Must have been the years as super in that Boston apartment complex.--karma or something.

I watch a weird Mira Sorvino movie about a young women who gets involved with the mob. Mariah Carey is in it, and she’s pretty good. I watch it until 0100 and get up at 0700.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Sunday, 4 March

Up at 0730 for shower in this skanky old French shower from another age. Toilet comes close to overflowing, but I do my best plumber shtick and get it working.

Breakfast with Wright in mess. Not bad.

0900 command brief with 2-star admiral Jim Hart. I record and take notes. About 10 other officers plus Cobble in room. Deputy commander, 1-star Tim Moon is there. We’re spending the rest of the week together, so I chat him up some. Quiet but intense. Natural leader. Reservist, with a smooth, mentoring touch.

Good discussion that goes about 2 hours.

Walking out of building I am strafed by local crows. Emergency wash with water bottles (cooler nearby) gets most of the shit out.

Then in car for trip to US embassy for lunch with ambassador Symington of the famous Symingtons. Nice embassy. Djibouti is one nasty place by and large, so happy to be traveling with personnel, as it were. Embassy is in bad neighborhood, but has front on Red Sea, so very pretty. Great lunch with Symington and local USAID boss. Hart and Moon and Hart’s POLAD (political advisor from State) there. After lunch I facilitate discussion with bunch of Djiboutian embassy workers in back yard, with ambassador and other staff hovering. It’s a regular listening gig for him, and for the first time, he has an outsider lead it. Nice give and take from some smart locals. Everything, by ambassador’s command, is completely off the record. Symington is a quote machine, so that’s too bad, but not much to do.

I must say, Djibouti is stunningly hot and humid, and I was there during the cool part of the year. It is truly hardship duty.

Back at Camp Lemonier I get another tour of facility with base commander (who remembers me from some brief back in States) and his deputy. We climb a watch tower along back wire, and I snap some photos of CLU City from above. Some sights not to be photographed and I can take a hint, because there is a rather reclusive Spec Ops element on base that works for CentCom. Naturally, there are many elliptical conversations throughout all this touring and briefing about the recent special stuff down in Somalia, but the line, both on and off the record makes sense to me: plenty of other locations from which to launch and a big desire by CentCom and CJTF-HOA never to mix the SWAT stuff with the community policing. Boring, sensible, and true. If the big media gets that wrong, then they’re just putting two and two together to get five and that’s not my battle to wage. Lazy reporting is lazy reporting, no matter what prestigious paper does it.

Then special brief with taping from J-9 shop on current ops. Much discussion on rise of Africom. Very useful.

Then Wright, three of his subordinates, Cobble and I sign out vehicle and head to town, despite the presence of six French vessels in the port (meaning a load of thirsty and horny sailors prowling the capital streets). We drive around in the dark, looking for this much prized Ethiopian restaurant that no one’s been to but everyone’s heard about. Traffic is pretty aggressive: you want, you simply plow ahead. Finally, we stop in known restaurant in town center and ask owner. He gives us his son to ride with us and direct. The son does a nice job, gets us there (way confusing), so we drive him back, drop him off and then retrace back.

We park outside Coptic Orthodox church having evening mass outdoors in back. Preacher is going at it hard. We enter a courtyard full of guys lounging about. Think about any recent Hollywood movie about a debris-strewn, filthy Third World city and you get the picture. Small lighted sign tells us to head up to rooftop restaurant that’s just tables in the dark (virtually no lighting) and small, barely lit bar kiosk playing American music. Mosque just on other side starts blaring call to prayer, so we have a clash of civilizations going on: Christian, Muslim, and Eminem.

