September 25, 2001

7:52 PM

Operation Infinite Mercy: Emergency relief for Afghan refugees fleeing Taliban rule and/or threats of American attack. Amid the scores of funds, accounts, websites, banner ads, and buttons that have popped up advertising ways to 'help the victims', it's been near-impossible to find somewhere online to make a donation to assist some of the other people affected by the aftermath of September 11th...
posted by SenshiNeko (19 comments total)

thanks, SenshiNeko.

here are two other places to help:
médecins sans frontières (via rc3.org)

donate to the red crescent (via dave winer)

posted by rebeccablood at 7:57 PM on September 25, 2001

In the light of this, won't someone please help to shame the Australian government into rescinding its decision to turn away a boatload of Afghan refugees last month? Our prime minister's popularity has soared since he pledged military support to the US, but the asylum-seekers' plight has become an embarrassing political football.
posted by blue at 8:35 PM on September 25, 2001

Rulers rule by the consent of the oppressed.
posted by aramaic at 9:31 PM on September 25, 2001

Rulers rule by the consent of the oppressed.

well, *guns* help....
posted by rebeccablood at 9:38 PM on September 25, 2001

well, *guns* help
No, they don't. Raw numbers is what matters. Give me one hundred thousand rifles, put me up against a thousand unarmed civilians, and I will lose every time. Give me a nuclear missile, and put me up against a million unarmed civilians, and I will still lose in the end.

Again: rulers rule by the consent of the oppressed. If every starving Afghan flooding the borders of Pakistan had, instead, murdered a Taliban soldier, the Taliban would be wiped out. Oppressed people allow themselves to be oppressed, hoping that perhaps things won't actually get worse than they are.

Things always get worse.
posted by aramaic at 9:59 PM on September 25, 2001

I think that's a dangerous oversimplification. Give me a battalion of well-organized, armed and disciplined troops and I'll take on a million civilians - one village at a time - and win. If a ruling party has the power to crush resistance efforts before they build critical mass, a small group can hold power. If the Afghan people were in full support of the Taliban and its policies, oppression wouldn't be necessary, and you wouldn't get humor like this.
posted by JParker at 10:09 PM on September 25, 2001

Dude, aramaic, you are so naive. "Consent"? "Oppressed people allow themselves to be oppressed"? You know the implications of this thought?
posted by EngineBeak at 10:10 PM on September 25, 2001

If we go in there, we will be rescuing these people, at least in a relative way.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:11 PM on September 25, 2001

Aramaic: I disagree.

In general, revolts by the poor have not been successful. There have been many peasant rebellions, such as Wat Tyler's in England, and Pugachov's peasant-cossack rebellion of 1773-75 in Russia. Both were crushed.

Guns matter.

Although, maybe they don't, in the end, because revolts that succeed often seem create regimes as oppressive as the one they overthrow, such as the slave revolt that created current Haiti.

Things do not always get worse. England got better, and eventually evolved into a humane and prosperous democracy. And refugees sometimes do better than if they remained in their mother country. The current US population, after all, is mostly descended from people fleeing bad political, religious, or economic situations in their home countries. So are the populations of many other countries, if you go back far enough.

I think you can make a strong case that either staying and sticking it out, or fleeing, are both better options than rebelling against an armed government and military.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:45 PM on September 25, 2001

"Infinite Mercy"... for who, really? for the whole world?? or just for the USA?

I wonder how the military guys come up with those names.
posted by betobeto at 10:58 PM on September 25, 2001

Things do not always get worse. England got better, and eventually evolved into a humane and prosperous democracy.

Might be. Ask any Japanese. It becomes tempting to assume the bomb was the thing they made them finally "wake up" and become what they are now...

This isn't a justification for what the US did back then in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nothing can justify that, the same way dropping bombs on Kabul wouldn't have any justification right now, military or otherwise. But the Japan example persists as a proof that the human being, when faced to the most dire circumstances, can display a truly amazing amount of resistance, endurance and determination.
posted by betobeto at 11:06 PM on September 25, 2001

If every starving Afghan flooding the borders of Pakistan had, instead, murdered a Taliban soldier, the Taliban would be wiped out.

What's a Taliban soldier? Its your brother who was taken away during the middle of the night under gunpoint.

Guns in themselves may not go a long way but the fear and terror associated with a regime best described as murderous certianly goes a long way.

There are fighters, they're called the northern alliance. Obviously, there's a civil war going on, but if you think the vast number of Afghanis have the the resources to fight (a meal a day, water, some weapon) then you're sadly mistaken. Remeber those 'thousands of people' include the elderaly, women, and children.
posted by skallas at 1:28 AM on September 26, 2001

betobeto,

Why do you say "nothing can justify [the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]" ?

If not the A-bomb, then conventional warfare is justified?
Huh? I don't follow.

What you are saying is "nothing can justify the use of force."

I think this is a mistaken belief. Self-defense justifies it.
posted by ophelia_hardin at 4:53 AM on September 26, 2001

oxfam international is a good organization to help, too. they're trying to get food in to refugees before winter sets in, which i guess might be kind of hard because it looks like any military operation will also want to get started before winter sets in...
posted by kliuless at 6:45 AM on September 26, 2001

But the Japan example persists as a proof that the human being, when faced to the most dire circumstances, can display a truly amazing amount of resistance, endurance and determination.

It helps to have long-term reparations help from your former-enemy-turned-ally, as well as a couple of nicely timed nearby wars during which said ally needs lots of supplies from recently rebuilt factories.

It helps to have a humane enemy who is willing to repair the damage they did in achieving their victory. Even if the repairs are done for ulterior motives -- to halt the spread of communism, etc.

The lesson to be learned is that the US will do whatever it takes during a war to win it, and whatever it takes after the war to make sure that its former enemy is back on its feet.

In both cases, with the justification that the advance of freedom and justice must not be stopped.
posted by dfowler at 6:52 AM on September 26, 2001

Tony Blair actually won a bit of respect for me yesterday by saying that any military action would be backed up by relief efforts within Afghanistan itself: it's the closest I've seen to a Western leader acknowledging the "bomb them with butter" meme.
posted by holgate at 7:13 AM on September 26, 2001

this (Hawks gang up against Powell) is kind of disturbing, tho.

where's rice in all this? i imagine, cold-warrior that she is, that she's a hawk, too. expanded war in the middle-east?
posted by kliuless at 7:33 AM on September 26, 2001

The Forgotten Famine [via gulfstream]
By Anne Applebaum

Posted Tuesday, May 1, 2001, at 4:00 p.m. PT

Three guesses which country the United Nations now reckons to contain the world's worst humanitarian crisis. No, not Somalia; not Rwanda; not Mozambique. In fact, because of war, displacement, and two decades of chaos, the poverty of Afghanistan is so difficult to measure that the Afghan GNP frequently appears on lists as "not available." The World Bank has no operations there; the U.N. High Commission for Refugees considers Afghans to be the largest group of refugees in the world—for the 19th year running. It counts 1.2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, 1.3 million in Iran, and many thousands more around the world, (including, oddly, Washington D.C., where large numbers of sad-eyed Afghans drive taxis out to Dulles Airport). More refugees, perhaps another half-million, are pouring into new camps within the country: One U.N. camp near Herat is said to be receiving 1,500 people every day. Having abandoned their farms, eaten what remained of their resources, and watched their sheep and cattle die for lack of water, they have nothing to return to either.
posted by kliuless at 8:26 AM on September 26, 2001