Peacekeeping: Arab Disaster Zones Are Different
31st December 2021
At the end of 2021 the UN reported that a third of the 420 million people in Arab countries do not get enough to eat while 29 percent of adults in these countries suffer from obesity. Worldwide only 13 percent of adults eat too much and are obese. The UN attributes this widespread hunger to the number of long-lasting wars and civil disorder in general. Many governments are at fault but these cannot be named because this is a UN rule that is generally followed, along with not getting involved with internal politics. Another reality not mentioned is that the hunger problem is not inadequate food supplies but the inability to deliver the food to those who need it. Until the end of the Cold War in 199s this was seen as a problem that could be solved and it often was. That is no longer the case and the situation began to change in the 1990s as food aid, and emergency aid in general, was weaponized in many parts of the world.
Nations suffering from chronic violence, lawlessness and massive numbers of refugees are often not that way because of war but because of other factors, including how many foreign aid groups operate, or try to operate there. NGO (Non-Government Organizations) now handle most of the emergency food distribution and tend to have their own ideas of how to handle things. NGO attitudes are often at odds with the locals as well as the foreign nations that provide the cash and goods needed to deal with the avoidable hunger. One problem often leads to another as the NGOs, locals, and donors clash over what to do and how to do it. The main problem is there is more to be done than anyone is willing to pay for. To make matters worse there are always disagreements, sometimes violent, over how to apply the aid. That has forced donors to prioritize where they send aid. That means chronic offenders are getting less, or sometimes no aid from many major donors.
December 31st, 2021 at 13:17
Starvation on a large scale today is almost always a result of policy, not availability or inability to deliver. Someone wants those people weak or dead. It is the easiest way to eliminate on a large scale, they are too weak to resist and the dying tend to the dead.