We sit in the dark, casually chatting. Waiter comes to us and we order. He wants money first before getting beers. I pay Eugene in USD and he covers me, plus he gives me load of Djiboutian coins, which I love. We have a great meal of Ethiopian beef with this hot pepper to sprinkle over it, plus what looks like a huge napkin under all the plates that’s really this spongy, pizza-wide pancake bread called injera. Eugene, whose wife is a Yemeni Jew, is our expert, so I trust his judgments and it’s a great meal. Eugene and I debate a lot of international relations history and BS with the others on our favorite drinks and the usual middle-age-to-younger-age guy stuff (the three subordinates to Wright are all twentysomethings, but guys with some serious military mileage). It’s a great night and I hit the hay around 1am.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Saturday, 3 March

Woke up about 2 hours before landing in Dubai and watched Star Trek VI on my Mac to pass the time.

Once we hit the ground, the next mad dash. Went immediately to transfer desk, but it’s all Emirates Airlines and none of the screens show anything going to Djibouti or anything being flown by Daallo Airline. So I wander in what I hope is the direction of the front check-in area, get myself beyond security somehow, then go to a transfer desk that seems to list other airlines and ask. The guy calls up and says the flight, listed on my itinerary for 4am, actually leaves at 3:30 and it’s closed already at 3:17.

Here I had been so psyched to actually make this final flight, and when they told me the next flight was Monday, I got a bit nervous, thinking about how an entire weekend of work was going to get blown if I didn’t get on that plane.

So I plead my case over the phone to the gate agent, and he says “run,” but no luck possible on my bag.

So I finesse my way through one sloppy security area and dash into the main area of the terminal, which is a huge tube with lotsa fancy shopping. Everything was open and doing plenty of business with the travelers, despite the odd hour.

So I get up to the top deck and see the Gates 1-5 sign, knowing I need 35.

Well, you can guess I was on the wrong end of a couple of football fields-length terminal and 35 was on the exact opposite end. So I started running.

I get there and everyone says the buses have left, so no go. I give them my best puppy dog and the gatekeeper says okay, he’ll run me out personally to the plane. On the way, we chat up quite a bit, and he commits himself to getting my bag in addition, putting another guy on the job while I go up the gangway to the plane. My new best friend then insists I sit in first class and comes back just before the door is closed to tell me my bag is on.

Good news, because all my clothes (sprayed) were in there. Had all the gear and could have survived until the bag came on Monday, but I feared if it got lost, I’d be gone on Tuesday and never see the stuff again.

When I touched down in dusty Djibouti it had been about 40 hours non-stop of traveling or running around, but I had to gear up for the day, so I did.

I had Tim Heffernan at Esquire gin me up a bunch of Lexis-Nexis searches on stuff, so I read that on the three-hour flight from Dubai to Djibouti. We arrive basically at sunrise Saturday, me having started roughly noon on Thursday and gaining nine hours total I guess (plus six to London, plus six to Dubai, and then I think I lost one going back to Djibouti (GMT +3).

Have a decent breakfast on the flight from Dubai. I eat the French toast and croissant and have some tea. After the press clippings, I read a ton of John Boyd’s bio.

See the sunrise over Indian Ocean. Drop into Djibouti, the capital city of Djibouti, at 0645. See the French Foreign Legionnaires running the perimeter of their compound as we touch down on only strip there, shared by CJTF-HOA, the French, and the airport.

Small tarmac to hold two planes, pretty much the rush hour here.

Go into customs, and they ask for ID. If I had a DOD contractor badge, I’d have gone right through like the KBR employees on the plane (they run the camp). Instead, in my groggy state I made the mistake of writing the word “journalist” on my visa application, forgetting momentarily how the Esquire connection (that story on khat the mag ran a while back) thing would be taken.

A while later, in the head visa guy’s office, CJTF-HOA’s public affairs guy shows up and the “confusion” is ended: Dr. Barnett is a journalist back in the States, but here he’s slated to give a talk.

True enough, I was invited to speak at Kenya’s National Defence College later in the week.

So we work it out, pick up my bag, and we’re joined up soon with Capt. Bob Wright, the J-9, and off to the camp we go in a Toyota Landcruiser.

