The Ever-elusive Circle of Trust

As my wife and I were interacting with our brood of feral kittens the other day it really hit home what a fragile and at times ephemeral condition trust is. In this past week we have tried very hard to earn these cats' trust by coaxing, cooing, petting—when possible—and bribing, yet we have achieved only partial success: one kitten, a gregarious bobtail we have named Kylie, has been completely tamed, yet no matter how good our intentions the other three are still prone to hissing, spitting and even swiping. Although the frequency of these negative reactions has diminished somewhat lately, we still have quite a ways to go before they will be fully domesticated and the black and tiger-striped ones adoptable into another home. The slow process of earning their trust continues; all it takes is one misstep, such as I had to today when an attempt to pick up Tiger caused her to shriek in terror and flee under the bed, to set the process back to square one or two.

Flash to the Middle East, where the day-to-day process of winning the hearts and minds of millions of Iraqis and Afghans seems neverending and at times unwinnable. No matter how many schools, power plants and homes are built, no matter how many children have been fed with MREs, no matter how good the intentions of the vast majority of our personnel over there, all it takes is one mistake, one error in judgment, one backhand to the mouth to compromise all of our efforts. Walk very softly, and try, please try, not to use the big stick quite so much.