The latest middle east "crisis" sucks aid from other countries
Ann wrote: "I hate to say this, but I feel like I just want to give up. Here in BiH, just when the country is starting to turn around, NATO, USAID, and many other foreign aid organizations are pulling out. Why? Because of the sink hole that is the Middle East. I am all for helping the tsunami victims and others who cannot help themselves, but the endless strife created by pointless wars in the Middle East and Africa just seem...um...well...endless and pointless.
Now I just feel like I am too exhaused to try to think up more ideas for solutions that no one will ever listen to..."
I responded:
The problem that I see with the world stage is not a lack of resources, but a lack of foresight combined with too much self-image. No one, it seems, wants to be looked at as not caring or callous. This makes them jump from one crisis to another.
In the medical field this would be called triage. Triage can be defined as the emergency care of a patient which has the tendency to temporarily halt the immediate life threatening condition. Triage does not cure a patient. It does not even ensure that the patient will survive. It is simply a pressure bandage trying to hold in the life fluid long enough for someone else to step in and perform a life saving operation.
On the world political scene the organizations that perform triage are called: NATO, USAID, UN, WHO, etc. This would be a good thing if there was someone that could (or would) take over and save a life. But, there are not.
Many leading countries, which are all run by us lowly flawed humans, react to the news. They do not want the internal political pressure to push them out of the seat of power. If their national news broadcasters continually paint them as ineffective or uncaring they will not be re-elected to office. “What about the UN,” you might ask. I bet the Secretary General wants to keep his job too.
The world has the resources to address all the issues individually and collectively. All that needs to be put in place is a long-term plan to address the situation. This would mean that the multi-national players could not allow the course of recovery to be dictated by the local political figure. The choice must be clear: The Plan or Your Complaints. If they choose the plan, great. If they choose to complain and bitch, great. They can go to the back of the line and hope that some charity flows their way as the rest of the world prospers.
It may sound cold, but when faced with chaos at home and no international support whatsoever, many would calm down. For those that simply refuse to do anything but make war on either their own people or others a more forceful response may be necessary. However, most countries will not fight another if there is no benefit in it for themselves. As there is currently no internationally controlled military organization that is willing to act as a Global Police Force/Referee it seems that senseless death and fighting will continue for the immediate future.
Now I just feel like I am too exhaused to try to think up more ideas for solutions that no one will ever listen to..."
I responded:
The problem that I see with the world stage is not a lack of resources, but a lack of foresight combined with too much self-image. No one, it seems, wants to be looked at as not caring or callous. This makes them jump from one crisis to another.
In the medical field this would be called triage. Triage can be defined as the emergency care of a patient which has the tendency to temporarily halt the immediate life threatening condition. Triage does not cure a patient. It does not even ensure that the patient will survive. It is simply a pressure bandage trying to hold in the life fluid long enough for someone else to step in and perform a life saving operation.
On the world political scene the organizations that perform triage are called: NATO, USAID, UN, WHO, etc. This would be a good thing if there was someone that could (or would) take over and save a life. But, there are not.
Many leading countries, which are all run by us lowly flawed humans, react to the news. They do not want the internal political pressure to push them out of the seat of power. If their national news broadcasters continually paint them as ineffective or uncaring they will not be re-elected to office. “What about the UN,” you might ask. I bet the Secretary General wants to keep his job too.
The world has the resources to address all the issues individually and collectively. All that needs to be put in place is a long-term plan to address the situation. This would mean that the multi-national players could not allow the course of recovery to be dictated by the local political figure. The choice must be clear: The Plan or Your Complaints. If they choose the plan, great. If they choose to complain and bitch, great. They can go to the back of the line and hope that some charity flows their way as the rest of the world prospers.
It may sound cold, but when faced with chaos at home and no international support whatsoever, many would calm down. For those that simply refuse to do anything but make war on either their own people or others a more forceful response may be necessary. However, most countries will not fight another if there is no benefit in it for themselves. As there is currently no internationally controlled military organization that is willing to act as a Global Police Force/Referee it seems that senseless death and fighting will continue for the immediate future.
posted by Zanla | 8:36 PM
1 Comments:
"it seems that senseless death and fighting will continue for the immediate future"
So do we just through good money/effort after bad?
The issue you raised about triage and about the lack of planning is eactly what is going on, but there is one more layer and that's world politics.
I feel that if one organization could come in and lay out a plan that then could be followed and managed, things would be tremendously better, but right now, Aid orgs and whole countries try to actually start projects that will compete with each other. I stops being about helping country X and starts being about how the EU can come out looking better than the Americans by causing the American project to fail or vice versa. This actually causes the country being helped to be harmed and for the people to decide that they just want our money and then they want us to get out.
How can we imagine that we can change attitudes and behaviors under those circumstances? We (the whole west, not just the US), think that people still want to be like us - that was true when we were not trying to force the idea on them. Now they see that we are less worthy of immitation than we probably even realize.
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