Now, you have to realize that the universe of geography I’ll describe here is fairly tight. The one basic airport runway bisects this square--along an inland-coast axis--of coastline that’s maybe 1,000 acres total . Your God’s eye view is from the center of the square on the side toward the inland. On the left lower left and center, as you look to the ocean, is the airport and its rather small tarmac. Farther down left on the coast is the French marine base, which has about 2,500 personnel and a bunch of Mirage. On the right lower is territory that is shared by CJTF-HOA and the president’s mini-airport hangar (apparently, this is how the chewable narcotic khat is flown in every day at roughly noon, leading to the buzz that ensues (it’s flown in every day because the active element’s shelf life is measured in hours, so it’s flown in, distributed in stands throughout the capital city, and consumed that afternoon and into the evening, and then next day the whole routine is repeated; Esquire published a story on this recently). Right center is the current HOA footprint of about 90 acres (very crowded, to the point of reminding you in several places of a Third World tent-city slum). Farther down on the right is a sizable chunk of land (commensurate with the parallel French base on the left side) that’s roughly 400 acres. The expansion of the base will include adding those 400 acres while giving back the shared lower right space to the Djibouti government so the sum total will be about 400 acres when all said and done. The “expansion” of the base is geographic only, because there’s no plans to up the personnel, just spread them out more for safety, security and quality of life issues.

Back to the story line: we drive out of the airport, then along the inland side of the square until we hit the right side, then we turn left and drive down to the base’s entry.

The drill of getting into the base is elaborate, reflecting a serious commitment to force protection. But frankly, they’ve never had any real force protection issues here in Djibouti, which everyone, including all the coalition liaison officers, describe as “permissive,” meaning basically you watch what you eat and you’re heads up on petty crime.

There are only 700k Djiboutians, and about 700 work on the base. That number will go up as KBR, which currently runs the camp on an expeditionary contract, is replaced by a new contractor (being competed now) that will run it as a standard base (the U.S. military just got a five-year lease on the land from Djibouti, with options to go to 15. The CJTF came ashore about five months after it’s start-up in early 2002, when it began aboard the Mt. Whitney as a capture/kill mission WRT to terrorists fleeing south as a result of Afghanistan and then Iraq. When that mission didn’t materialize to any significant degree, the CJTF went ashore and slowly morphed into its current mission of mil-mil training and cooperation, civil military operations (the school building and well digging) and terrorism prevention mode (building capacity among local mils).

Originally, the French owned the whole chunk, keeping that which wasn’t used for the airport following independence a couple of decades ago, and in 2002 a chunk of the right half was turned over to the Americans, which now lease it more permanently (from the French I guess, but I’ll have to check that).

So when you consider the whole beast, it’s all pretty small, pretty tight, and not much capacity (the one runway shared by French, US and the airport).

Getting onto the base about 0900, I get the slow car-ride tour. Again, the size being small, it’s all very crammed, being one of the smallest bases I’ve ever been on (the word ‘sprawling” never comes to mind, although it will be roughly 5 times large in space with the extension coming). The buildings are a mishmash of expeditionary tents, old French Foreign Legion buildings (the Mediterranean, white-painted-cement look), a lot of cheap temp buildings, and lotsa containers.

The containers are everywhere, used for storage and--if you can believe it--living quarters. The CLU (container living unit) are these half- and full-container mini-dorm rooms that either have an integrated head or share one between duplexes. They can be stacked for a two-stack effect, with wooden stairs/porches.

There aren’t many of these for now (only the top officers and a fraction of the lower officers and higher NCOs live in them now on a seniority basis), but with the expansion, pretty much all personnel will move into them. Already in the expansion area there’s a “CLU City” all laid out. It looks a lot like a very neat trailer park.

There’s bits of laid sidewalk here and there, but mostly it’s one-lane gravel roads shared by pedestrians and vehicles alike. Like any base, there’s an insanely low speed limit dutifully respected.

The base has all the usual stuff: the store, the post office, the morale-welfare-recreation stuff, the gym, the chapel, the vehicle depot, plus all the “centers” that come with operations, even though, in many respects the CJTF-HOA is very light on actual operations.

