Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet

At 08:51 AM 9/15/96 -0700, James A. Donald wrote:
>[Allegations that "save the children" is a political organization 
>providing cover for an effort to ban cryptography]
>
>At 01:54 PM 9/9/96 -0400, Hallam-Baker wrote:
>> Their main mission is sending food to Ethiopia and other famine
>> areas, development work etc. It is ultra-worthy stuff.
>
>Not everyone who sends food to the starving children is ultra
>respectable.
>Problem is that the usual cause of starving children is tyranny.  
>In order to get close enough to the starving children to take 
>those cute fund raising photographs you have to pay off and get 
>cosy with tyrants.  This creates a moral hazard, in that it is 
>hard to tell the difference between normal bribery needed to do 
>anything in a tyrannical state, and bribery to bribe tyrants to 
>create starving children for photo ops.
>It is very common for international charities to develop excessively 
>friendly relationships with murderous tyrannies,

Yet another obligatory AP (Assassination Politics) reference:  If a person 
is really interested in helping out "starving children" he may be able to do 
far more good by purchasing the death of the local tyrant(s), rather than 
(just) buying more food.  After all, if the donor really believes that this 
starvation isn't endemic to the country, he has to conclude that it's a 
condition which is forced on the victims. In addition, you almost always 
find that these starving countries have well-supplied militaries, defending 
the local warlords against each other as in Somalia.  Indeed, in Somalia the 
incoming food was actually used to buoy up one group against another, 
because access to it is controlled directly or indirectly by the factions.

Some might argue that the death of a single leader doesn't normally fix the 
problem.  While that's often true, it's normally because there isn't 
an automatic guarantee that the next 20+ leaders will ALSO be killed if they 
display the same problems as the first.  Provide that guarantee, and 
(somewhat paradoxically) not only do you not need to kill the 20+, you 
probably won't have to kill the first one!


(wondering when the world will see the light...)

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com

>Yet another obligatory AP (Assassination Politics) reference:  If a person 
>is really interested in helping out "starving children" he may be able to do 
>far more good by purchasing the death of the local tyrant(s), rather than 
>(just) buying more food.


The problem is that assasination rarely leads to the installation of
a government that is any better. In most cases it gets worse.

In the past the US excuse for supporting bloodthirsty murderers like
Pinochet, Saddam, Marcos and Noriega was that the alternative was
worse.

In cases like Eritrea or Ethiopia the average term of office of any 
given despot tends to be rather short in any case. In most cases its
a case of there being little to choose between the leaders of the 
various factions and that ending the war on any terms is better 
than allowing it to continue. 


		Phill