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As more western aid workers become targets of attack, western aid organizations are increasing security measures and halting specific aid operations. This Guardian article asserts that these attacks are the result of a larger problem where western aid is seen as having political, rather than humanitarian, motivations. Unless western aid organizations acknowledge the ‘false’ neutrality of aid, these attacks are likely to continue or worse, increase.
By Simon Reid-Henry
The Guardian
May 27, 2011Around the world, more aid workers are being killed, kidnapped or attacked than ever before.
In April, seven UN staff were murdered in northern Afghanistan when their compound was stormed by an angry crowd. The attack was part of the widespread anger sparked by American pastor Terry Jones’s burning of the Koran.
And just last week an American aid worker, Flavia Wagner, who was abducted and held for three months in Darfur in 2010, filed a lawsuit against the NGO that sent her there on the grounds that they had insufficient contingency plans to deal with the threat of kidnap.
The experience of Wagner and the tragic deaths in Afghanistan are part of a much wider pattern: aid, it seems, has become a dangerous business. This was the verdict of aid expert Mark Duffield in a public lecture at Queen Mary, University of London, last week.
Lethal attacks on aid workers have grown from around 30 a year in the mid 1990s to over 150 in 2008. They have grown primarily because in countries from Sudan to Pakistan, Chad and Papua New Guinea, aid and humanitarian organisations are seen as ever more complicit with state militaries and a western liberal intervention agenda.
In response, the western aid industry has been digging itself into ever more fortified bunkers and compounds. In an approximation of the Green Zone strategy that the US military deploys in Baghdad, it is refusing to accept that there are times when it is offering the wrong solutions in the wrong way and at the wrong time.
Duffield, the author of Development, Security and Unending War, has over 30 years experience in the field, and captures the trend in a neat example. When, in the 1990s, a Taliban provincial governor threw a coffee pot at the head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, the result was an almost immediate withdrawal of the entire mission for several months – even though the coffee pot failed to find its target. By contrast, when Linda Norgrove was killed last year (albeit unintentionally, by a grenade thrown by the US military team sent in to rescue her), the result was a raft of public pronouncements redoubling commitments to “stay the course”.
It is this almost Victorian steeling of resolve – or what in security industry jargon is known as “resilience” – that he argues is driving the “bunkerisation” of the aid industry. It is one of the most substantial and least recognised changes taking place in the aid world in recent years.
Of course, you don’t see the fortified buildings with double-skin walls, security guards and barbed-wire topped perimeter fences in any of the glossy brochures put out by aid organisations. They want their donors to see how much of their money is going to local communities. But rest assured, the compounds are there: a vast network spreading across the globe. Refusing to budge. Unable to do much good either. Is this the future of aid?
The UK Department for International Development (DfID) certainly acknowledges, in a recent review of its humanitarian aid, that its ability to help is being hampered by “the rising security threat faced by humanitarian workers … and the increasing difficulties they face in accessing affected populations”.
But the two problems are not unrelated. And Duffield believes that, above all, it is the current “integrated mission” focus of the UN that has done for the once assumed neutrality of western aid. It piles aid and political goals into the same interventionary pot so as to shape development more directly around the foreign policy interests of donor nations.
Hence, in part, such retaliations as the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003, precipitating yet another round of defensive digging in, and greater demand for dedicated security officers, safety and protection by the aid industry.
Of course, someone like Flavia Wagner would likely argue that all aid organisations should be much more security-focused. But the ongoing securitisation of development is also having negative consequences for aid and development practice. One of these is the current shift in aid policy from the doctrine of “when to leave” to the more resilience-based doctrine of “how to stay” (or “stand and deliver” as Duffield aptly puts it). With such a mindset, it is not hard to see why many recipient countries find western aid looking more and more like the colonial exploitation it was intended to make amends for.
It is not hard to see why it is becoming ever more difficult for aid-workers to do what they got into the industry to do. How can they, Duffield challenges us to consider, in a world where they are taught in countless security training courses: “If you see an accident, don’t stop, think carjack!”