Of the 1600-to-1800 personnel that make-up the base, it’s about 400 command element (now mostly Navy in relief of Marines, who ran it until a couple of years ago), about 300 base ops/security (Marines), and then the rest are the actual boots that can be put on the ground (about 800 or so). At any one time, about half are out and about, doing the training and civil affairs projects (build a school, dig a well).

Most of the travel is by commercial air, and many of the personnel work “down range” in civvies, doing stuff that USAID people used to do themselves decades ago but now contract out to contractors.

The base has 4 helos (CH-53s) for personnel recovery (these guys and gals go to some very off-grid locations, a trio of P-3s and a couple of CH-130 tankers. Put that together with the two rifle companies who go down range to do minimal force protection (a couple of riflemen to go with a civ-affairs team of four) and mil-to-mil training, and you basically don’t have squat in terms of military firepower or power projection.

That’s something I have to capture in the piece: this command is pure SysAdmin. It’s built to do civil affairs and humanitarian assistance and training the trainers and that’s basically it. Sure, in doing all that it collects useful intel, but if anything kinetic is going to be done, these guys won’t be doing it. In fact, the whole ethos of the place is that they don’t want to get anywhere near it.

In sum, I felt like I was visiting this amazing instantiation of the SysAdmin concept, right smack dead center in the Gap.

I get some private time once I’m shown to my room in this old French Foreign Legion building, where a lounge for officers at one end actually still has drawings of soldiers left by the French. I get a room with a single and double bed (think a skanky college dorm), a desk, TV with limited sat feed on a frig, and a wardrobe. Not exactly roughing it. I’m living like a senior officer, steps above a CLU and way above tent life, which no one cares for, thus the expansion to CLU city coming online very soon.

So I unpack and shower and get dressed. Check my digital recorders (good to have two if you’re spread out over a big room) and pull out a notepad.

I spend the rest of the morning (about 90) sitting down with the heads of the civil affairs units. They’re all National Guard (OK, FL, TX) and I interview them in bulk (three guys), along with another officer who does analysis of “effects” and a British officer who’s the deputy J-5.

It’s a great expansive discussion. I get names and ranks and then give up trying to keep notes after about 10 minutes, because I just can’t hold the room of ten guys in terms of eye contact and mil guys in general like heavy eye contact. If you’re busy taking notes like it’s some college class, they get bored and start boiler-plating you in terms of delivery (spouting officialese and the official line). If you want to engage them, you have to be engaging. You have to be jumping in on their stuff, proposing your own alternatives, and arguing it out rather than just asking questions and dutifully taking notes.

So I say, thank God for digital recorders. My pair (Olympus) come with leather grips that hide the red button that goes on when you record (nice, especially since I often dangled one casually on my travel vest and just pressed them as required, swapping out one recorder for the other during breaks to make sure I don’t record over anything. Clinging to my vest as I’m taking notes on a pad and occasionally snapping photos with my Fuji, it looks like a cell phone hanging. The digital is a huge advantage, because if I was stopping and swapping out those mini cassettes every 30, I’m sure the spell would have been broken most times. Many of the officers noticed and said nothing. That’s just the professional respect and trust showing through (hell, I’m there representing CJTF-HOA in a major “lecture of opportunity” at a regional defense college).

Next I do walking tour of base with camera in hand. Host is base Public Affairs Officer Malakoff, whom everyone calls Mal so I can never remember his first name.

After that two-hour session, I get break time in my room. As I fall asleep on bed, I wake up feeling something crawling on me. Figured it was my imagination, then realized it was not. Over the two nights there I found a lot of crawling things in my bed, which I’m not too cool about. Then again, I figured the Contingency Operations Location down on the coast of Kenya would be worse at the end of the week, so I complain not, because I didn’t want to seem a wimp if the situation was going to get worse. I mean, what the hell were they going to do for me?

I go to dinner with Capt. Bob Wright, the new J-9 (strategic comms in this command) and then share beers with senior officers in their reasonably decent outdoor lounge. The indoor part has old wall paintings of French Napoleonic officers apparently left behind by the French Foreign Legion way back when. We're drinking tall cans, and enjoying the wafting smell from the local Djiboutian dump where they burn garbage every other night. Good stuff to breathe in.

