Report on Wilton Park Conference 1022: Thursday 11 -- Sunday 14 March 2010

Organized in partnership with the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University,

with support from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid), the Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence, the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Innocents at Risk is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded to fight child exploitation and human trafficking. Our mission is to educate citizens about the horrific global and local problem of human trafficking and work to prevent it. In order to increase the visibility of the severity of the issue, Innocents at Risk established partnerships with the Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Custom Border Patrol and the D.C. Task Force. We work with a vast number of non-government organizations and service providers.

Human Trafficking is 21st century slavery. It is happening throughout the world in every country and across the United States in every major city and small town. According to the Department of State, every year over 2,000,000 men, women and children are taken, trafficked and thrown into this cruel world of slavery. Traffickers use force, fraud or coercion to obtain their victims.

Read letters from the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Luis CdeBaca from the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report.

Visit and support Innocents at Risk.

Flight Attendants Are First Line of Defense Against Human Trafficking - Elizabeth Lee, Voice of America.

Flight attendants at a large U.S. airline are training other flight attendants to recognize signs of human trafficking on international and domestic flights. The flight attendant leading the program says it's possible to catch traffickers in the act, saving the lives of women and children trapped in the net For a moment in time, strangers from around the world come together as travelers.

It's also a moment when American Airlines flight attendant Sandra Fiorini can save a life. "We had an 18-year-old boy and he had a brand new day-old baby, umbilical cord everything was still there, day-old baby. He's going on a six hour flight, no wife. He has two diapers stuck in his pockets and one bottle," she describes.

Fiorini sees scenrios like that on a regular basis when she is on one of her international flights. She says after 39 years on the job, it's not difficult to recognize a suspected case of human trafficking. "Most of us are parents. When you see an instance that's not right and a red flag is raised, especially when there is children involved, you're more in tune with what's happening," she said. Fiorini had tried to report suspicious activity to the police but they never responded. Two years ago, it all changed when Fiorini met Deborah Sigmund, founder of the organization Innocents At Risk.

"It's enslavement. We're talking about modern day slavery," Sigmund said. Innocents At Risk provided Fiorini with brochures detailing the signs of human trafficking. There's also a phone number to report a suspected case. "Before you couldn't call anyone," Fiorini said. "The local authorities would not respond to you. So now when you do call this hotline number, someone does respond." Law enforcement will be waiting at the gate if a flight attendant reports something suspicious. Innocents At Risk created a video showing why it's important for law enforcement to respond. The organization says women, girls and even boys are being sold into sexual slavery...

More at Voice of America.

Empowering Local Village Elders and Women in Afghanistan

Please join us to hear a detailed presentation by Claire Russo, a former U.S. Marine officer, as she discusses her efforts in RC-East to improve local dispute resolution by empowering local village elders. She will also discuss the role of Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan as part of the counterinsurgency effort.

Guest Speaker:

Claire Russo

ISW Contributor

Former U.S. Marine officer

When:

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

0845 - 0900

Registration and light breakfast

0900 -- 1030

Presentation by Claire Russo

Where:

Institute for the Study of War

Rooftop conference room

1616 P St NW (entrance)

Washington, DC 20036

RSVP:

RSVP@understandingwar.org

(202) 293-5550

... But the real source of tension was the battle that was about to begin. Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, has been advertised as the target of a major U.S.-led offensive this summer. The operation will aim to break the back of the Taliban on its own turf. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the offensive "the cornerstone of our surge effort and the key to shifting the momentum" in the 9-year-old war - as important to the Afghan struggle, he said, as pacifying Baghdad was to Iraq.

In fact, the offensive has already begun with a "soft launch" of U.S. special operations raids to kill or capture suspected Taliban leaders, answered by Taliban assassinations of police officials and a string of suicide bombings. In June, about 10,000 fresh U.S. troops will arrive, part of President Obama's Afghan surge of 30,000, to launch major operations in the province...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

... In this toxic climate, perhaps the only public institution that has increased in prestige in recent years is the American military. Its officers are looked upon, as General George Patton once noted, as "the modern representatives of the demi-gods and heroes of antiquity".

