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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (98640)	5/21/2003 10:25:02 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

The piece you posted on the Iraqi situation does show that we are all like a group of blind men trying to describe an Elephant. True. It’s a fairly agitated elephant, and if the blind men aren't exceedingly careful, they are likely to get stepped on. No one has ever tried what we are trying, and mistakes will be made. Many of the things we are trying have been tried before, though not in an identical context. There are many lessons that can be learned from previous aid and reconstruction efforts; we’ll have to see if they have been learned. I’ve been observing aid and development projects for a long time, and I’ve noticed that Americans often do rather poorly at them. The problem is not one of technical competence or intelligence: we’ve plenty of those. It’s more of an attitude thing, and the most common symptom is the rapid effort to solve a problem without really understanding what the problem is. I used to train Peace Corps volunteers on occasion, and the one piece of advice that I always rammed down their throats. It was this: if you see something going on that doesn’t make any sense to you, do not assume that the people you are observing are crazy or stupid, or that they desperately need to do things your way. Assume that there is some factor in the picture that you aren’t seeing. Find the missing factor, and you’ll understand what’s going on. Try to propose – or impose – a solution without considering the missing factors, you accomplish nothing and often make a mess. I hope somebody in Iraq is making the same point.