After that I head off with friend Eugene Cobble, local Center for Naval Analyses rep, for more beers (I am going wild with 1 at O club then 2 with enlisted) at enlisted cantina, while Taiwanese band wails on with 70s and 80s covers. They were signed up for March and they work it on the weekends like crazy.

I stay up chatting with Eugene and senior non-coms and lower-level officers at a tall picnic table under the stars until almost 0200 (they have Sunday morning off--their big treat), so we’re all watching the lunar eclipse. My attempts at pictures suck.

I am asleep with some Ambien just after 2am.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Friday, 2 March

Land in Heathrow at 1230 (exact departure time for my British Airways flight to Dubai). I never had a chance, since I landed in terminal 3 and needed to be in 4.

So here’s how I kill my time for the next 3.5 hours, constantly moving and never sitting down:

1) I bus it over to terminal 4, go through security, and check in at the services desk of British Airways. They tell me they’ve scheduled me for 9am the next morning. Best they can do. Guy tells me to try the Emirates 1630 flight, since Emirates issued the ticket (weirdly enough, because I wasn’t scheduled to fly them at all).

2) So I go to Emirates in 4, and they say I need to go to United.

3) So I go to United, and they say only Emirates can change the ticket because it issued the ticket.

4) So I go back to Emirates, and they say I need to see the supervisor downstairs beyond security.

5) So I go through immigration and customs to get out and go to the supervisor. She says she’ll get me on the plane, but that my bag, now with British Airlines for the missed flight, can’t be obtained by Emirates. Instead, if I fly with them, the best I can do is get to Dubai and submit a report! The alternative? Get to terminal 4 and bring the bag back in 90 minutes.

6) I train the Heathrow Express over.

7) I go to customer service, they tell me to go downstairs and see baggage.

8) I do, but can’t figure out how to get into baggage because it’s an international terminal, so I head back up and ask again.

9) This time British Airways says to go to the employee entrance and phone in.

10) I do, talk to a guy who lets me in, go through security and then am directed to the baggage office.

11) Guy at the baggage office says getting a bag out of system typically takes three hours. I now have 45 minutes to get back. He says he’ll call his fix-it guy, but he’s elsewhere right now on another job. He calls, and the guy volunteers to take my case because the one he’s on will take forever. He shows up five minutes later, we talk, and I describe my black bag, noting the lime yellow Southwest Airlines handle grip. He takes off and is back ten minutes later with the bag! He says, the lime-yellow handle grip was everything.

12) Back on the Express to terminal 3.

13) Then dash back to supervisor. She okays the deal and sends me to check-in.

14) At check-in, I get the back tagged through Djibouti, on the off chance I’d make the 0400 flight (I was scheduled to arrive at 0320).

15) Then a race to security. Huge line faces me. Then miracle! New line opens just as I turn the corner so I’m first in.

16) Then tagged for another security bit where your shoes are x-rayed a second time (test, I believe).

17) Then through that mall you saw in the climatic scene of “Love Actually,” the one the boy races through to meet his girlfriend.

18) Then check in at gate and boarding comes a whopping three minutes later.

The flight on Emirates was nice. Had a four-seat row to myself in coach. Watch “The Queen” (very good) on their amazing seatback vid system (like 500 movies to choose from!). Then take another Ambien to force some more sleep, because I won’t be getting any bed time until Saturday and I need to be coherent enough to do a day’s worth of meetings and briefs and interviews.

Still, it was tempting to watch “Citizen Kane” again. Must be my Hearst press pass.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Thursday, 1 March

My United flight from Indy to Chicago was canceled due to tornado warnings, so I phoned Jenn, my manager, to get me a Hertz one-way and took off like a bat outta hell to try and still make the 6pm flight to London. I drove way too fast, dropped off the car, rode the shuttle, worked my way through the lines (I am forced to deal with paper tickets on this one, for some reason), work through security and watch the door closing in the distance as I race down a long corridor.

