Sixty years after the U.S. dropped chocolate bars on Berlin, it's time to consider ne

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Los Angeles Times
June 16, 2008 Candy Bombing For 2008
In 1948, a first lieutenant in the Air Force named Gail Halvorsen began dropping candy bars attached to tiny handkerchief parachutes to the hungry children of Berlin. Many had never tasted chocolate before. The kindness of the "Candy Bomber” came to symbolize the spirit of American humanitarianism. Now the United States gives billions of dollars in humanitarian aid each year, yet the country is widely disliked by the publics of the largest beneficiaries, such as Pakistan and Egypt.
The global food crisis offers the United States a fresh opportunity to show the world its humanitarian mettle. In 2007, with prices soaring, the volume of food donated by rich countries to hungry ones actually shrank 15% to the lowest levels in nearly five decades, according to the United Nations. In 2008, the harvest in the U.S., particularly for corn, is forecast to be one of the worst in years, even as demand skyrockets for corn for biofuels as well as for animal feed in richer countries. Poor harvests will guarantee continued food-price hikes that will erode the purchasing power of the $6 billion that developed countries have recently pledged to the U.N. World Food Program.
So the U.S. will be asked to do more -- and it should. The question is whether it can turn this crisis into an opportunity to remake the agricultural and aid policies that have racked up a 50-year record of expensive failure. Across the developing world, billions of dollars in U.S. food aid have not reduced the underlying poverty and mismanagement that creates chronic malnutrition and all-too-frequent famines. Yet these costly policies are so politically entrenched, so fiercely defended by their domestic constituents, that they appear immutable. And they will be -- unless citizens demand wiser use of their increasingly stretched tax dollars.
The big thinkers in both presidential campaigns should be mapping out more thoughtful responses to the global food challenge. That means crafting plans both to help the hungry and to improve perceptions of the United States in strategic and suffering areas. Why couldn't the U.S. "candy bomb" nutritional packages into such deprived places as the Gaza Strip, the tribal areas of Pakistan or the Shiite slums of south Beirut, where Hezbollah holds sway? Why can't it subvert the influence of the Taliban among the population of South Waziristan -- the region of Pakistan from which the U.S. military expects most new terrorist attacks to emanate -- by burying that hostile land in fertilizer, drought-resistant seeds and food for what is sure to be a difficult winter?
Such heart-and-mind operations will require imaginative thinking and a willingness to discard the traditional measures of success, such as cost-effectiveness, that define most aid programs. After all, the Pentagon "wastes" billions of dollars preparing to fight wars that never break out -- in part because the very act of preparation deters all potential adversaries. Why should we demand that waging peace be more cost-effective than waging war? Why not "waste" a billion or two to build goodwill, accepting that some aid will be stolen or diverted and that compassion cannot be quantified?
Of course, a targeted, food-based public diplomacy campaign must never substitute for or squeeze out humanitarian efforts to mitigate the global hunger crisis. It must be a supplement. And it goes without saying that any candy-bombing campaign must be carefully vetted above all to do no unintended harm to the recipients. (Dropping chocolate bars on starving children would send nutritionists, not to mention the children, into shock.) But if the United States intends to be a superpower of generosity, the next president should tap American ingenuity to design better ways to feed our friends and thus confound our enemies.
Some fodder for thought:
*Ask them what they want. The developing-world landscape is littered with projects that failed because the intended beneficiaries didn't want what was offered or rejected the conditions that were imposed. A gift from the American people should come with no strings attached. And, like any thoughtful gift, it must be carefully chosen to please the recipient. That means we have to stop cleaning out our (agricultural) garage, sending our castoffsabroad and then wondering why those benighted countries aren't properly grateful. Only the truly starving will welcome food that tastes or looks weird (African corn is white, not yellow), or that they would rather feed to their animals (corn in rice-eating cultures), or that they don't know how to cook, or that makes them feel anxious (such as genetically modified food or, in some countries, U.S. beef). If we want to help the hungry and make friends at the same time, we must invest in market research -- and listen to the answers.