Isn’t this development inevitable whenever there’s a (military) “humanitarian” intervention? (And exactly what Sergio and the UN mission in Baghdad predicted, and why he was so reluctant to take on the job.) It just sets up a vicious circle. Hard to see how aid can be decoupled from the military in places like Iraq and Afghanistan now – and therefore how it can be expected to be of much use. Something similar happened in Haiti after the earthquake with the immediate military takeover of the airport – I’m told it made things much harder than it need have been for the major aid agencies.
Hah! Tell me about it. Once upon a time we could do our job with a degree of respect from the population and without feeling under particular threat (apart from petty, and sometimes not so petty criminals). Now we’re all lumped together with the military and ‘contractors’ and the rest of the belted, booted and armed hordes in the more interesting parts of this f*[k£d up world.
Yeah, there is sometimes a need to provide armed assistance to aid delivery but more often than not it leads to confusion over who is the humanitarian and who is the soldier and whether both are anyway following the same basic agenda, albeit under different rules. We all now have to undergo HET (Hostile Environment Training) before we can step on a plane these days and learn how to deal with ambush, arrest, kidnap, survival under fire, under air attack etc
It ain’t like the old days when I used to get sent into civil wars with a box of British Army compo rations and a pat on the back and told to come back alive in six months.
By the way I’m back in Palestine now waiting for security clearance to enter Gaza again and hoping I won’t have to put my HET training into action!Great article, Wild in Africa. Worth the wait. I would like it, naturally, because it confirms what other people I trust who’ve spent time in Palestine say. Of course there are two sides to the story: the trouble is, we are swamped with one side, and it’s hard for the other to get a look in. I’m much looking forward to part 2, your experiences and views on Gaza. Not so pleasant, I guess. On which, take care when you get back in.
Thanks Penta. Gaza article will wait a little while until the Hebron/Nablus article has gathered some dust and Rob gets out of bed early enough to post another article for me. I’ve just spent 5 days in Ramallah, which is an utterly different experience to Hebron and Nablus; much more liberal and laid back and plenty of bars and cool cafes to hang out in. Now in East Jerusalem and waiting for a Gaza permit which is starting to look more and more unlikely this time. May have to head back to England in a week without getting into Gaza on this trip.
Did you get in, Wild in Africa? I’ve just been reading Helena Cobban’s brief impressions of her visit in the last few days. She always finds something positive, which is refreshing. Do you know (of) her?
http://www.justworldnews.org/Nope, Penta, afraid not, they turned me back at the border and told me my security clearance still hadn’t been approved (after being submitted 7 weeks ago). I’ve heard of other recent cases of delays in approval of up to 6 months so I shouldn’t be surprised. Now back in East Jerusalem and ready to fly home shortly. Trying again in the autumn.
Shame.
The next freedom flotilla is due to set off in the next few days. Interesting discussion about the legality of stopping ships on the high seas, territorial waters, maritime jurisdiction and so on (especially in the light of the flotilla including a US-flagged vessel) in and in the comments following Craig Murray’s piece here:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/06/illegal-blockades/Hippie do-gooders blaming the medicine and not the disease. I’m shocked. :roll:
Reminds me of Haiti. Watching over folks reporting on other folks passing out food. Suprisingly the good citizens of PaP didn’t line up in an orderly fashion and the dreads and Che shirt crowd quickly found themselves in real danger.
Didn’t take long for them to beg for assistance which we regrettably did once our charges were safe. Bane of Western Man I suppose. We save cunts who utterly despise us, even when we shouldn’t.
