Huff #4
Worry About the Hinterlands…[Early March 210]
If this fool says “governance” one more time, I’ll shoot him myself. Since I can’t actually do that, I nod. Then I nod again sagely, like generals are supposed to, and briefly make eye contact with the UN Agency for Rural Development toady lecturing me.
“It’s problematic. Yes, General, problematic. Given the lack of medical records and registration, we can’t tell for sure what the true civilian inoculation rate is, especially with the number of claimed religious exemptions our workers encounter.”
I’ve counted fifteen “problematics” in thirteen minutes. I quit counting how many times he said “governance,” but I’m sure it will exceed fifty before the briefing is through.
He does have a point, though, even if he did smother it in buzzwords. These people bear a striking resemblance to what I’ve read about North Americans during the “Prohibition” era. There’s cooperation, and there’s “cooperation.” The first is genuine. The second is meant to keep lawful authorities satisfied yet ignorant while figuring out how to make them go away fastest. We’re getting lots of the latter, very little of the former. It seems many of the native farmers and merchants don’t care for UN business practices.
Then, apart from three significant cities, most of the huge single continent is sparsely populated. Lots of towns under 50,000, but that’s big enough for significant rebel activity and support. There are thousands of smaller settlements, too blasted many for us to maintain a presence in more than a few. That needs to change.
From a military standpoint, the pacification phase of this is quite doable; not easy, not with the resource shortfalls, red tape, and second-class troops, but nothing insurmountable. However, we aren’t getting effective civilian control and local cooperation. They call us “aardvarks” among other, less pleasant epithets.
[1.5 divs later] Tonight, we broke out formal dress and hosted a reception at the house, honoring the UN Chief of Mission and her role in the system-wide compliance effort. I had a feeling the CoM wanted to talk about rapport with local farmers, given the wretched briefing I took this afternoon. I don’t even think she knows what day of the week it is, honestly.
The CoM directs every UN civilian, every credit spent, every nonmilitary contract and sanctioned NGO throughout the system. Because this is a peacekeeping operation, I take direction from her when it comes to anything touching reconstruction, cultural, or economic policy, and I pay for her security. This bill eats into my forces. Luckily, my actual orders, responsibilities, and authorities, come from BuMil and SecMil, but I know better than to make an enemy of the ambassador.
Officially, the UN frowns upon military antiques like formal receptions as inegalitarian, yet no one turns down the invitations. We accomplish a lot at these things, and people tend to misunderstand this: Business gets done when people are well lubricated. In this instance, I wanted the CoM to spool down from panic mode, and get her claws out of my Regional Commanders’ freedom of action. If she had her way, every platoon would have an embedded “advisor” and an armored convoy for protection every time one of them had to take a piss.
I spotted Ambassador Trudeau before she noticed me, so I gestured for Sandeep to get two glasses of wine and to rejoin us after I opened the discussion. General Order One gets “modified” when it comes to political work, and this was work.
“Ambassador! It’s great to see you! My aide will be back momentarily with some red. Your preference, right?” My smile was practiced, and real enough—she is attractive and carries herself without the pinched look of most UN senior civilians.
“General Huff. Yes, thank you.” (Perfect timing, Sandeep!) She was stone faced, but gracious.
I started the parley: “You’re thinking about Orme, aren’t you?”
Her face softened, but her smile was predatory. “Orme had a lot of potential, don’t you think?” She then went on about the attack on the supply base. Somehow, she knew an insurgent prisoner escaped. She knew the body of the second day’s attacker—the farm-equipment salesman who blew the place up with a VBIED and chopped people up with a goddamn Scottish broadsword—was identified as an Earth native and FMF retiree. She even knew this man had been dealing in contraband with senior base personnel.
“General, you have a corruption problem in your ranks, and thanks to that, you’re endangering civil progress here! You’re jeopardizing the entire project!”
She wasn’t entirely wrong; the base sergeant major was behind a lot of compromising activity, some of it outright disgusting, and this made the base vulnerable to begin with. The condition of his body, the sheer rage unleashed on him, told me he’d made some personal enemies, and for all our sakes, we need to know what he was really doing. With any luck, we’ll also find out who’s leaking information to the CoM.
Sandeep attempted to politely redirect the conversation, but Ambassador Trudeau wasn’t having it. I was in for a long night, and there wasn’t enough wine to make it tolerable.