The targeting of aid workers

This is something I meant to write about a few weeks ago but other events kept getting in the way.

I was disgusted to read of the kidnapping of the director of CARE International in Iraq late last month, which provoked the organization to suspend its operations in the country.

Some laud the insurgents as 'freedom fighters' opposing a foreign occupation. If they were only attacking coalition troops or other symbols of America or Britain, then it would be one thing. But to attack organizations whose sole purpose is to help ordinary Iraqis eliminates any claim on some sort of ethical high ground.

Of course, to these guys, foreign humanitarian aid organizations ARE seen as symbols of the US/Britain. They think that by kidnapping aid workers from a country, it will provoke troops from that country to leave, as a concession to free the hostage.

This view was strengthened when the Philippines withdrew its small military contingent in Iraq in the summer to secure the release of Filipino truck driver held hostage. To the surprise of no one, ANOTHER Filipino was taken hostage in Iraq on Nov. 1 and a third was taken in Afghanistan.

The insurgents don't want the plight of Iraqis to improve because they fear it would legitimize the American-appointed Iraqi government and, by extension, the occupation. Thus illustrates how their cause is different than cause of ordinary Iraqis.

You don't have to support the war or the occupation of Iraq to denounce horror against those trying to feed and house the victims of war's devastation. Not least because Iraq is hardly the only place where aid workers have become targets, rather than unintentional victims, of violence.