Prophetic:
…Yes, France has come back to normal. Come to terms with herself. And what’s more, with her police. Now that she needs them—and needs them in a hurry-doubled up with that time-honored gnawing in the gut. Scared witless (or worse) … Terror on the highways. Shakedowns left and right, kidnappings, ransoms. This one’s daughter, abducted (“Corporal, let me lick your boots …”). This one’s bride, hardly paid for, carried off by some gang (“Sergeant, let me kiss your ass …”), whisked off by young toughs, like the rugged, handsome kind in the movies, and the whole scene out of a porno-shop film, free for the paying. This one, held up at gunpoint, robbed of his wallet, with all of his papers (“Captain, let me slobber on your big, hairy hands … I repent! I repent!”). Oh, the great rush policeward! Blessed minions of the law! (“No one’s safe anymore. Only you can protect us. Only strong, smart policemen, who want to do their duty. Open up, let us in. How about a cigar. Here, these are the best …”) And suddenly the station houses, headquarters, barracks—all yesterday’s “pigpens,” remember?—loom up to the poor fleeced lamb like remote medieval monasteries, secure and inviolate. The anti-epic, in all its glory! Time was, the people used to huddle in their churches, while the nasty old seigneur sent his surging tide of knighthood breaking over the lofty château walls. Today it’s the knights who are manning the ramparts, defending the refuge, while outside, the men of the cloth, with their latter- day saints, bay like wolves on the prowl. But the knights aren’t the same. The spring inside has snapped. Even in difficult times like these, you can’t take a bunch of broken puppets and turn them back into policemen just by waving a magic wand. Punch has come out on top. And the little children clap, loud and hard as they can. But if someone comes up and steals their lollipops after the show, it will serve the brats right! You can’t clap then complain. You can’t sneer then come begging. The knights take a certain snide pleasure in their revenge. “Well, we can’t keep you out,” they answer, standing at the doors of their secular sanctums, clouded in gloom, “but don’t count on us. You should have thought of that before!” Revenge is a tasty dish, even served cold. The police lick their chops with a kind of gross delight. A few of them spit at the poor, harried beggars. (“Sergeant, let me lick your boots …” “And let me spit in your goddamn eye!” Ah! Delightful exchange! …)…
Look Q, I’m pretty upset by your post. It really sounds like you are talking out of your arse and really, are you so inarticulate you have to swear constantly to get your point across? It doesn’t impress (pretty much the opposite really) and does nothing to advance your arguments. Put together a reasoned cogent argument and I’ll listen to you, but write a load of bollocks laced with abuse and I’ll treat it with the contempt it deserves. I am not some sort of hippy do-gooder, I am a professional with over 30 years of experience in these programmes and pretty much feel I know what I am talking about.
If you have a point to make about the role of Aid workers vis a vis the military then make it in a way that we can understand and empathise with, otherwise shut the f*(K up!RE: The Evil US military diverting aid flights into PAP. Let’s deconstruct the second hand (snicker) story our intrepid Gal Sal received, and surely spreads as if she was actually there, at every little tea party and note taking lunch she attends.
Leftist Talking point: The US military intentionally and vindictively kept aid flights from landing.
Logic, Reason and Reality: The airport control tower was completely out of service. USAF TACP teams arrived with the 82nd Airborne to establish air control. For the first few days, they operated off the backs of All Terrain 4 wheelers.
The Airport was already crowded with aircraft, that could not take off.(this will be explained in part III of the Hammer of Fucking Logic Tour.) Well meaning but completely fucking dumb relief agencies flew aircraft in, that they could not get out.
Why could they not leave you say? Because, pay attention kiddies, there was no avgas left in country. What? Aircraft don’t fly on Hope, Dreams and Change? You don’t say!
So, the reason the US military is often needed, and the case in Haiti (that I actually witnessed with my own eyes, unlike others here.) proved this in spades, is because the aid community doesn’t police itself, or often have the ability to foresee “crazy” “off the wall shit” like making sure you land your aircraft in a place where you can refuel.
Q: do you really have to bring your hatefest over here? Will you never be satisfied?
Try reading my post before you lay into me next time, please.
“I’m told”, and so I was, by the person on the ground running the local projects of a major British aid agency from long before the earthquake. It wasn’t the presence of the US military, but what seemed to her and colleagues in other locally established agencies the skewed priorities they imposed that made the task of the people best placed to make an immediate difference so much more difficult. Not intentional or vindictive; possibly incompetent, but mainly ignorant and unwilling to take advice from people who could have helped, was the impression I was given.
