The Foreign Service Journal, October 2003

There is little doubt these plans are driven, among other things, by election concerns. Facing unexpected difficulty in Iraq, the Bush White House needs American voters to see Afghanistan as a success story heading into 2004. The Afghan government needs to show suc- cess for its own electoral exercise, scheduled for June 2004. On July 14, in an event co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Radio Free Europe, Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah spoke at length about the coming elections and stated that additional international funding commitments were necessary to maintain stability within the country and give credibility to the Hamid Karzai government ( www.csis.org ). Without more assistance, he warned, Afghanistan could again become a breeding ground for terrorism. Even assuming that bombardment by money and experts could solve the problem, a new Rand Corpor- ation study underscores the difficulty ( www.rand.org/publications/MR/M R1753 ). “A merica’s Role in Nation Building: From Germany to Iraq” doc- uments the comparatively pitiful base- line effort in Afghanistan. While there were 18.6 peacekeepers per thousand people in Bosnia and 20 in Kosovo, the 4,800 international peacekeeping force in Kabul amounts to 0.18 peacekeep- ers per thousand Afghans. When the 11,500 mostly American combat troops there are included, there is still well under one peacekeeper per thousand Afghans. In addition, while per capita external assistance for the first two years of conflict in Bosnia was $1,390 and in Kosovo $814, in Afghanistan it is $52. An urgent plea to the Bush adminis- tration for action to support the Karzai government was made in June by an independent task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose report, “Afghanistan: Are We Losing the Peace?,” is available online ( www.cfr. org/pdf/Afghanistan_TF.pdf ). Among other measures, the task force called for making peacekeeping part of the U.S. forces’ mandate and giving the International Security Assistance Force O C T O B E R 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 C YBERNOTES 50 Years Ago... Mindful that at no time since the early days of the Republic have the American people faced a more serious and persistent challenge in foreign affairs, we believe the national interest requires that the Foreign Service be steadily strengthened to meet its responsibilities. Proud as we are of the record of the Service, we recognize that it must be alert to change and as responsive to emergencies as it is constant in the long trials. — From the declaration of belief in the Foreign Service, published as the Editorial, FSJ , October, 1953 Site of the Month www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov To maintain a healthy perspective on the urgent little affairs of everyday life, it is helpful to keep the bigger picture in focus. NASA’s Earth Observatory Web site does this in a most engaging way. The site offers a bird’s-eye view of Earth and fascinating insights into the natural processes at work here. The site’s pur- pose is to make freely available the latest satellite imagery and scientific infor- mation about planet Earth— its atmosphere, oceans, land, energy and life. The site has news and features, as well as an “experiments” department where you will find interactive experiments to teach all ages how NASA uses remote sens- ing to study the “how and why” of Earth changes. Click on “Ask the Scientist” to pose your questions. A special feature introduced in the past year is a Natural Hazards image ser- vice, updated daily. You can access Natural Hazards at the Web site, or sign up to receive free, daily notices by e-mail of significant Earth events replete with satellite images — from hurricanes to dust storms, wildfires and floods. The images are available up to the satellite sensors’ highest spatial resolution, and are suitable for posters, print or TV publication. As with everything else at the site, users are free to use or publish these images (with credit given).