We're in a quagmire in Afghanistan with the "Hearts & Minds" struggle fiercely contested by our side and the insurgents.
Maybe instead of continually trying to bomb our way to victory we should try using food as our weapon. For all the upbeat nonsense regularly spewed out by our politicians and top military leaders, a lot of Afghans are in serious trouble and it's not from our airstrikes or the Taliban . It's food or rather the lack of it.
A recent report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that fully three out of ten Afghans face chronic food insecurity. From Reuters:
"Fifty-seven percent of Afghan households have insufficient food diversity (indicating poor quality) and over 20 percent of households do not have access to enough food, according to a national rural vulnerability assessment conducted jointly by the Afghan government and the UN in 2003.
"FAO says some far-flung provinces such as Bamyan, Daykundi and Ghor face a "critical situation" and require long-term development projects to reduce household vulnerability to food crises.
"Some provinces are particularly food insecure because of factors such as high altitude and long winters, lack of water, or remoteness and difficulties of access. Heavy snowfalls and avalanches during winter months regularly block roads to and from rugged and mountainous provinces such as Ghor, Daykundi, Bamyan and Badakhshan."
1 comment:
it's ironic that so many of us should think of the same thing at the same time (or about) but wouldn't this make for a great hippy movement; bomb the bastards with food. You can take the fight out of anyone or make friends fast when you feed them. Of course the military complex in the US will have to have time to enter the food supply market, but hey, all of us would be willing to give them a fairer chance than they've given the piddly little countries republicans love to invade to feel like real men.
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