humanitarian assistance

needs versus our self image

We awoke to news of several devastating earthquakes in Turkey and surrounding countries, with news of at least 2100 deaths likely to be a low figure. The afflicted area is also where many Syrian refugees, ousted by the civil war unsuccessfully toppling Bashir al-Assad over the past decade plus, live in relatively vulnerable conditions made only worse by mother nature. Ambassador Jeffry Flake and his Embassy staff in Ankara will be extraordinarily busy providing what immediate assistance possible while also suggesting to the Biden administration what the United States can do in the future. We have military bases in Turkey from which I suspect we will be sending immediate shipments of food, water, blankets, and ultimately more when it arrives. And this response now is contingent on the quakes stopping at this point; more quakes will lead to further deterioration in conditions, of course, resulting in greater need.

The U.S. ties with Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan are already strained over a number of factors, such as his unwillingness to allow Sweden into NATO (which I discussed Turkey, Turkey) and his overall unpredictable responses to western positions. He also has allowed, if not encouraged, thuggish behaviour against political opposition.

Disappointed as he may be, I cannot fathom Biden not putting the disappointments aside to address crisis conditions. We will offer Turkey (and the other affected areas) humanitarian aid. that sounds like huge numbers but should be taken against the other spending the United States engages in. That help is who we are. Americans root for the underdog whether it’s because nature puts someone in that position, a team cheats on the field, or a person has some sort of disability. That is what tears at our hearts and motivates us to provide help because of need.

Even in an era where the United States is pulling back from positions it has championed for the whole of the post-World War II world (free trade, adherence to a United Nations resting on equal representatation as important versus power, and globalisation), the populace of the United States supports assistanting others in dire situations.

Not every state welcomes our aid but we offer it, consistently. In fact, we offer less aid by gross domestic product in ongoing assistance than many Europeans but we do step up in a crisis. We do it for more than just out of good will, of course. It is a tool of statecraft and always will be. But, Americans truly don’t view humanitarian aid that way.

This is what the massive aid packages to Ukraine over the past almost 12 months represent: help for a population invaded by bullies. I was only slightly surprised over the weekend to hear that donor fatigue is setting in gradually on aid to Ukraine but that phenomenon, when the public begins to ask whether assistance is perpetual, eventually does occur even for the United States when the crisis morphs from an existential concern to a structural condition. (This very point is why I have doubts that suppport for Taiwan assistance would be as permanent as either many on the Hill advocate or geography probably mandates, hence leading to my repeated question of whether Taiwan is doing to assure its position but that is another musing.)

Humanitarian crises are harsh, life and death problems that become visible online or on television. We are still all in on those because we have a fair number of them ourselves in hurricanes, blizzards, scalding heat waves, and even the occasional earthquake or volcano (forbid) on the the west coast. We are not invulnerable to nature’s effects any more than other states and, no matter our bluster and kvetching about money, we appreciate the implication of that statement.

I grew up in a place with earthquakes, although I never felt one worse than 6.3. They are eerie (particularly when you’re in bed), unanticipated, and awesome displays of things beyond our control. I cannot imagine the hopelessness the people of the region feel today as they wonder when the earth will calm. I am proud that we can do anything to assuage their fears and plights. We still do amazing things as a people.FIN