I guess that using that logic, Rachel Corrie was a legitimate military target of Israel's and they were fully justified in bulldozing her?

Is the response to end all aid programs anywhere in the world since they can always be defined as a military target by anyone who doesn't like whoever is in power?

[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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In response to the killings, the IRC suspended its operations after more than 20 years of work in the country.

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Afghanistan's weak central government and lack of infrastructure means that NGOs are one of the main providers of social services such healthcare, education, and development.

By striking at aid organizations, insurgents hope to exploit the government's inability to stand on its own.

"This is very dangerous for Afghanistan," says Rahmani. "Aid agencies have an important role in strengthening the Afghan state and improving its public image.

But without such agencies, the government becomes very weak, unable to provide basic services for its people – a situation that the Taliban will exploit readily."

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[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Is the response to end all aid programs anywhere in the world since they can always be defined as a military target by anyone who doesn't like whoever is in power?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
So does that mean that back in the 80s when rightwing death squads in El Salvador raped and murdered 10 Americans nuns doing community development, they were attacking a legitimate military target in the civil war they were fighting?
[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
So does that mean that back in the 80s when rightwing death squads in El Salvador raped and murdered 10 Americans nuns doing community development, they were attacking a legitimate military target in the civil war they were fighting?

I guess that using that logic, Rachel Corrie was a legitimate military target of Israel's and they were fully justified in bulldozing her?

Is the response to end all aid programs anywhere in the world since they can always be defined as a military target by anyone who doesn't like whoever is in power?

[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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If one or more sides perceive them to be military targets, they are. That is reality, but it does not excuse brutality. It does, however, remove the wailing and crocodile tears about how awful people are attacking non-military targets.

Targets are only non-military if everyone agrees that they are. To the Taliban the NGOs are an agent in the occupation and subversion of their country.

I am quite happy to have the Taliban subverted (even if I disagree with how it is currently being done), but I won't be hypocritical and accuse them of attacking a non-military target when they fight back.

What is the difference between insurgents in Afghanistan attacking collaborators with a foreign power and the French Resistance attacking collaborators with the Nazis? Only the values that we place on each group.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
So does that mean that back in the 80s when rightwing death squads in El Salvador raped and murdered 10 Americans nuns doing community development, they were attacking a legitimate military target in the civil war they were fighting?

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Ah!, but with a slight difference. The death squads were trained by Skool of the Americas graduate school for psychopaths and were armed and funded by U.S. taxpayers. Christiani's rightwing death squads were not rebels fighting for poor people against the vicious nuclear-powered empire's death squad government.

In this instance, we have a group of former U.S. proxies and fundamentalists originally trained and armed by the west who are now recruiting desperately poor Afghans to fight what is yet another dirty war against their former U.S.-backers and vicious empire occupying their country militarily.

None of Salvadoran death squads and coffee baron el presidente's, the condoms, er contras, ever turned on the vicious empire. The elite are still in control in El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras etc, except for Nicaragua where neoliberal economic voodoo failed yet another desperately poor country.

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I guess that using that logic, Rachel Corrie was a legitimate military target of Israel's and they were fully justified in bulldozing her?

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Sure, Israel has helicopter gunships, massive military and air superiority over similar rebels and desperately poor majority subsisting under a brutally repressive right-wing regime. Helicopter gyunships chasing leftist rebels thru jungles of Central America did not discern between innocent civilians and armed rebels when saturating everything in sight with automatic cannon fire and "death from above"

eta: In countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua, U.S. proxy terrorists weren't just murdering priests and nuns, they were also firebombing schools and hospitals built by Marxists and political neutrals alike using similar tactics of those Islamic Gladios in 1980's Afghanistan and later ferreted off to a Balkans civil war in the 1990's. None of the Sandinistas, FMLN, Shining Path, or NVA had similar long-standing alliances with the vicious empire, nor were they indoctrinated by medieval religious fundamentalism emanating from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Leftists are not romanticizing the very feudalist Taliban today as if they represent real liberation from their former NATO and Arab-Pakistani backers. Theocratic-feudalism, as Jerry West refers to it, would still be a step back in time from the current nothingness and NATO-instigated terror in their country.

[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

[ 15 August 2008: Message edited by: Webgear ]

When groups like the CIA put an agent in such NGOs as MSF or Red Cross, they basically put the whole organization's credibility on the line and their workers at risk. There are a number of cases that have been documented and then there are the anecdotal tales of people who have worked in the field.