And no, she didn’t need or ask for military protection to get on with her work; why would she, since she knew what she was doing and with people she knew and trusted after years working with them?
More specific problems reported in Pakistan, for obvious reasons.
US-Pakistan spy wars hit flood relief as aid workers get caught in dragnet
Nearly one million Pakistanis are still homeless, but charities hampered by fallout from Osama bin Laden killingDeclan Walsh in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 July 2011 18.29 BSTOne million Pakistanis are still homeless and in need of aid after last summer’s floods. Photograph: David Berehulak/Reuters
Last summer aid workers in Pakistan battled with epic floods that affected 20 million people, destroyed crops and inundated one-fifth of the country. A year later they find themselves in a very different imbroglio: the escalating spy war between the US and Pakistan.With millions of flood victims still in urgent need of aid, western charities say their efforts are being hit by the fallout from Osama bin Laden’s death as the government hunts for CIA spies. Stringent visa regulations and restrictions on movement by the military are causing long delays, increasing costs and affecting the delivery of aid to areas hit by floods and the conflict with the Taliban.
Last month a young American aid worker with Catholic Relief Services was brought to court for visa irregularities, imprisoned for nine days, then deported. British agencies say their staff have fallen under the microscope of Pakistan’s spy service, the ISI, with officials visiting field offices and introducing restrictions on travel.
“We’ve seen gradual restrictions on movement and longer processing time for visas,” said a spokesman for the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, which represents 40 aid groups.
The crackdown started after CIA agent Raymond Davis shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore last January, and intensified after the killing of Bin Laden in Abbottabad on 2 May.
Aid workers in Sukkur, a southern city at the heart of flood relief efforts, started to complain of regular visits from intelligence officers and police. In Jacobabad, location of a sensitive airbase, agencies were told that visiting certain areas now required a “no objection certificate” – an official letter of permission.
“The authorities have started paying more attention to who is in the country and what they are doing,” said Michael O’Brien of the Red Cross.
Pakistani embassies abroad have also started to restrict access. “It’s making things extremely difficult,” said Paul Healy of Trocaire, an Irish aid agency. “Before, we could get a visa for a technical expert in one week; now it takes 10.”
The greatest impact is in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the source of last year’s floods, and where 850,000 civilians have been made homeless by fighting between the army and the Taliban. Aid workers now require permission to visit previously open areas, such as Kohistan and Shangla near the Swat valley. Applications are vetted by the army’s 11th Corps, which runs local military operations; the UN says 43 no-objection certificates are outstanding there.
One European aid manager said he had been unable to send staff to his rural project for more than a month because of the restrictions. “We’re being bundled in with diplomats and other foreign-service nationals. They need to be educated about who we are – and that is not CIA agents,” he said.
“Quite a lot of the population are affected by both floods and conflict,” said a British aid worker. “The irony is that they’re getting half the help, even though the needs may be twice as great.” The aid worker, like several others, spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing discrimination from the authorities.
The National Disaster Management Authority, which oversees disaster relief, said it was issuing travel permits on a priority basis. “We are committed to facilitate aid workers in their pursuit of assisting affected communities,” said spokesman Brigadier Sajid Naeem.
Tensions were exacerbated by news that the CIA ran a fake vaccination programme in Abbottabad to identify the occupants of Bin Laden’s house. “It’s adding fuel to the fire in terms of mistrust,” said a senior UN official. “Now the Pakistanis can say ‘We were right all along – these NGOs are only doing spy work.’ “
Médecins Sans Frontières said the CIA operation was “a dangerous abuse of medical care” that would compromise humanitarian work.
The bureaucracy and spy intrigues coincide with a serious crisis. Some 800,000 families still lack permanent shelter and more than 1 million people require food aid, according to Oxfam. In places the price of bricks has quadrupled, making it impossible for survivors to rebuild their homes. A UN appeal to help families get back on their feet has a $600m (£366m) shortfall.
