
No one is paying attention to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II - DLay
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/no-one-is-paying-attention-to-the-worst-humanitarian-crisis-since-world-war-ii/2017/06/25/70d055f8-5767-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.03046fccc9a4
======
tudorconstantin
I don't think that only providing food and medical treatments is the way to go
here. Without educating them to be able to self sustain themselves, the
approach of providing them food and vaccines is just perpetuating and
amplifying the crisis.

Let's say the funds to overcome the present crisis are found and are enough
for a year. What will happen then? All those millions of people survived and
another few million children are born. The amount of funds needed this year
will not be enough anymore next year and the crisis will be even bigger.

~~~
chiefalchemist
On a semi related note, I read it argued that sending clothing and such to
Africa is actually the possible thing to do. Why? Long to short, donations
undermine the local economy.

Makes sense.

------
DennisP
I clicked most of the links in the article, and googled a bit, but still can't
find a way to donate that puts my money directly towards this problem.

~~~
abbadadda
Exactly. I created an account to say this. One of the things preventing many
from donating is being sure the funds get to where they're supposed to go. And
I think the urgency of this sounds important as well.

------
SCHiM
I don't know very much about the situation there. If there's anybody that does
could you enlighten me about something?

It does not become clear from the article how to problem has come into
existence. Only crops have failed in Somalia because of the absence of spring
rain. What has caused the famine in the rest of the countries? Was the drought
so widespread? Are the other mentioned countries dependent on Somalia for
their food? Seems like SA also blocks a port that is vital for food imports.

~~~
civilian
The Economist's article on it back in March:
[http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-
africa/2171982...](http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-
africa/21719827-war-not-drought-reason-people-are-starving-famine-
menaces-20m-people)

The subtitle: > _War, not drought, is the reason people are starving_

Warlords don't give a shit about providing food to their people. :(

~~~
chiefalchemist
As is always the case, follow the money :(

------
calafrax
Seems like a personal problem for the media. Is the point of this article just
to say what a shitty job they do on informing their readers about things that
actually matter.

~~~
mschuster91
No one _listens_ to what the media reports, these days. There have been loads
of detailed articles in all forms - TV reports, print articles, radio reports,
web specials, everything.

The problem is that certain persons of interest ( _cough_ The D) or crises
(migrants, wars, financial crises) overload the media system, plus people who
are poor don't have the mental capacity (or the will) to engage in this
debate.

Also, many people just don't care, even if people are dying - at a local nazi
demonstration, someone literally said "it's just ni..ers". Racism is well
alive, especially when people don't have much left (e.g. after becoming
jobless due to German reunification scandals) and right-wing politicians fuel
the fire by telling people that refugees might steal their social aid or other
cr.p.

~~~
ncr100
How shall we fix this (with science)?

~~~
mschuster91
I don't believe it's possible with science. What is needed first-of-all is a
_massive_ amount of regulation on social networks to get the propaganda (aka
the old name for fake news) under control.

Social networks must have adequate human support teams capable of speaking the
languages of the countries their users are, they must delete (or, as in
traditional media, offer corrections to) fake/defamating posts, they must
react to illegal content (e.g. hiding by country as Twitter does is pretty
fair game to avoid the censorship debate), and there must be a legal way for
people to get appeal in case of accidental misclassified stuff.

For example, my telco provider has no right to terminate my service unless I'm
90 days behind in payments given the importance of telecommunication, so why
should a social network not be subject to the same terms, given the importance
of social media to modern society. Final terminations of service must be
subject to due legal process.

Fix social media and the "classic" media will follow.

------
Cozumel
To play devils advocate, just let them all starve and the population will
balance out naturally. At the moment a lot of population growth is fuelled
artificially by aid shipments.

People rely on the aid and have babies, if the aid wasn't there they'd either
not have babies that they couldn't provide for or die.

Probably the best thing to do is stop all involvement in those countries and
let them find a natural equilibrium, but that can't happen because all the
western countries want the rich resources in those places so they create this
vicious cycle.