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I feel bad for the NGO workers who sign up wholly believing that their role is beneficial and end up killed while on field duty. At the same time, I think that people should become aware of which organizations are in bed with the CIA or other similar operatives and which are not. And unfortunately, the CIA and other similar groups are known to infiltrate fairly legitimate NGOs with their agents, which only adds further confusion.
When groups like the CIA put an agent in such NGOs as MSF or Red Cross, they basically put the whole organization's credibility on the line and their workers at risk. There are a number of cases that have been documented and then there are the anecdotal tales of people who have worked in the field.

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The distinction needs to be made between military/intelligence infiltration and collaboration. If we take what Laine Lowe says above and some of the other posts we see two distinct versions of involvement. If it is being established that the IRC, MSF and other aid groups are infiltrated without the knowledge of who is the false participant then you can't possibly consider them to be a legitimate target. You also can't demand that these groups cease and desist as aid organizations based on the assumption that they might be infiltrated and exploited.

If it is being established that aid groups know who is an agent and willingly cooperate with the motives of the occupation then that is another story.

A third version of this would be part of what is being discussed which is that Afghanistan is under military occupation and that Afghans trying to rid the country of the occupiers will target any group perceived as contributing in which case aid groups enter at their own risk in the same manner as peacemaking teams from peace organizations.

In a war zone, an aid organization should seek the consent of all combattants to enter. I believe that's what the International Committee of the Red Cross does, otherwise it doesn't go.

If an organization doesn't, or can't, or won't, for whatever reason, they should not gripe when they get blown out of there. I'm no expert, and even I know there's a war on there. I'm also quite prepared to wager a large amount of money that the IRC never sat down with insurgent representatives to work out a safe passage agreement.

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When Burma/Myanmar refused entry to aid workers, they did so knowing that many of the groups were either acting for such groups as the CIA or where possibly infiltrated by them.

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You make it sound as if the CIA would have been the "good guys" in Myanmar - since I think we can all agree that the junta ruling Myanmar are a bunch of criminals with no redeeming qualities whatsoever (or can we?). I thought that the CIA was supposedly propping up the junta and Myanmar? Now they try to claim that the CIA is against them, when in fact its for them? My head is spinning...

It may also be that when you have armed bands of thugs wantonly killing anyone and everyone one - its easy for their "spokespeople" to say after the fact - oh we killed them because that organization works is controlled by the CIA. Do they actually know that at all? Do you think that a car carrying people from Amnesty International or Medecins Sans Frontieres or some other group that we know tends to be very critical of what the government side is doing - would have any better a chance of NOT being murdered? Do you think that Taliban issues its gunmen a list of organizations and says "Kill anyone who works for this group or this group, but don't kill them if they work for this group"?

What about when Taliban has suicide killers blowing up a marketplace full of ordinary Afghans going about their daily business in Kandahar? Is it because they have some reason to suspect that everyone buying chickens on that day is actually a CIA operative?

I guess maybe the answer is to end ALL development aid to any and all developing countries and for industrialized countries like Canada to eliminate their aid programs altogether on the grounds that in almost every country there are people who don't like the government and might interpret any NGO activity as being pro-government - then they can declare open season on aid workers.

Fine, all the more money to spend on projects in Canada.

[ 16 August 2008: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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On 11 June 2004, nine days after five MSF staff members were killed in Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesperson offered the following justification for their murder: "Organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières work for American interests and are therefore targets for us."

As horrific as the crime is that this accusation seeks to legitimize, the statement itself is hardly surprising given the confusion that currently characterizes the symbol of humanitarianism.

Getting access to the battlefield from belligerents in order to provide impartial aid to non-combatants is a difficult and dangerous undertaking. Field armies are not comfortable with the presence of foreign actors, who are often suspected of serving the enemy's interests. Under these conditions, the safety of international aid workers, and their room to maneuver, is tied closely to the credibility of the humanitarian symbol under which they operate. That symbol says, "We refuse to take sides in this war. Our only goal is to provide aid to its victims."

When all is said and done, the only protection humanitarian actors have is the clarity of their image. It must reflect their position as outsiders to the conflict and the transparency of their intentions. Both coalition forces and the majority of aid actors have seriously abused this image in Afghanistan, thus perpetuating a deadly confusion between humanitarian organizations and political-military institutions.