Where better to look for Obama's successor, therefore, than in the uniformed ranks? Not since 1952, when a certain Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during the Second World War, was elected President, have the chances of a military man winning the White House been more propitious.

Within those ranks, no one stands out like General David Petraeus, head of United States Central Command, leader of 230,000 troops and commander of United States forces in two wars. Having masterminded the Iraq surge, the stunning military gambit that seized victory from the jaws of defeat, he is now directing an equally daunting undertaking in Afghanistan....

More at The Daily Telegraph.

Since their offensive here in February, the Marines have flooded Marja with hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. The tactic aims to win over wary residents by paying them compensation for property damage or putting to work men who would otherwise look to the Taliban for support.

The approach helped turn the tide of insurgency in Iraq. But in Marja, where the Taliban seem to know everything - and most of the time it is impossible to even tell who they are - they have already found ways to thwart the strategy in many places, including killing or beating some who take the Marines' money, or pocketing it themselves.

Just a few weeks since the start of the operation here, the Taliban have "reseized control and the momentum in a lot of ways" in northern Marja, Maj. James Coffman, civil affairs leader for the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, said in an interview in late March. "We have to change tactics to get the locals back on our side." ...

More at The New York Times.

If U.S. military commanders are right, here's how the path out of Afghanistan begins: Several dozen weathered Pashtun farmers are sitting on carpets under a makeshift tent. It's 45 days after U.S. Marines and Afghan troops have swept into this Taliban stronghold, and now the town's elders are gathered in a shura.

A tribal leader named Haji Abdul Salam presents a long list of grievances: schools, clinics, roads, money to replace the opium poppy crop that's blooming in the fields. An Afghan district governor named Gulab Mangal makes generous promises of assistance; hovering in the background are U.S. military and civilian officials who will pay the bills.

This is how conflicts end in Afghanistan: The Afghans talk out their grievances and eventually reach a deal. Money is exchanged and honor restored. Fighting often continues in the background, but most people go home until the next conflict begins...

More at The Washington Post.

Just four days after President Obama's surprise visit to Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave a major speech complaining that heavy-handed international actions tarnished last year's presidential election, diminished his legitimate status as clear winner and risked making the foreign military presence resemble the imperialist invaders of yesteryear.

Karzai went too far. His comments were unfair and risked encouraging critics of the Afghanistan mission who want to portray foreign forces as unwelcome. But his remarks were also a predictable result of American browbeating. Historically, negative treatment of the Afghan leader has produced these sorts of reactions. Kabul and Washington are partners in the effort to create a stable, democratic state; they should understand that public displays of rancor are best avoided...

More at The Washington Post.

More:

Karzai Blames Foreigners for Afghan Vote Fraud - Voice of America

Afghan President Rebukes West and U.N. - New York Times

Karzai Rails Against Foreign Presence - Washington Post

Karzai Blames Western Officials for Election Fraud - Los Angeles Times

Karzai Calls Clinton to Clarify Critical Remarks - Voice of America

In Call, Karzai Tries to Clarify a Diatribe - New York Times

Karzai Clarifies Remarks that Sparked White House 'Concern' - Washington Post

President Karzai Lashes Out - New York Times editorial

This book contains selected papers from the 2007 Conference of Army Historians. The fifteen papers selected for this publication are not only the best of those presented, but they also examine irregular warfare in a wide and diverse range of circumstances and eras.

Together, they demonstrate how extremism was intimately connected to this type of warfare and how Americans have, at different times in their history, found themselves acting as insurgents, counterinsurgents, or both. The titles of the papers themselves reflect how often the U.S. Army has engaged in such irregular operations despite a formal focus on conventional warfare. Using imperial British and Italian examples, several presentations also underline how the ease of conquering lands is often no indication of the level of effort required to pacify them and integrate them into a larger whole.

H/T Carl Prine via FB. Thanks ink slinger.