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