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

[Morton K. Brussel]

Many interesting questions here. Counterfactuals always throw sand into the gears of human/government machinations.. It occurs to me that one should learn from experience in any given situation. In Iraq and Afghanistan and many other world situations, we already have firm evidence of what has been done, those killed and displaced, those whose health has been ruined, the destruction of communities and infrastructure, etc. That should be the basis on which we should/can judge what should be (or not be) done. Many of us have seen the ill effects of western/U.S. policies promoted in the interest of benevolence, and we have learned thereby to distrust all such benevolent claims. That is a practical approach which does not depend on counterfactuals.

--mkb

On Sep 20, 2010, at 4:11 PM, Robert Naiman wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> --
> 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
> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern
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