[Peace-discuss] Linda Polman on "Afghaniscam": is U.S. "Aid" Making Things Worse?

[Robert Naiman]

The concerns raised in Linda Polman's new book, "The Crisis Caravan:
What's Wrong with Humanitarian Aid?" should inform debate in the U.S.
about what we are going to do now in Afghanistan. A greater focus on
humanitarian assistance has sometimes been counterposed as an
alternative to our current war policy, but Polman's book shows that it
is not that simple. Western aid sometimes does more harm than good,
particularly in situations of armed conflict, particularly when aid
exacerbates the armed conflict that caused the humanitarian crisis
that the aid was supposed to address. As Polman recounts, this has
happened even in situations where the Western aid intervention was not
part of an explicit war policy, such as the support of Hutu refugee
camps in then-Zaire in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. In
Afghanistan, Western aid is currently part of a policy of intervention
in an ongoing civil war. A likely pre-condition for U.S. aid in
Afghanistan to do more good than harm is that it implement a policy of
national political reconciliation based on a negotiated resolution of
the civil war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/linda-polman-on-afghanisc_b_732088.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/20/1651/90549

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/713


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Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan
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