Then there is the psychological toll. “People are still afraid of the sound of running water,” said Suzanna Akasha, a psycho-social expert from the Danish Red Cross. “They have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep.”
The monsoons started last week in northern Punjab and, although rainfall is normal so far, last year’s devastation left vast numbers vulnerable to hunger and illness. The US says 2 million people will be affected this year, though contingency plans are based on 7 million being affected should the weather deteriorate.
Tensions between US and Pakistani spies continue to bubble. Last week an American convoy entering Peshawar was sent back to Islamabad because, officials said, it lacked the correct paperwork. Peshawar has been largely open to foreigners but the ISI is keen to rein in the activities of a CIA station presumed to operate from the American consulate there.
In Washington, the FBI recently arrested the director of a lobby group focused on Kashmir that they allege is a ISI front; if convicted, he faces up to five years in prison. As the ISI scours Pakistan for undeclared CIA agents, aid workers worry about getting caught in the dragnet. Some accuse the United Nations of not doing enough to push their case with the government. “They’re asleep, as in Rip Van Winkle,” said one.
A UN official said that some aid workers were “over-reacting”. “Certainly the situation has resulted in mistrust,” she said. “But they come into the country for a short period, they don’t know the system, and they overreact.”
LOL; I actually see both sides and have long had the following thoughts:
1. We need to re-structure our Armed Forces. In somewhat alignment with what the Soviets had: 1st echelon, 2nd etc. The manuever units roll through and clear, the 2nd echelon, very heavy on Military Police, Intelligence come in and secure. Then finally, MILITARY units for reconstruction heavy on Combat Engineers and Civil Affairs, Medical etc., roll in and hire every local willing to work and reconstruction and aid.
There is something called Intelligence Preparation fo the Battlefield where it is primarily based on the manuever units needs. There needs to be IPB for each element and each element should have an advance party/liason with the others.
Never put the standing security forces out of work. Reset them and hol them to task on human rights.
2. Civilian contractors are OK in small numbers with a cadre to hire/train/deploy local nationals. That goes for Security, NGOs etc. I understand Qs frustration with the Do Gooder crowd. I met some really committed NGO types but most I dealt with were incompetent thieving types who hid behind the do gooder mantra.
3. The UN. One, they have come a long ways from what I saw as a totally inept 3rd world jobs probram at 1st world salarys to a pretty well run institution. You no longer see somebody in a key UN Security Position that is some buffoon from a country with several syllables, you see real professionals.
I think the UN should be the last echelon, after teh 1st 3 are solid, they come in and do a quick handover and we all leave.
4. I am always right so no further posts are needed. Just kidding, what are your thoughts Q, Rob and WIA?
Not too much I would disagree with there, Jefe. The one thing I would raise is about the “manuever units” which, on my limited understanding, sound like a potential sledge-hammer cracking a walnut for many situations. I mean, I could see why you would need that in a situation like Basra with heavy resistance, but it would seem overkill for somewhere like Dilhi, East Timor (just examples off the top of my head, but you get the gist – heavy resitance vs. limited resistance). As most armies seem to be tasked with “peace keeping” rather than “peace making” these days, wouldn’t you effectively be sidelining a large portion of your army?
Never put the standing security forces out of work. Reset them and hol them to task on human rights.
That always struck me as something that should be done in almost any situation, but then they didn’t do it in Iraq. That decision always perplexed me.
In general, I think your growing respect for NGO types and the UN is ironically matched by my decreasing respect for them. lol Though I am glad you’re seeing an improvement among them.
In general, I think your growing respect for NGO types and the UN is ironically matched by my decreasing respect for them. lol Though I am glad you’re seeing an improvement among them.
Sorry you feel that way Rob. What is it about ‘us’ that you no longer respect and what is cuasing this change of heart?
It started from a very high place, WIA, so don’t be too disenchanted. ;)
From my own attempts in dealing with Dr Dave in trying to get a specific project happening, I simply find that a lot of NGO types that we have had dealings with (and I am generalising) are in a constant ego-driven pissing contest. It seems to be all about them getting a pat on the back and not about actually helping folks.