~~~
david38
A valid solution to be sure. I'm not opposed to it. Funny how the EU and US
don't hold themselves to the same solution.

Problems in Israel? Cut off aid and let them figure it out.

US has no access to precious metals? Fuck it, let the economy tank.

------
Sideloader
The United States and the United Kingdom are actively participating in the
Saudi war against Yemen. They supplied the military hardware (for a tidy
profit) and also provide advisors and intelligence personell to "help" the
KSA's effort to force its will on Yemen. Africa offers business opportunities
for Western companies and some areas play a starring role in strategic
destruction aimed at furthering foreign policy goals, e.g. Libya.

In other words the West doesn't care about humanitarian suffering. It only
becomes a problem if it threatens "our" interests or if a crisis gets heavy
media attention, in which case governments may take a few token actions to
show the world that they are "doing something."

In the case of Syria the Western "coalition", by arming and training the
jihadists fighting the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad , is actually
prolonging the war and people's suffering. Keep in mind that we are arming al-
Qaeda in Syria - the same guys who the "war on terror" was supposed to wipe
out. This is a fact that can easily be verified using credible sources.

The stuff about human rights and democracy is a PR project that packages up
death and destruction and sells it to the citizenry as "humanitarian" or part
of a "responsibility to protect". Only a population that has never known war
can easily buy into such a blatantly Orwellian "war is peace" fairytale.

The idea of an altruistic empire that spends blood and treasure not to acquire
resources or territory but because its heart bleeds for "babies....innocent
little babies" is the stuff of comedy. As propaganda, however, it has been
very successful. But that is changing as people communicate with others
thousands of miles away in the center of the action and peruse sources
offering information that does not align with the narratives presented by the
Western media.

The American and European media's reporting on Syria is especially appalling.
This has been noted by several journalists including respected war
correspondent Patrick Cockburn. When the jihadists were defeated in Aleppo
late 2016 (and bused to Idlib province with their families and even allowed to
take their weapons with them) the media painted a picture of wanton slaughter
and summary executions at the hand of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies that
simply did not happen. The media relied exclusively on jihadi sympathizer
citizen "reporters" and took their words at face value. Not once did a major
Western news outlet consider that the people of Aleppo were very happy that
the fighting and dying had stopped. And the vast majority stayed in Aleppo and
did not the government buses to Idlib. This of course was not reported either
as it does not fit the narrative of Assad as a sadistic fiend who takes
delight in butchering Syrians. The plight of Christians, Shia Muslims, Druze,
Alawites and moderate Sunnis in "rebel" held territory was conveniently
skipped over as well.

Yeah that's how much the establishment cares. It is difficult to get ordinary
people to see how one-sided and manipulative the conventional narrative is
because they are used to lies, distortions and half-truths being passed off as
"objective" reality in these regions. They hear that the U.S. and EU are
arming and training al-Qaeda and it sounds like 911 truther nonsense to them.
That there is a paper and money trail that verifies this is beside the point.
A good salesman uses emotion to convince customers to buy, not an earnestly
delivered list of facts and specs. Much of the art of persuasion consists of
distracting the rational mind and playing with target's emotions.

But he major media outfits are simply not that important to people who came of
age after the internet became ubiquitous and those who adapted to the new
technology. This does not mean they are all well-informed but it does mean
that many are and there is a good chance many more will begin questioning the
veracity of conventional narratives.

------
Spivak
Holy clickbait title Batman.

~~~
eli
What makes it clickbait?

~~~
trevyn
It does not say specifically what crisis it is referring to.

~~~
eli
Oh, yeah, that's fair. I guess I just thought it was obvious. But that's fair.
It is in service of the point they're trying to make.

------
wakeupcall1
There is holera and famine in Yemen, which a direct cause of the Aglosaxons
intevention, especially the exceptional country called The United States. But
who cares. By the way, washington post is part of the establishment. Period

