squib, you bottom lined it: marines are not peacekeepers, and should not be. I went through the whole line manual when I was enlisted; still working on green in mcmap now. Everything used to end with "boot to the head" now it ends with "tighten zip ties on wrists and ankles." Myself and many mustangs (prior enlisted officers) are pretty upset at the retooling of the Army & Marine Corps to be boots on the ground for the state department. The "No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy" indicates the duality of the new mission; on the one hand, if you don't fight with us, we'll rain beanie babies on you, rebuild your schools, and pump millions (in cash) into your local economy through public works projects that are akin to hiring the mafia to build a bridge - that's your greatest friend, our money. However, if you plant ieds, attack our convoys or patrols, we'll ... rain beanie babies down on you, rebuild your schools, pump millions (in cash) into your local economy ... snag a few of your young men, run GPR tests on them, put 'em in zip ties and black out glasses, drop 'em off at cropper. You'll see 'em again next year during catch and release - that's your worst enemy. Did you catch the difference? Neither did I. Every now and again we get to go kinetic, but usually in the defense. Offensive operations are limited, even in Afghanistan. Our arrangement with NATO for example is to leave most of the poppy field alone so that the farmers have a source of income; Afghanistan is one of the primary sources of morphine, and other legal opiates. Whether its all going legal or not is debatable, but we're not allowed to burn down too much, because we don't want to upset the local economy.
Where is foreign aid in all this? Well, again, its not need based. We pick and choose who we give contracts to based on willingness to participate with the government we support. Back in HOA, I watched tanker ships full of subsidized flour pumped into tanker trucks at the port in Djibouti - got to go on one once as the crew were all from Texas and they wanted to talk to another American for a change. Those trucks drove right on past somali refugee camps full of starving kids with distended bellies and reddish hair, djiboutian villages filled with little kids near starvation, on across the border into Ethiopia, which is no more in famine than anyone else in the area. But Ethiopia is our ally; its a Christian (ish) nation with a strategic border along the Ogaden where Al Qaeda in Somalia train terrorists.
However, Samaritan's Purse, Doctors without Borders, Campus Crusade, Compassion International, the IMB, etc. are all non-profit charities who primarily receive their funds from faith groups, churches, etc. And they don't care about politics, they go where the need is. If you want to AID FOREIGNERS then give to groups like those. If you want to fund soft power projection for political gain with no accountability, go to whitehouse.gov; you'll find Haiti Earthquake relief under FOREIGN POLICY ... that says something.
