Excellent article today examining CENTCOM’s efforts in the Horn of Africa.

Chief Ali Waberi sat on a cot draped in mosquito netting and told Budd how much the United States is needed in Djibouti.
“Our only hope is God, and you guys,” he said through the interpreter, Jafar Jama.

Sunlight streamed through gaps in the wooden boards. Flies were so thick that the old man handed his visitor a homemade fan to chase them off.
Then the chief expressed his disappointment.

“When the U.S. arrived here, we had big expectations. For 100 years, we’ve been praying for Americans to come over here,” Waberi said. “Fortunately, they’re here today.”

But, Waberi said, “it looks like the benefits are going toward the urban people rather than the villagers.”

This dispair and this hope speak to the fundamental dynamics of the Long War (and, ultimately, to all the non-military aspects of it).

The same day he visited Waberi, Budd made a stop in the village of Nagad. On his way back to the car, a young man he’d never met approached Budd. He told the agent the village needed to corral its goats and sheep. Could he help with that?

Budd introduced himself to the man, then offered a question instead of an answer.

“Do you understand what my role is?” he asked.

He had Jama, the interpreter, explain that he didn’t have the authority to carry out favors like that, but he would appreciate residents staying alert and getting in touch if they saw suspicious activity.

Budd delivered the message gently, with a handshake. “We’ll see you again,” he said.

We ought to be able to say yes to these sorts of requests and then be able to follow through on them. The military receives many of these requests, but that doesn’t mean we need to build this capability into the military. Why can’t we have USAID or State Dept. or NGO representatives with the military liason as he travels from camp to camp? We need a wider spectrum of our national power being brought to bear on these areas.

It’s tough to tell whether the United States is winning this quiet war and preventing a full-blown conflict. Sometimes, the victories are small.

Mouusi Abi is an example.

Like half the working-age population of Djibouti, the 29-year-old father of two is unemployed. He lost his job with an oil company in March, but since September, he has stayed busy helping a group of Navy Seabees construct a school bathroom in his neighborhood.

Abi simply showed up one day, with passable English that allowed him to converse with the 10-man crew from Port Hueneme, Calif. He totes heavy bags of cement and mortar and shoos away children who ask the Americans for water or throw pebbles over the fence.

It isn’t a paying gig, but Abi hopes his help might lead to a job on base. For the U.S. military, Abi is a success - for his loyalty, not his lifting.

Abi has become a fan - and defender - of the Seabees.

Motioning to the prayer tower of a nearby mosque, Abi said the imam there doesn’t like Americans working in the area, and he made those feelings public.

So Abi and fellow members of the neighborhood council visited the imam.

“They help us, and they help our children,” Abi said they told the Muslim cleric. They asked him to keep his opinions to himself, and it seems to have worked: Abi said they haven’t heard anything from the imam since.

This ought to be a paying gig for Abi. If he is offering his labor, then it seems only fair that he be paid. Again, the source of that funding probably shouldn’t be the already over-scheduled DoD. Let’s get State into the fight.

Budd, the agent with the Navy’s investigative service, worries that his friendly village visits spread false hope rather than defuse terrorism.

This is the ticking clock on all of the American efforts. If hopes prove false, then the ground will have been prepared for those who seek to prey upon failed dreams with promises of anachronistic utopias.