Maura R. O'Connor

Dispatches and published work

March 21, 2012 • 5:08 pm Comments Off

“The History Page: The Cold War Rag”

The Daily

Jazz icon Louis Armstrong goes to Africa–to fight the Soviets

In October 1960, the U.S. State Department dispatched the 59-year-old Louis Armstrong and his All Stars band as cultural ambassadors to counter Soviet influence in Africa. At the time, the continent was experiencing a wave of political independence movements that uprooted the colonial powers that had controlled African resources for decades and reorganized the political order. Between 1956 and 1961 alone, more than 20 African countries, including Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria and Congo became independent nations. But the U.S. government saw these political changes as a dangerous opportunity for its Cold War enemy to consolidate power in the region. So the State Department began an offensive that utilized a potent and distinctly American weapon on the world stage — American jazz.

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Filed under: International Affairs, The Daily

March 5, 2012 • 5:41 pm Comments Off

“Homicide Watch” 

Columbia Journalism Review

Reinventing the homicide beat for the digital age

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Mico Briscoe. Black. Male. 18. Shot on November 26, 2011.

Marcellus J. Darnaby, aka “Boom.” Black. Male. 32. Shot on June 15, 2011.

Lucki Nancy Pannell. Black. Female. 18. Shot on February 19, 2011.

These are just a few of the 152 homicides currently listed on HomicideWatchDC.org. In the coming months and years, that number is sure to increase. Since September 2010, Laura Amico, the site’s founder, has tracked every single homicide that has occurred in Washington, D.C., from the day that it occurred until the perpetrator’s arrest and conviction.

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Filed under: Columbia Journalism Review

January 12, 2012 • 6:32 pm Comments Off

“Two Years Later, Haitian Earthquake Death Toll in Dispute”

Columbia Journalism Review

Journalists can do a better job reporting controversial numbers in disaster zones

Fifteen miles north of the National Palace in Port au Prince, along Haiti’s azure coastline, is a place called Titanyen. From Kreyol, this name translates to something like “less than nothing.” Titanyen feels practically barren, mostly dusty hills with some farmers herding animals. On one of these hills looms a large cross with strips of black cloth tied to it. These rags flap in the breeze like a murder of crows, memorializing the victims of the 2010 earthquake who are buried at the spot in mass graves.  Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Columbia Journalism Review, Foreign Aid, Haiti, Humanitarian

January 1, 2012 • 2:17 pm Comments Off

“Operation Spring Rain” 

Pacific Standard

U.S. soldiers work to undo some of the damage done to Afghanistan’s agricultural communities from decades of war.

Samuel Rance speaks with a twang and his favorite band is Tool. One morning last spring, he was sitting at a picnic table on Forward Operating Base Salerno in eastern Afghanistan, seven months into his deployment. His team had just finished Operation Thrasher, a training class in composting for farmers in the nearby city of Khost. Behind him were several acres of wheat and fruit trees, and a greenhouse. He and his team members — the Indiana National Guard’s 3-19th Agribusiness Development Team — had planted the grain and the trees, and built the greenhouse. Beyond the farm were the barracks for some of the 5,000 soldiers and civilian contractors stationed at Salerno; behind the barracks towered the mountains that form the border with Pakistan. Most mornings, Apache helicopters riddled the hillsides with rockets for target practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Afghanistan, Foreign Aid, International Affairs, Pacific Standard

December 28, 2011 • 3:30 pm Comments Off

“A New Dawn for Haiti Tourism?” 

Caribbean Journal 

Courtesy of Caribbean Journal

When Dominican business entrepreneur Frank Ranieri wanted to get involved in tourism in the 1970s, he crossed the border into Haiti to see how it was done. “[Haiti’s tourism] was bigger than in the Dominican Republic,” Ranieri says.

Today, the tourism empire he built in Punta Cana is one of the most popular destination spots in the Dominican Republic. Out of 4 million annual tourists in the country, the resorts there receive 2.2 million. The Punta Cana International Airport (the world’s first privately owned) brings in $350 million in taxes for the Dominican government each year.

Meanwhile, Haiti’s tourism industry is essentially nonexistent today, a fading memory after decades of political instability, economic stagnation and natural disasters. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Caribbean Journal, Haiti

November 18, 2011 • 7:44 pm Comments Off

“The History Page: Revolutionary fever”

The Daily 

Haitian soldiers aid America – and find fuel for their own uprising

Henri Christophe, courtesy of The Daily

When the Declaration of Independence announced the birth of a new nation, the fledgling United States had a population of just 2.5 million. It was a relatively poor country with no federal budget to wage war against the British. It was for this reason that Benjamin Franklin and John Adams traveled to Paris in 1776: to secure an alliance with Britain’s greatest rival and to obtain money to finance their incipient revolution. Ironically, this collaboration would fuel revolution not only in America but also in the French colony of Haiti.
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Filed under: Haiti, International Affairs, The Daily

