Aid NGOs Complain Military is Doing Their Job
From Instapundit yesterday:
HAITI RELIEF? Soldiers told to stop handing out food. “Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages. It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.”
One is likely to assume that the lack of a cohesive government down there and logistical problems would be to blame. However, one of Glenn’s readers replied with his first-hand experiences.
The “aid” agencies did the same thing in Afghanistan. Being a logistics specialist, I volunteered to help an American NGO with rebuilding schools, and was on the ground in Kabul in January of ‘02. (I later ended up in charge of UNICEF’s warehouse/distribution operation for all of the new school supplies…leaving me with a complete and total disdain for all things UN-related.)
For the NGO community, to be seen co-operating with the US military was the kiss of death. NGO co-ordination meetings specifically warned against co-operation with the US military, as opposed to UN agencies. The supposed reason was that they wanted a clear line between the “killers” and those that were “there to help”.
Hey folks, get over it. Stereotyping the military in this way does no one any good. How many NGOs have facilities to desalinate ocean water and provide food as much as an aircraft carrier does? Yeah, thought so. America is using it’s vast resources to help and all you can do is this:
They would actually COMPLAIN that the military was out doing things like rehabilitating wells and such, whining that these were things that should be left to the aid agencies. The irony of the fact that we were all sitting in a meeting, DISCUSSING it, while the US military had already been out DOING it, was completely lost on them.
Sounds like it’s same-old, same-old. Nothing but tools, the lot of them.
Yup, ya’ gotta’ get over it.
Filed under: Doug • Military • United Nations
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I first noticed this just after our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. I was watching C-SPAN and a guy from Doctors without Borders was testifying, essentially complaining that the U.S. military was dropping food and that only aid organizations should do it.
I was aghast, but it it opened up my eyes to the reality of these organizations.
Really? And I had the thought that DWB was actually a clear-headed aid group.
Doug & Tom,
For me it was finding out that there is a bunch of 4-star hotels and resorts in Darfur … populated and servicing only “aid” workers.
Large swaths of the aid industry is amazingly corrupt, I think. They’ve lost their sense of mission.