Camouflage and cooperation

In Afghanistan, the first aspect of this confusion was caused by camouflaging psychological warfare and intelligence operations as humanitarian action. Clear-cut examples include the coalition's "humanitarian" food drops during the first aerial strikes in 2001, its deployment of special forces in civilian dress who claim to be on a "humanitarian mission," and threatening to suspend humanitarian aid to populations in southern Afghanistan if they refuse to provide information about the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Winning the hearts and minds of civilian populations and encouraging them to cooperate with military forces are classic and legal military techniques according to the Geneva Conventions. On the other hand, presenting a combat tactic as a humanitarian operation blatantly violates the humanitarian symbol, just as using a Red Cross vehicle to transport weapons clandestinely alongside a patient would be.

After the defeat of the Taliban, many institutional donors required NGOs and UN agencies to help stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan. The vast majority of humanitarian actors placed themselves at the service of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and of the interim government. Both of these actors receive varying degrees of support from coalition forces.

NGOs and UN agencies thus abandoned the independence essential to providing independent aid and modeled their priorities on those of the new regime and its Western allies, who were still at war with the Taliban.

This scenario constitutes the second element of confusion: making it impossible to distinguish between a subcontractor working on behalf of a warring party and an independent, impartial humanitarian aid actor.

Finally, the use of humanitarian rhetoric to justify going to war is another confusing element. Beyond retaliation for the 11 September attacks, the defense of human rights and international humanitarian law were presented as forceful arguments in favor of armed intervention in Afghanistan. The world was told that force and occupation were required to save an exhausted population from famine, to improve women's access to medical care and to ease refugees' return, among other goals.

This martial and imperial use of humanitarian rhetoric contributed significantly to blurring the image of aid organizations. If an appeal to humanitarian considerations can justify both a medical aid operation and a military campaign, doesn't that suggest that aid workers and international troops represent two sides of the same coin?

Aid actors do not, of course, have a monopoly on the words they use. However, using the semantic and legal terms that aid workers rely on for military ends obscures the image of humanitarian organizations, making it difficult to determine whether those organizations are outsiders to the conflict or the vanguard of expeditionary troops of new "just wars".

War as a continuation of aid

It would be wrong to hold governments alone responsible for the confusion surrounding the humanitarian symbol today, as many aid actors are also confusing the situation. A liberal, universalist strain within the charitable aid movement and among human rights defense groups holds that war can be the continuation of humanitarian aid by other means.

In the belief that the worldwide export of market democracy is the highest philanthropic calling, this movement considers any action to be "humanitarian" if it contributes to achieving that mission.

Such actions include assisting and protecting "good victims" (those whose survival does not threaten the project's success), imposing economic sanctions, dropping bombs, and invading and occupying nations "guilty of massive violations of human rights". Consequently, organizations that take this position have no objection to supporting "just wars" and serving the governments that pursue them.

From this perspective, the term "humanitarian action" is only a euphemism for a colonizing mission that imposes, by force, institutions whose every feature is supposed to embody a value system believed to be universal. This interpretation has terrible ramifications for aid workers who display that same humanitarian symbol to conduct their aid missions.

Weakening the meaning of humanitarian language has had the effects we feared it would. On the Afghan political scene, international aid actors are perceived as back-up troops to the Western intervention forces - if not to the Crusaders....

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Originally posted by Cueball:
By the way, were their armed escorts in the convoy where the three Canadian women were killed, recently?

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It was 2 Canadian women, and no, according to all reports I have read there was 1 other vehicle behind them that sped away, after firing commenced.

There is also the Taliban, contention that they found ammunition in the vehicle.

But interesting some reports suggest that insurgency, as opposed to the Taliban, is on the rise.

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Aid groups warned this month about deteriorating security, saying 19 non-government workers had been killed in the first seven months of the year, more than all of 2007.

"Aid organisations and their staff have been subject to increasing attacks, threats and intimidation, by both insurgent and criminal groups," the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief said in a statement.

...Afghan authorities reported Wednesday meanwhile that seven policemen had been killed in a series of bomb attacks linked to the insurgency.

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Originally posted by unionist:
This is not that complicated.

In a war zone, an aid organization should seek the consent of all combattants to enter.

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Spot on! If an NGO does not have the consent of all combatants then it is reasonable for those who do not consent to assume that they are taking sides, whether they deny it or not.

In the case of aid groups in Afghanistan teaching girls and carrying out other activities that are opposed by the Taliban, what else can we expect except resistance and violence from the Taliban?

