Surprise, surprise.

The Army Reserve, whose part-time soldiers serve in combat and support roles in Iraq and Afghanistan, is so hampered by misguided Army policies and practices that it is "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," the Reserve's most senior general says.

Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, wrote in an internal memorandum to the Army's top uniformed officer that the Reserve has reached the point of being unable to fulfill its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and to regenerate its forces for future missions.

And just like those armored Humvees, somebody's working on it, so we should all rest easy.

Whether you were for or against the invasion of Iraq, surely we can agree that this Administration has demonstrated a continued betrayal of the basic social contract between civilian and military. Doesn't really matter whether it's due to unending wishful thinking, cavalier disregard for "fungible" units, attachment to high-tech transformation models, unwillingness to confront unpalatable political truths in a four-year re-election campaign, or an entrenched bureaucracy more concerned about where their next budget's coming from.

We can and must do better than this. First and foremost, the denial game has to stop at the top. These problems have been visible to anyone with one eye for over a year, but have been dismissed and brushed aside as partisan sniping. The media have totally failed to push what has been plain to see. The military themselves know all this, but they have no way to hold the civilians to account.

The next thing is for some new priorities to be set, and Congress had better be part of that agenda-setting process. The Reserve and Guard are as much Congress' children as anything.

And then maybe some new managers to tackle those priorities?

There is no innocence in the politics of humanitarian assistance.
Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of dept of political science, Colombo University.

The notion of a "core" group of major countries with resources and logistical assets within the region affected by the tsunami makes a great deal of sense. Although just how that "core" is supposed to relate to all the other pieces of the international mosaic has been more than a little unclear since announced by President Bush, but probably best left deliberately vague.

The announcement of the "core" has been seen by some, however, as another Bush "coalition of the willing" designed to cut out the formal mechanisms of multilateral cooperation. But in that prickly reaction to the core, no one seems to be paying much attention to relations within the core itself.

Except in Sri Lanka. Where the decision to send a contingent of US Marines has "raised eyebrows" in some quarters of Colombo and Delhi, with some suspicions that humanitarian aid isn't all that innocent, especially when it involves a movement, temporary or not, into India's sphere of influence.

"India Furious!" said a banner headline in the Monday edition of the Sudar Oli (Beacon Light), a Tamil-language newspaper considered sympathetic to the LTTE published from Colombo.

The newspaper said India was upset that Sri Lanka had not given it proper warning that it would be welcoming U.S. Marines into its "neighbourhood".

But G. Parthasarthy, a former Indian ambassador to Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from New Delhi that too much ado was being made of the aid effort. "They love conspiracy theories in Colombo," he said.

Parthasarthy said it was clear the United States had got into the aid race rather late "after stringent domestic and international criticism".

For the present, he said -- "and please underline 'for the present'" -- the aid seemed to be just what it was, humanitarian and with no strings attached.

Although having lost more than 15,000 people itself, India has been keen to demonstrate its ability to manage in the wake of the catastrophe. After Indo-Lankan relations reached a nadir in the early stages of Sri Lanka's civil war, they have improved substantially. India is now seen as a supportive neighbor when humanitarian assistance is called for. India has already mobilized five Navy vessels including a hospital ship, a field hospital, six military helicopters and nearly 1000 military personnel for Sri Lanka.

And then there's India's famous general prickliness about anything that could be seen as failing to acknowledge its global and regional status. India has politely refused external aid for itself. As Amb Parthasarthy reminded the Reuters interviewer:

"Ten foreigners come and work two hours a day and the world's media think they've sorted out our problems tickety-boo," he said.

"We have the resources to manage our own situation."

Best not to forget that.