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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (7195)	9/8/2003 10:54:05 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793759

You were adamantly against it then. I am guessing you are now all for it :-) You and I bantered on Afghanistan aid. I don't remember a discussion of Iraq money. I still think any Afghan aid given to the Afghan Gov or NGO's will be mainly "down the toilet." The Iraq money is designed to pay for the troop cost and Infrastructure, and will be administered by the US. Just normal Government waste in that. NGO money in Iraq will let them "party on." We know the relatively small amounts being spent and administered by the Military is the best being spent. Biggest mistake I see being made is the restrictions on Private Enterprise by our Iraqi Bureaucrats.

To: KyrosL who wrote (7195)	9/8/2003 11:38:27 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793759

Speaking of NGOs. From a blogger. PUTTING THE "GO" INTO "NGO" Who's fleeing Iraq? Not the Iraqis, as Martin Peretz reports in a subscriber-only piece for the WSJ: It is the departure of NGOs, with their relentless pretense to be the conscience of humanity amidst all its depravity, that truly rankles. And they run the gamut: Oxfam, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Save the Children, Swedish Rescue Services, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, Medecins sans Frontieres, Merlin. On Aug. 20, Oxfam said it was staying; by Aug. 28, it was gone. According to the Financial Times, the ICRC's venture in Iraq had been one of the world's largest humanitarian operations. Now two-thirds of its foreign staff is gone, and more are on their way. Save the Children claimed on its Web site to have the "largest presence in Iraq." It has just about vanished. According to The Mercury of Australia, "there are dozens of non-governmental aid and support groups working in Iraq . . . and most of them were studying whether to reduce foreign staff, or already had." A spokesman for Caritas said simply, "most of them are reducing their staff as much as possible" and spiriting them out to safety. Many of the NGOs that are on their way out of Iraq from fear -- if we believe them -- maintain elaborate operations in Liberia, where their employees were until recently probably more at risk than in Iraq. After all, Liberia has been plagued by wanton, random killing. And yet the relief workers soldiered on. Meanwhile, in Iraq -- where whatever mistakes have been made by the occupying authorities and however vexing the internal struggles, there can be no doubt that the U.S. wants to leave the country in a better way than it found it -- the NGOs are leaving in droves. May have been better for Iraq if they?d never arrived timblair.spleenville.com