Word: missioneering
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...ISAF's mission is demanding, and getting more so. In late July it took control of the south, a historically neglected region where the Taliban is particularly strong, and it will be in charge of the whole country by the end of the year. "The insurgents are fighting in numbers and with a strength that we didn't anticipate six months ago," says Major Luke Knittig, an ISAF spokesman. Taliban forces, in disarray after coalition forces toppled them from power in 2001, are now able to operate in platoon-sized units of about 40 men, and sometimes larger...
That said, these parental advisories also seem to tap into an even broader need for meaning. Their elevated aims and empty jargon bring to mind the corporate-mission-statement craze of the '90s, when companies composed pithy statements of purpose that were so generic and laden with buzzwords (Optimizing! Adaptive! Empowering!) as to lose all meaning. Even now one drugmaker aspires "to provide society with superior products and services by developing innovations and solutions that improve the quality of life and satisfy customer needs, and to provide employees with meaningful work and advancement opportunities, and investors with a superior rate...
...American officers and diplomats - to say nothing of the Iraqi government - join Babikir in his refusal to name an enemy or tie "insurgents and death squads" to larger political movements. Col. Michael Shields' Stryker Brigade, which spent a year in Mosul, had its mission extended by four months and is now working with the Iraqi Army to cordon off and search west Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods. "We're not targeting organizations," said Col. Michael Shields. "We're targeting the threats to the security of the people...
...diplomatic wrangling so far over the international peacekeeping force has only confirmed Lebanese's worst suspicions. Almost from the moment the cease-fire was official, Europe has hesitated in contributing substantial numbers of new forces to the 28-year-old United Nations peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL. France took the lead in co-sponsoring Resolution 1701, but then dispatched only 200 engineers, the first of which came ashore in southern Lebanon in dinghies. France has wanted clearer guidelines on when its troops can use force, lest they be left helpless if the conflict heats up again, though President Jacques Chirac...
...spinners' jobs became easier Thursday night when President Jacques Chirac, the final arbiter of French foreign policy, said he was committing another two French battalions - 1,600 troops - to the UN mission. Chirac, in a televised address against the lush background of the Elysee Palace, said he had upped the number after receiving clarifications from the UN that the force's chain of command would be " simple and direct" and assurances from Lebanon and Israel "that French troops would be able to fulfil their mission on the ground...