Dolphins to Montenegro; or, why the U.S. Government is broke
[Note how many USG organizations (marked below in yellow) were involved in getting dolphins to the inviting waters (not just for dolphins, but especially for the US military) of Montenegro, which most Americans could not find (I bet) on a map. And the article does not mention how many "submerged unexploded munitions" were actually found by the dear bottlenose dolphins.]
The State Department Helps Navy Dolphins Make a Splash in Montenegro - David P. Hardison, DipNote: "Pigs might not fly, but dolphins just did, and in the process helped Montenegro pinpoint the location of unexploded bombs, mines, and other munitions that were fired, dropped, and dumped in its coastal waters. On October 5, six specially-trained bottlenose dolphins and their handlers from the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program flew to Tivat, Montenegro from their base in San Diego,California as part of Operation Dolphin 2012. Thanks to the coordination of the U.S. Embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro, and with a little help from the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, the dolphin teams participated in a multinational military operation to search for submerged unexploded munitions from past conflicts in the Bay of Kotor. The dolphin teams, along with the U.S. Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit-1 based in Point Loma, California, also trained Montenegrin Navy divers to conduct similar operations.
Military divers from Slovenia and Croatia observed operations as well. ... Upon completion, the Montenegrin divers were recognized in a graduation ceremony at which U.S. Ambassador to Montenegro Sue K. Brown donated diving equipment to Montenegro, courtesy of the U.S. European Command's Humanitarian Mine Action Program. Grids with the precise locations of hazardous items will be provided to the government of Montenegro. With this information, equipment and training, Montenegro will be better able to continue neutralization of underwater explosive hazards to ensure that its beautiful waters may continue to be used safely by fishermen, recreational boaters and divers, cruise ships and freighters. This operation was a team effort, and a great example of ongoing State Department/Defense Department cooperation.
For the State Department, U.S. Embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro, coordinated the deployment, and the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs provided funds for some logistical costs of the deployment. For the Defense Department, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. European Command Humanitarian Mine Action Program, and the U.S Department of Defense's Humanitarian Mine Action Program were instrumental in the deployment. All of this was accomplished with the kind cooperation of the Montenegrin Ministry of Defense. This was the first time that the Marine Mammal Program [love that term -- JB] partnered with the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and the Department of Defense Humanitarian Mine Action program [mamal-to-mamal exchange program? JB] simultaneously. The State Department and Defense Department plan to employ this collaborative approach in the future to help countries affected by unexploded mines, bombs, and other munitions." AboveImage from entry; below image from
A Princeton PhD, was a U.S. diplomat for over 20 years, mostly in Central/Eastern Europe, and was promoted to the Senior Foreign Service in 1997. After leaving the State Department in 2003 to express strong reservations about the planned U.S. invasion of Iraq, he shared ideas with Georgetown University students on the tension between propaganda and public diplomacy. He has given talks on "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United" to participants in the "Open World" program. Among Brown’s many articles is his latest piece, “Janus-Faced Public Diplomacy: Creel and Lippmann During the Great War,” now online. He is the compiler (with S. Grant) of The Russian Empire and the USSR: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Materials in the United States (also online). In the past century, he served as an editor/translator of a joint U.S.-Soviet publication of archival materials, The United States and Russia: The Beginning of Relations,1765-1815. His approach to "scholarly" aspirations is poetically summarized by Goethe: "Gray, my friend, is every theory, but green is the tree of life."
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