There are plenty of good ones. But there are a lot more egotists than I first thought.
Update on the consequences of the fake vaccination programme in Pakistan:
Aid agency withdrew Pakistan staff after CIA fake vaccination scheme
Save the Children, which was not linked to the scheme, flew workers out of the country after US warnings about their safetyDeclan Walsh in Islamabad
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 September 2011 16.50 BSTFears that a fake CIA vaccination scheme created to hunt Osama bin Laden has compromised the operations of aid agencies in Pakistan have intensified after it emerged that a major NGO was forced to evacuate its staff following warnings about their security.
Save the Children flew eight expatriate aid workers out of Pakistan in late July after receiving a warning from US officials at the Peshawar consulate. Two senior local staff were moved into five-star hotels in Islamabad.
Western and Pakistani officials say there were fears that Save the Children staff could be picked up by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) over alleged links to Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor at the heart of the covert CIA vaccination scheme that helped locate Bin Laden.
Save the Children vehemently denies any links to the CIA scheme, which the Guardian first reported in July, and said it was the victim of a broader crackdown on aid agencies in Pakistan caused by CIA tactics.
“Dr Afridi never worked for Save the Children and his alleged activities were not in any way connected with us. We did not have a vaccination programme in Abbottabad,” said a spokeswoman, Ishbel Matheson, in London.
The charity did have a passing connection with Afridi, however, which may explain the ISI scrutiny of its activities. Afridi participated in two health-worker training courses run by Save the Children in 2008 and 2010, Matheson confirmed. Pakistan’s ministry of health nominated him for participation, she added.
The training courses were part of a US-funded child health programme in the tribal belt along the Afghan border that Save the Children has been running since 2007.
ISI suspicions were also stoked by Afridi himself. A senior western official said Afridi told his wife he was working for Save the Children when he was in fact running the fake CIA programme. The allegation emerged during interrogation.
A senior aid worker corroborated that account, saying Afridi may have mentioned Save the Children “during the early stages of his interrogation”. Save the Children said it was horrified that Afridi had abused its name.
“We are shocked by the allegations that our name has been falsely used in this way. Save the Children’s work in Pakistan is helping the most vulnerable children and their families,” said Matheson.
Furious aid workers say the CIA’s reckless use of aid work as a cover by spy agencies has threatened the safety of genuine aid workers and endangered multimillion-pound programmes to help Pakistan’s poor.
Save the Children has 2,000 employees in Pakistan and assisted 7 million people in 2010, half of whom where caught in massive floods while the remainder benefited from long-term development programmes.
After the security threat in late July, those activities slowed or juddered to a halt. Staff were temporarily transferred out of sensitive areas, such as the Swat valley. British and American diplomats interceded with the authorities, offering assurances of the charity’s bona fides.
Two weeks later in mid-August, after receiving a green light from the ISI, Save the Children sent a handful of expatriate staff who had been staying in Bangkok back to Pakistan. The two local employees, who had been staying at the Serena hotel, returned home.
The ISI learned of the CIA vaccination scheme after US Navy Seals burst into the house on 2 May, killing Bin Laden. Immediately afterwards, the spy agency began an intensive drive to understand how the CIA had operated in the town – and whether any western aid workers had helped it.
Three weeks later Afridi was arrested on the outskirts of Peshawar. Western aid agencies, especially those with American employees or US government funding, started to come under sharp intelligence scrutiny.
A young American aid worker with Catholic Relief Services was put on trial for visa irregularities in the southern city of Sukkur before being deported. Other aid workers were also forced to leave. Since then charities have experienced long delays in obtaining visas, and say shipments of relief goods have suffered inexplicable delays at Karachi port.
Others complain of regular visits to their offices from intelligence officials seeking detailed information about their staff. One intelligence document, inadvertently left behind at one aid agency and seen by the Guardian, directs operatives to investigate the “covert funding” and “covert operations” of international NGOs.
