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.<p>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.
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.
I don't know very much about the situation there. If there's anybody that does could you enlighten me about something?<p>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.
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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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."<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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