There’s more to the mission than missiles

PACKET EDITORIAL, Oct. 9

By: Packet Editorial
   The most unconventional "war" in American history may have started Sunday in a most conventional way — with bombs and missiles attacking suspected terrorist camps in Afghanistan. It may be weeks, months or even years before we know whether these weapons are at all effective against an unseen enemy.
   But there is another weapon being employed by U.S. and British forces that may pay far greater and more immediate dividends in the campaign against the elusive Osama bin Laden and the Taliban military that is protecting him.
   Food.
   While Tomahawk cruise missiles were striking airports, air defenses, command centers and other Taliban targets throughout Afghanistan, and B-2 stealth bombers were dropping precision-guided bombs on suspected Al Qaeda training camps, a pair of C-17 cargo jets flew over some of the most remote areas of Afghanistan and dropped an estimated 37,500 individually wrapped food packages. Their target was Afghanistan’s starving rural population, its ranks already swelled by perhaps hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the cities to escape both Taliban oppression and American bombs.
   The packages contain a "Humanitarian Daily Ration" of 2,300 calories, including lentils, beans, peanut butter, jam, biscuits, pastry and shortbreads. Prominently displayed on the package is the label: "Food Gift From The People Of The United States of America."
   Air drops of food and medical supplies have been tried before — in Europe in the 1940s, Korea in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s and various locations since — but usually more for propaganda than humanitarian purposes. The supplies often ended up in the wrong hands or, worse, broke into a million useless pieces on impact.
   This time, however, the packages seem certain to arrive safely, and end up in the right hands. Virtually the entire targeted population is in desperate need of food, and the packages have been wrapped in crates that break up as they fall to allow a soft landing for the individually wrapped meals. So we can be reasonably certain that large numbers of innocent Afghan civilians will benefit from our humanitarian assistance.
   And that, no matter how one feels about the rightness or wrongness of our air attacks on Afghanistan, will ultimately be our nation’s strongest weapon in "Operation Enduring Freedom."
   We, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, support a limited military operation aimed at Taliban targets and terrorist camps, and we fervently hope it will result in rooting out those responsible for the horrific Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But military might will not achieve our broader objective of reducing the worldwide threat of terrorism unless we are able to restore stability to a region of the world in which America is viewed with suspicion, distrust and, in extreme cases, hatred.
   To that end, our humanitarian energies should equal or exceed our military efforts. We should bombard rural Afghanistan with not only food but medicine, clothing and other necessities. We should deploy troops and encourage volunteers to work in camps providing care for Afghan refugees along the borders of neighboring countries. We should undermine the Taliban regime by offering aid and comfort to the very people it has so brutally repressed.
   We should tap the vast economic and moral resources of the United States to show the rest of the world, our allies and enemies alike, the great generosity of spirit that has guided our nation throughout its history. We shouldn’t do this because it looks good. We should do it because we can — and because without it, more people may die of starvation than in all the bombing raids and terrorist attacks put together.
   We should do it, in short, because it’s the right thing to do.