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In December, The Times of London, citing what it said was a leaked UN document, reported almost half of the country is now deemed too dangerous for aid agencies.

Just two years earlier, aid workers had been able to operate freely in virtually all of Afghanistan, save for a small strip along the Pakistani border. But between 2005 and 2007, about 40 humanitarian workers were killed, either by the Taliban or bandits.

To former CARE Canada president John Watson, none of this comes as a surprise.

Watson, who retired from the humanitarian agency last year, says Afghanistan was far safer seven years ago, before the United States and its Western allies deposed the Taliban, than it is now.

"Of course, it's more dangerous now," the 20-year veteran aid worker said in an interview this week. "It was a pain in the ass working through the Taliban. But if you worked at it, you could get things done."

He said that during the Taliban era, CARE was careful to remain neutral in the low-level civil war between the Islamist government and its domestic enemies. The charity even persuaded the Taliban to let it fund schooling for 20,000 girls.

"It wasn't easy," he said. "But it worked."

But in the current struggle, aid agencies have become identified with foreign troops.

Ironically, that has occurred in part because NATO has made reconstruction one of its key war aims. While laudable in the broadest sense, that decision has also made it more difficult for private aid agencies to present themselves as neutral humanitarians.

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Spot on! If an NGO does not have the consent of all combatants then it is reasonable for those who do not consent to assume that they are taking sides, whether they deny it or not.

In the case of aid groups in Afghanistan teaching girls and carrying out other activities that are opposed by the Taliban, what else can we expect except resistance and violence from the Taliban?

If NGOs are willing to continue sending members into war zones to oppose the values of combatants, as in Afghanistan, and see them killed from time to time, fine, but they shouldn't cry that the Taliban aren't playing fair.

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But Jerry, you and Unionist are forgetting that these NGO's are predominantly from white, rich countries and are thus on the side of good and not evil. Why would they need permission to go to Afghanistan and bring salvation?

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:

But Jerry, you and Unionist are forgetting....

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Of course we are not forgetting at all, but you probably already know that.

One would hate to think that in your support of indigenous cultures you support the oppression of women, mutilation, and assorted religious fantasies justifying same.

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In the case of aid groups in Afghanistan teaching girls and carrying out other activities that are opposed by the Taliban, what else can we expect except resistance and violence from the Taliban?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

No kidding, we can't let those damn NGOs do any Satanic stuff like teaching literacy to girls!

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
What if a progressive NGO sent a planeload of people to Cuba to work in schools and hospitals and some anti-Castro dissidents shot the plane down?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
What if .... Could they justify it

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What does justification have to do with it? Nothing!

Anyhow, justification is a value judgement, what is justified to one is not to another.

Baring any agreement to the contrary we should expect the Taliban to attack people who they see as a threat to their goals.

If Cuban nutbars proclaim that they are going to target Canadian tourists, tourists should assess the threat and act accordingly.

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One would hate to think that in your support of indigenous cultures you support the oppression of women, mutilation, and assorted religious fantasies justifying same.

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I really wonder why people see the need to always drag out oppression of women when talking about Afghanistan.

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Because it something we need to remind people of when they get so carried with their "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" routine that they start being apologists for Taliban.

Back when USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 - I remember a lot of "progressives" trying to justify it on the grounds that if the Soviet puppet regime was allowed to fall to the Mujahedeen, women's rights would suffer.

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:

Interesting remark. I have actually not stated my "support of Indigenous cultures" ....

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It was tongue in cheek, as, I hope, your remark about Unionist and I forgetting.

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I really wonder why people see the need to always drag out oppression of women when talking about Afghanistan.

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Because it is a reality, at least by some cultural standards. Stockholm makes a point.

The fact that the occupying powers hypocritically use it as an excuse to help create support for their aggression doesn't make it any less of an abomination, by my standards, anyway.

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My feminism includes not dropping bombs on women.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

Because it something we need to remind people of when they get so carried with their "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" routine that they start being apologists for Taliban.

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I agree. Taliban fundamentalism was forced on Pakistan and Afghanistan and in the 1980's because. And very many Pakistanis and Afghans do not support them or their religious ideals. I imagine that choosing to fight for the Taliban would be like having to join your better organized ememies to fight invaders from Mars, or something along those lines.

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Back when USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 - I remember a lot of "progressives" trying to justify it on the grounds that if the Soviet puppet regime was allowed to fall to the Mujahedeen, women's rights would suffer.

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