September 13, 2011 • 6:37 pm Comments Off

“Rocket City, Afghanistan”

1st Lt. Robert F. Welch III was walking to his barrack on a warm spring evening when the mortar round fired by insurgents hit nearby, sending shrapnel into his body and severing an artery. Shortly after, an unusual call was put out over the base’s loudspeaker, requesting that everyone with A+ blood type report to the hospital. Nearly 300 soldiers sprinted to line up and give their blood. Nevertheless, Welch died from his wounds later that day. In his mid-20s, the ordinance officer was on his first combat deployment and had been in Afghanistan for a few months, leaving behind his wife and their young baby, Robert F. Welch IV, in Fort Knox, Kentucky. In his book “The Wrong War,” Bing West wrote that death in battle is random. But you don’t have to be in battle to randomly die in Afghanistan. It could happen while you’re taking a stroll with a friend. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Afghanistan, Dispatches

June 2, 2011 • 3:46 pm Comments Off

“Special Development Ops”

Slate

Photo by Kris Leboutillier

 

JALALABAD, Afghanistan—When Chris Corsten describes his job, he starts from space and zooms into the eastern hemisphere of the world, down into Central Asia, and then into Afghanistan, using Google Earth. In one of the country’s rural districts, nestled in mountains and riverbeds, are hundreds of colored dots representing construction sites. If Corsten moves his cursor over one of these dots, a geo-tagged photograph showing Afghan men building walls or mixing cement appears. If he displays all the construction sites he’s managed in Afghanistan, there are thousands of colored dots spread across the country.

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Filed under: Afghanistan, Foreign Aid, Slate

June 1, 2011 • 12:00 pm Comments Off

“Can Development Win a Counterinsurgency?”

Slate 

 

KHOST, Afghanistan––When people hear about the U.S. military doing development work in Afghanistan, they think about “winning hearts and minds” through humanitarian aid or building schools. The idea is that if Americans do nice things for Afghans, they will be so grateful they will begin to support the counterinsurgency.

But these days, heart and minds is a phrase that will get you nothing but a lot of sighs from members of the military. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Afghanistan, Foreign Aid, International Affairs, Slate

May 12, 2011 • 6:34 pm Comments Off

“Afghanistan Base Life: A Vicious Groundhog Day” 

Guernica

The first time I ever saw a 20 oz. can of Red Bull was on a military base in eastern Afghanistan. It was 7 a.m. in the morning and an infantry soldier was drinking it for breakfast before heading out in a convoy of MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles for a mission. “If they made 40 oz., I’d drink that,” the soldier told me.  Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Afghanistan, Guernica

May 11, 2011 • 11:04 am Comments Off

“Now showing in Afghanistan: ‘Why We Are Here’”

After death of Osama bin Laden, US propaganda films may need a rewrite.

Global Post

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan — In the bottom of a dry, ancient riverbed near a small village in Khost province, a local employee of the U.S. Army presents a battery-powered, handheld DVD player to a crowd of boys and men.

They gather around the small screen to watch a movie called “Why We Are Here.”

Produced by the U.S. Military Information Support Operations (MISO), traditionally referred to as “PSY-OPS,” the movie describes the events of 9/11, when an “Arabian group called Al Qaeda,” says the narrator in Pashto, flew planes into two “very tall buildings where thousands of people, including Muslims, worked.”

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Filed under: Afghanistan, Global Post, International Affairs

May 5, 2011 • 7:04 am Comments Off

“COIN Stars”

Counterinsurgency bloggers help set the agenda in Afghanistan

Columbia Journalism Review

When Erik Smith accepted a one-year posting to Afghanistan as a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) official working with one of the U.S. military’s Provincial Reconstruction Teams, he received thirty minutes of Pashto language instruction and cursory training in counterinsurgency and stabilization strategy. “This is not the typical environment that USAID works in,” explained Smith (not his real name) of his job implementing development programs in coordination with the military’s development efforts, work that requires he don body armor and travel in convoys when not on a military base. “The training was satisfactory but it wasn’t good.” Trying to get a better understanding of what he would face when he landed in the field, Smith went online and discovered a blog called Afghan Quest. “It was amazing. I learned more from that blog than in all of my training,” said Smith. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Afghanistan, Columbia Journalism Review, International Affairs

May 3, 2011 • 5:06 am Comments Off

“We’re Still Going to Be Here”

Osama Bin Laden is dead, but for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the war continues.

Slate

COMBAT OUTPOST BOWRI TANAH, Afghanistan—The day after news broke that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, the feelings of euphoria among troops at Combat Outpost (COP) Bowri Tanah near the Pakistan border in Khost Province, Afghanistan, had evaporated. Instead, even as they watched footage of celebratory parties back home on a communal television, they seemed to have already reconciled with an unavoidable fact: For them, the war continues.

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Filed under: Afghanistan, International Affairs, Slate

April 23, 2011 • 10:55 am Comments Off

Filed under: Afghanistan, Dispatches, Photography

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