So I’m on the 9pm instead of the 6pm, but with a 4-and-a-half-hour layover planned for London, I still have 90 minutes to work with. Then the plane is pushed back an hour, but with the wind they’re still promising 60 minutes for my layover. We pull back as scheduled, an hour late, and then sit on the tarmac for a good 75, effectively killing my chances.

Nice flight over, though. I take an Ambien and get a decent bit of sleep.

The Americans Have Landed: Author's Commentary: Run Up

First off, I had proposed this story to RADM Hart, the incoming commander of CJTF-HOA, back in early January when I briefed the outbound command element during their Mission Rehearsal Ex down in JFCOM in Norfolk. I went out to dinner with the most senior officers that night, talked through a bunch of stuff, and then ended the evening by asking if the CJTF had had any real serious looks from the press.

They told me about a CNN bit from Barbara Starr that struck me as awfully narrow (OMYGOD! We’ve got troops right next to Somalia!) and an Esquire bit about khat that seemed pretty minor. So I asked if they’d welcome a feature by me in Esquire, and Hart seemed open to the idea.

So I followed up a couple of weeks later with the J-9 (Capt. Bob Wright) who had brought me to the MRX, figuring he’d be my best in. He was.

Then it was several conversations with Mark Warren while we worked over the May “state of the world” piece.

Then it was weeks of back and forth with Hart’s staff, with Wright as go-between, trying to get my trip to Djibouti set up for sometime in March. Because I was already set to go to Naples and Crete to spend some time with the commander of our Med fleet, an old friend named Harry Ulrich (Vice Admiral) in mid-April, the first push was to piggyback on the end of that trip.

But in interacting with Wright, the window seemed too small, because I needed to stay in Crete, through Friday the 16th, and needed to get back to U Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Lab by Wednesday, the 21st. So basically, I was leaving too little time to really get the reporting done, given the immense amount of travel involved.

Anyway, Mark was pushing for early March, so I did too. Problem was, Hart was scheduled for the Abizaid/Fallon change of command in early March, so that seemed out of the question.

But then the news came down: the command change was moved up, so now early March was possible. Wright told me to propose dates. Jenn and I answered: leave no earlier than 1 March from Indy and get back to Indy no later than 10 March for a family event.

Wright came back with this: spend the first part of the trip in Djibouti, then travel to Nairobi Kenya to meet with a big USAID mission and maybe give a talk at the National Defense College, then to meet up with RADM Tim Moon, deputy commander, for a tour of facilities in the Kenya area.

That sounded great, so I accepted. That was Thursday, the 22nd of February.

First thing I did was get Jenn working the travel, which was fairly quickly turned over to Tim Heffernan at Esquire to set up (though Jenn later intervened to bump me up on one of the long flights to biz class--the Chicago to London leg on the way out).

Next, I scheduled a trip to the local travel clinic for Monday morning, the 26th.

That was quick visit: lotsa scary things described, plus shots to finish my Hep A series, typhoid, boost my tetanus, and protect against yellow fever. The last one was a real burner in the arm, creating a soreness that lasted for days. Because it was a live vaccine, the flu symptoms started 48 hours later, hitting mostly in the morning (making my last days before travel a bit rough).

Rest of the week involved a lot of gearing up: the bug spray for all the clothes (done in my garage the night before setting out), the special high-end skin bug cream, a new digital recorder, notebooks and pens, all the prescriptions and suggested OTCs, a bunch of snacks, all sorts of stuff. Tried to follow the travel doc’s advice to the “t.”

Monday I also did my first phone interview with the just-back J-5 (plans and policy), a submariner navy captain named Ron Melampy. I got a second one done the morning I left on the first with the just-back CJTF commander, RADM Hunt. Both were great interviews that convinced me I had a good story to tell. What they told me totally backed up what I’d heard in Norfolk with the in-bound command element: in effect, “we are your SysAdmin in its purest and most advanced form.”

So I was jacked to go, and yet, I was a bit intimidated by the 10-day trip. I travel a ton, but I keep it very in-and-out while trying to avoid the many-nights-away-from-family thing. So the house was tense as I left, as was I.

