Isn’t the whole idea to get aid to the people who need it? They should be happy. I wonder why they aren’t
Firms led by US military veterans deliver aid in Africa and Gaza, alarming humanitarian groups
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict.
Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development: private contracting firms led by former U.S. intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts.
The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend that could allow governments or combatants to use life-saving aid to control hungry civilian populations and advance war aims.
That would be horrible!
In South Sudan and Gaza, two for-profit U.S. companies led by American national security veterans are delivering aid in operations backed by the South Sudanese and Israeli governments.
The American contractors say they’re putting their security, logistics and intelligence skills to work in relief operations. Fogbow, the U.S. company that carried out last week’s air drops over South Sudan, says it aims to be a “humanitarian” force.
“We’ve worked for careers, collectively, in conflict zones. And we know how to essentially make very difficult situations work,” said Fogbow President Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer and former senior defense official in the first Trump administration, speaking on the airport tarmac in Juba, South Sudan’s capital.
But the U.N. and many leading non-profit groups say U.S. contracting firms are stepping into aid distribution with little transparency or humanitarian experience, and, crucially, without commitment to humanitarian principles of neutrality and operational independence in war zones.
How dare they not have a commitment to helping out Hamas and working strongly with them! How dare they want profit! Seriously, how’s that humanitarian experience working for those complaining? Where’s their transparency? What we’ve seen so far is that it looks like a pyramid scheme from those complaining, where the government/UN gives them oodles of money to do a job, they take a nice big cut for farming it out to other groups, who then take their cut to farm it out, and, eventually a small percentage of the money makes its way to buying and delivering aid. In the case of Gaza, it ended up in the hands of Hamas, where video shows them working with and hanging with Hamas. I’m sure something similar is happening in South Sudan.
Seriously, the AP article gives excuse after excuse after excuse, ending with
Private military contractors “have even less sympathy for a humanitarian perspective that complicates their business-driven model,” he said. “And once let loose, they seem to be even less accountable.”
But, is the aid getting to these people? Is a large percentage of the appropriated money being used to buy goods to deliver? Are they forcing Hamas, warlords, etc, from getting their hands on the aid and making sure the people who need it get it? That’s all that matters. And being ex-military makes sure that the bad people cannot take the aid.
The whining groups just do not like that their money trains of skimmed taxpayer money is ending.
Read: Humanitarian Groups Super Upset Over US Military Vets Delivering Aid To Gaza And South Sudan »
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An 8-year-old girl who loved dancing in a red dress at her dentist’s office. A 28-year-old national equestrian champion. A young poet one week away from her 24th birthday. A graphic designer who worked at National Geographic. Grandparents in their 80s.