In July the departing director of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Pascal Cuttat, said Pakistan was becoming increasingly difficult to work in. “We are consistently facing suspicion of any foreigner working in the country,” he told a press conference in Geneva. “To live and work and get permission to do anything has become more difficult. Everyone is struggling with the bureaucracy.” The ICRC is still awaiting permission to bring a new country director into Pakistan.
Aid agencies in Pakistan are currently battling massive floods in the southern Sindh province that have affected more than 5 million people. Few aid workers would speak on the record, fearing further recrimination, though some directed their anger at the CIA. InterAction, an alliance of 190 US-based NGOs, has called on the spy agency to stop using humanitarian work as a cover for counter-terrorism.
“Such unethical behaviour endangers not only local populations but also the lives of legitimate humanitarian workers,” said the InterAction president, Samuel Worthington.
Afridi, meanwhile, is in the custody of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. A government commission investigating the Bin Laden affair has banned him from leaving Pakistan.
The US wants to resettle the Pashtun doctor in America but Pakistani officials say he may be charged with espionage or treason.
Meanwhile, Bin Laden’s former house stands empty. On 20 September the press watchdog Reporters Without Borders complained that the government had banned the foreign press from visiting the site, stating that Abbottabad had been placed under “what is in effect a state of emergency”.
The CIA did not respond to requests for comment on the vaccination programme or its impact.
I could care less if any aid organizations have to leave Pakistan because of this. We killed Bin Laden against overwhelming odds and State sponsored protection of a nuclear power.
They are unworthy of aid of any type aside from vaporizing their silos so their nukes don’t make it into the wrong hands.
@Jefe wrote:
4. I am always right so no further posts are needed. Just kidding, what are your thoughts Q, Rob and WIA?
It is a fucking mess however you look at it.
1)Most aid workers I’ve encountered are straight out of some shitty liberal arts college. Majored in Byzantine Pottery with a minor in African American Lesiban Poetry of the 19th Century. They’ve got no fucking clue what they are headed into. iPods and hemp skullcaps don’t do much for people who still haven’t figured out that if you stick your dick in a rotten vagina (or asshole) it may very well fall off.
2)You’ve got military commanders who are often too busy fighting a fucking war to worry about teaching people who’ve been around for 8 gajillion fucking years how to dig a well. I mean, really?
3)You’ve got 18 year old PFCs and 22 year old LTs who are trained to fuck shit up, tasked with teaching a shit farmer how to water crops.
4)You’ve got mincing fags like Bono who go on and on about sending money all over East Jesus to save the pygmied, three legged tree climbing Ass herder. Who after 15 generations of living on the same plot of land, still can’t figure out that it isn’t sanitary to shit on the same place in which you cook. And somehow I’M the asshole since I don’t want to follow Bono’s “flavor of the month” basketcase.
5)MOST of the PMC types are nothing but adrenaline junkies who shoot when a cigarette with a local tribal leader will do much, much more.
6)The UN. Pffft…won’t waste the bandwith.
7)The occasional decent NGO that hasn’t been totally overrun by #1, and they don’t think travel to Shitistan and throwing themselves on the ground to beg for forgiveness for being white, Western and privilaged is the way to go. Unfortunately, they are infected enough with #1 that their security is total shit, if at all.
So…..If you can somehow combine aid workers who know what they are doing, with PMC types who know when (and when not) to absolutely drop the fucking hammer of pain and death, not much good will come out of it all.
But still……why waste time on people who still can’t figure out how to fucking wash their ass, or not fuck AIDS infested whores?
From my own attempts in dealing with Dr Dave in trying to get a specific project happening, I simply find that a lot of NGO types that we have had dealings with (and I am generalising) are in a constant ego-driven pissing contest. It seems to be all about them getting a pat on the back and not about actually helping folks.
Rob I think it is primarily just because we are among those pesky “outsiders” what do we know? ;)
The ego-driven pissing contest gets very annoying when one is trying to make a difference.
The BBC World Service is running an excellent 2-part Alan Little documentary called The Truth about NGOs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mmn27(Thanks, Ultra Swain.)
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