*Feed the kids with Plumpy'Doz? A nutritional paste called Plumpy’Nut, developed by a French scientist in 1998, has revolutionized treatment for malnourished children. Made mainly of peanuts and powdered milk mixed with vitamins and minerals, this deserving darling of the international aid community is cheap, nutritious, tasty, lightweight and doesn't require refrigeration. It has dramatically increased the survival of children in feeding centers. Doctors Without Borders is experimenting with a variation called Plumpy’Doz, which has fewer micronutrients and can be given to mothers of children under 3 to feed to their babies at home. Now a St. Louis pediatrician who helped develop the stuff has set up a factory in Malawi to manufacture it. Could the U.S. package Plumpy'Doz or a similar "lipid nutrient supplement" together with water purification tablets, blankets, mosquito nets or other products that local health workers believe would help vulnerable children and pregnant women survive this looming hungry season? And if adults are hungry enough to eat a goo that's packaged as baby food, let them.
*Redeploy military assets? We have the ability to bring food to lawless places that are politically important -- but we lack a strategic plan to do so. The U.S. military has proved itself as an effective aid-delivery service, notably after the Indonesian tsunami. Gone are the dark days when sacks of grain thrown out of airplanes killed the starving Africans they were meant to feed. The Air Force can now drop humanitarian daily ration packages with parachutes from high altitudes without crushing people. It is expensive, but we have already paid for the delivery vehicle, the gargantuan C-17 jet. Where security considerations are less dire, what about the aging vehicles, armored and otherwise, that are no longer fit for military use in Iraq and will be left behind when U.S. troops leave? Could some of these be repaired, repainted with the clasped-hands logo of the U.S. Agency for International Development and re-purposed with civilian drivers to distribute food in the Middle East?
*Rethink cash. Congress can fight world hunger in a cost-effective fashion, but not if it insists on using food aid as a backdoor subsidy for American farmers and longshoremen. Lawmakers shamelessly shoveled money at rich farmers in the latest edition of the misbegotten farm bill (which now awaits a presidential veto). And they foolishly rejected, for the third time, a proposal by President Bush to allow just 25% of U.S. food-aid funds to be used to purchase food abroad. (Experts say 50% would be better, but even 25% would be an improvement over shipping food from the U.S.) Using cash to buy food close to where it is needed would cost far less, stimulate agriculture in the developing world and reduce shipping costs and greenhouse gas emissions. In another dreadful policy decision, Congress also insists on inflating costs by requiring food aid to travel on U.S.-flagged ships. It's fine to send American surplus crops in times of famine and to ship specialized products where they are needed. The rest of the time, it would be cheaper, faster and greener simply to wire money to nongovernmental organizations to buy and distribute food to the poor.
*Send smart seeds and fertilizer? The best food aid is to help people grow their own, but programs to distribute hardier, more productive seeds have often failed either because the crops weren't well-suited for local conditions or because people didn't want to eat them. Fertilizer is heavy and expensive to transport -- but it is useful, hard to collect and resell, and always welcome. And there are a number of promising initiatives to improve crops and hence nutrition in the developing world. One of the most exciting is the effort by the nonprofit Harvest Plus to use traditional breeding techniques to improve the nutritional value of staple crops that are typically grown in impoverished areas, boosting the iron, zinc and Vitamin A content of rice, wheat, maize, sweet potatoes, cassava and beans. Deficiencies of these vital nutrients are widespread among poor people who cannot afford a varied diet -- a problem that will only worsen as food prices rise. The sweet potato is already being field-tested in Africa, and fortified wheat that would be suitable for Pakistan is in the works. If it cared to do so, the United States has the means to fund programs that would provide these or other carefully tested "smart" seeds -- in packages labeled as "a gift from the American people" -- to the right locations at planting season, together with the appropriate fertilizer. In places where trucks cannot travel, should we candy bomb packages of super-seeds with tiny parachutes?
 
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