The trip over was a complete mess: of my four scheduled flights, the first was canceled and I miss the next three, being forced to make one very long mad dash at 3:30 am down Dubai’s lengthy terminal to beg my way on to the last flight to Djibouti for 48 hours.

Here’s how it went down:

Got a response from Putnam/Neil Nyren on proposal for Vol. III

Simultaneously a very challenging and reassuring response. Reassuring if that's what I really want to do, but challenging in suggesting there's a more important book I can write that could include my proposal but become something more.

Much thinking to do, and several discussions ahead with Mark Warren.

Still, a very serious and respectful reply that indicates how much Putnam values me as one of theirs, so it makes me feel good.

Great bit from Reynolds on China

POST: News from China, Instapundit, June 26, 2007

Not fast enough for James Mann, but way too fast for the Communist Party.

Visiting Reynolds' site reminds me I need to buy his book for Vol. III.

Thanks to Keith Mitchell for sending this.

The fight is within religions

OP-ED: Faith's civil wars, By Ralph Peters, USA Today, June 25, 2007

Great piece by Peters that is dead-on: the fight is within religions, not among them, between those who want to connect to the world and the global economy and all that entails in social and political change and those who seek disconnectedness through religious/civilizational apartheid.

Great column, real jewel, wish I had written it.

Thanks to Kilngoddess for sending this.

Bad example, bad advice

OP-ED: Starving the Mullahs, By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, New York Post, June 25, 2007

The divestiture model won't work with Iran for three key reasons, all of which make the South African experience a poor example:

1) the oil in a tight global market that's only getting tighter

2) the reality that the New Core (esp. Russia, India, and China) has really no economic choice, given their trajectories, which we want to see continued, and

3) unlike South Africa, which was a real democracy, however flawed, Iran is still authoritarian and undemocratic, so the pressures will be misdirected.

Bad example, bad advice.

We need to structure our incentives so that the people must choose between a better life (connectivity) and the mullahs, not a worse life (more disconnectedness) and the mullahs (right now aiming for the same in a harsh crackdown).

Best aquarium I've ever visited

And I've been to every big one in the U.S., save the new Atlanta.

You'll be surprised: Ripley's (of "believe it or not" fame") Aquarium of the Smokies.

Great in so many ways, but primarily in visual presentation. Very imaginative tanks. Never had to lift anyone to see anything. Just very clever.

Best part: long slow escalator ride "within" huge tank.

I remember when globalization was doomed

OP-ED: 'The Next Globalization Backlash: Wait Till the Kremlin Starts Buying Our Stocks,' By Sebastian Mallaby, June 25, 2007; Page A19

Great piece by Mallaby, who's almost always stunningly solid and well-reasoned--sans unnecessary hyperbole or fear-mongering.

I read the piece and remember how the 1990s signaled the oncoming and neverending currency crises that would decimate globalization.

Except the system learned and adjusted and globalization spread even faster. Now, one of those adjustments,the stockpiling of reserves to guard against runs, presents new phenomena that will include both great challenges (to include a new form of "crisis," I guarantee, that will be sure to signal globalization's "dooooooooom!") and new solutions that drive the process ever more forward into terra incognita but likewise more pacifica.

This is a great age to be a grand strategic thinker.

Thanks to Bill Millan for sending this.

The Americans Have Landed

This is a new master post for all related materials.

The Esquire article: The Americans Have Landed

Map from the Esquire article (unlinked from the article, as far as I saw)

Author's Commentary
+ Run Up
+ Thursday, 1 March
+ Friday, 2 March
+ Saturday, 3 March
+ Sunday, 4 March
+ Monday, 5 March
+ Tuesday, 6 March
+ Wednesday, 7 March
+ Thursday, 8 March
+ Friday, 9 March

The photo gallery with its 279 photos

The C-SPAN interview

Africa Command: Photo Essays: Esquire showcases some of Tom's photos

Slideshow of the photo gallery (though the extensive captions are easier to read if you click through to the gallery):