After reading this Washington Post article, you'll probably want to get to know a little more about Chad.
The article in question suggests that we could all do with a little update:
They landed in Chad with outdated U.S. military maps that still labeled the current capital, N'Djamena, with its French colonial name, Fort Lamy. To keep from getting lost, Gary fashioned his own crude map by plotting GPS coordinates for stores and gas stations. U.S. soldiers are relative newcomers in Chad, where France has had 1,000 troops and three air bases.
Whatever it's called, apparently the local culture leaves something to be desired, too:
After scouting out the cacophonous, crime-ridden capital, with its Internet cafes and dilapidated French cinemas, the soldiers concluded that it was ripe for terrorists. Worshipers outside the grand mosque denounced the war in Iraq. Booksellers sold Islamic fundamentalist tracts and photocopied images of a girl transformed into a large rat because she threw a Koran, the Islamic holy book, on the floor.
Cacaphonous and crime-ridden? That's not what my Lonely Planet guide says! Oh, well. Anyhow, the training of Chadean anti-terrorist troops is running into predictable obstacles -- including language barriers, fewer than usual Special Forces doing the training, and the proportion of Chadean soldiers who are, well, really poor (as in "train in flip-flops" poor) and really, really young (as in "just old enough to attend a PG-13 film unsupervised" young).
And then there's this:
Grooming effective military leaders is as central to the U.S. mission in Chad as teaching infantry tactics, U.S. officials say. But the job is complicated because Chad's army -- like the rest of the government -- is run top-down by the feared Zagawa tribe.
Indeed, many of the U.S. goals in Chad appear to conflict with the Zagawa leaders' imperative to stay in power. Across the region, some of the governments the U.S. military is working with have embraced counterterrorism as a way to stifle legitimate dissent and Muslim groups, according to reports issued by the International Crisis Group.
The U.S.-trained battalion is commanded by Deby's nephew, Maj. Hardja Idriss, and is part of a regiment assigned to protect an authoritarian and increasingly unpopular president. Deby survived an attempted coup last year, and his grip on power remains fragile. "It just makes sense. They're the president's guard, and so in this region, with all the coups and stuff, you'd want them the best trained," said Capt. Jason, the team leader.
