Sir, - In the weeks leading up to military action against Afghanistan President Bush was reported as saying he would not waste a $2 million cruise missile attacking a $10 tent. Well, the US airforce has resolved his dilemma. They are now bombing the $10 tents with $3 dinner packs.
One can imagine the startled reaction of a displaced Afghan family, having left the city for the relative security of the open countryside, to be awakened by tomorrow's dinner hurtling through the roof of their tent, courtesy of the world's most advanced home delivery service! This is fast food with a difference.
Asking the US and UK airforces to run a food aid programme from the air is about as logical as asking the aid agencies to conduct the ground war on behalf of the coalition armies. After all, we have the trucks and the people - why duplicate the effort? Do Messrs Bush and Blair really believe these airdrops are going to make a whit of difference? The food packs contain food to the nutritional value of 2,000 calories - a day's supply - and some unspecified medicines. In case there is any doubt as to their origin they come wrapped in a stars-and-stripes cover, and are labelled in different Afghan dialects. On the first day of bombing 37,000 such packs were dropped, meeting one day's food requirements of an estimated 0.75 per cent of the population in need.
And who will benefit from this largesse? We are asked to believe that, together with smart missiles and smart bombs that can pick out enemy installations while avoiding civilians, we now have smart dinner packs that can distinguish between Taliban forces and poor malnourished Afghans! Imagine the scene: a US plane flies over and drops a thousand or so packages. They land, say, half-a-mile from a refugee settlement. Who gets there first - the sick and the lame? Of course not. Tony Blair talked of building a grand humanitarian coalition to complement the military coalition conducting the war. Where is it? If it exists it certainly does not involve those who have years of experience in carrying out food relief operations and all the other sensitive and necessary activities that support such work. It is hard to believe that what we are witnessing is anything other than a crude PR exercise to mollify those in the West who have misgivings about the bombing. It is time to name the exercise for what it is - a farce - and end it.
Instead of cynically exploiting the goodwill built up by the aid agencies over many years through their impartial and effective work, the coalition should open food corridors into Afghanistan and provide the means to the agencies to deliver each month the estimated 50,000 tonnes of food per month necessary if the Afghan people are to survive the coming winter. - Yours, etc.,
Justin Kilcullen, Director, Tr≤caire, Booterstown, Co Dublin.