Some private aid workers privately have expressed frustration at the slow response to what they believe would have been an avoidable situation if the airlifted food had been made available earlier.
In addition, our demand to congressmen will include the passage of the kind of civilian aid package for the entire country which would make a difference, which would amount to about what we spend in one month on combat operations. The mechanism would be the National Solidarity Program run by Afghan community development councils (more than 22,000 at the local level) and the World Bank. World Bank President Richard Zoellick said:
"The
National Solidarity Program...empowers more than 22,000 elected, village-level
councils to decide on their development priorities -- from building a school to
irrigation to electrification. So far, the program has reached more than 19
million Afghans in 34 provinces, with grants averaging $33,000. Development
owned by the community can survive amid conflict: When an NSP-funded school was
attacked in August 2006, the villagers defended it."
It's
time to start anew with Afghans. The Berlin Airlift in 1948 saved hundreds of
thousands of Germans from freezing and starvation. Of course there was a
political element, as two superpowers, the US and the USSR, jockeyed to shape
the map after WWII. But it worked, and the fact remains that, decades later, this
is still what many Europeans remember about America. Let the help in the winter of 2010 be what many young Afghans years
from now remember about America, not a surge in troops.
Listed below are
the congressmembers' foreign policy staffers who have received this letter,
with a request that they forward it to their members, in their email in-box
this morning. Please call to reiterate the importance of acting on this
immediately. The subject line reads: "Emergency
Legislation: Stop Starvation in Afghanistan This Winter Now." Let's
get into the real American Christmas spirit, and show that the generals do not
represent all of us.
Dear Congress Member,
We at Jobs for Afghans demand
that a likely food crisis looming in parts of Afghanistan this winter be
averted. If the Congress can pass $100 billion package for military operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan, it can pass a $870 million emergency assistance
package to head off starvation.
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