Militarization of Aid vs. Humanitarian Neutrality in Afghanistan: Part II

When it comes to Afghanistan, there are no easy answers, and this is especially true of civil-military relations questions.

In my previous post in this series, I argued humanitarian aid organizations are right to stay out of counterinsurgency operations, even on the reconstruction end, and that by adding counterinsurgency support strings to grants for humanitarian relief, USAID is asking aidworkers to violate the core principles of their profession.

Trust is precious currency for aid organizations everywhere, and should be guarded accordingly. But neutrality is a different thing, and if it ever existed in the Afghan context, it has been effectively dead for years. As former Change.org Global Health blogger Alanna Shaikh put it:

[...] what protected Medecins sans Frontieres and the International Rescue Committee in Afghanistan in the 90s was not some airy-fairy belief in neutrality. It was the Taliban’s belief that the NGOs were not keeping the Taliban from achieving its goals. Combatants in Afghanistan no longer believe that, or are not organized enough to enforce rules. Mourning the end of neutrality is a dangerous sidetrack that keeps the real issue from being addressed.

Yet boundaries are still important, especially in a conflict with many international actors operating based on different guiding principles, objectives, priorities and time frames.

To the greatest extent possible, relief and development aid should be kept separate from the military campaign to defeat the Taliban. If aid is tied directly to the goal of a coalition victory, it will not be provided based on an objective assessment of what Afghans need, but who the coalition wants to win over. Such a scenario does not align with the principle of humanitarian impartiality.

At the same time, that does not mean militaries on their own shouldn't undertake activities that may look a lot like humanitarian aid. Here's why:

- Although relief organizations shouldn't be bullied into working with militaries, someone still has to go in and rebuild bridges collapsed by heavy vehicles, replace livestock killed in crossfire, and refurbish damaged houses and farming equipment.

- Warring parties have a moral obligation to mitigate the harm their actions have on civilian populations, and part of harm mitigation is compensating individual victims and rebuilding communities when efforts to protect civilians in the first place fail. The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) argues that "[...] no civilian harmed in war should be left with nothing. Put simply, parties to conflict should dignify losses by recognizing and offering assistance to individuals and communities devastated by bullets and bombs."

- Prevailing opinion in the US military agrees -- but primarily because assisting communities is seen as a way to win the valuable support of war-affected populations and shrink an insurgency's pool of potential recruits.

- The war in Afghanistan will continue, and fighting will intensify --at least temporarily-- beginning in the spring of next year. More civilians will be hurt, killed and made homeless, even if all due precautions are taken to avoid those outcomes.

- Which brings us back to the problem of post-battle reconstruction activities. Relief organizations should not perform these, but someone has to. That someone should be militaries,  with the support of their own civilian employees. The United States is shifting to this approach in Afghanistan, though recruitment of qualified civilians is lagging.

- This solution won't satisfy everyone, and will undoubtedly anger many good people for justifiable reasons. It's far from perfect, and it still blurs the line between aid and military operations.

As always, I'd love to hear your better alternatives, and I mean that sincerely.

[Photo: An Afghan woman observes U.S. Soldiers and the Afghan National Police (ANP) on patrol, Mollayal Village, Zabul Province, Afghanistan, Dec. 4, 2009. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Efren Lopez /Released)]