The war has two sides

In Friday's Guardian Ian Brown, who has worked for various NGOs, says about the murder of Margaret Hassan that 'the failure to close the Care office in Baghdad has had appalling consequences'. On the question of why Care didn't suspend operations in Iraq, he believes the answer lies in the trend among international aid organisations and NGOs to be increasingly dependent on government funding:

In many countries, close links to the US government go unnoticed. Not so in Iraq. And there are clear indications that Care's operations in Iraq were compromised by links to the US and UK administrations.

In addition to the funding situation, he goes on to observe that Care didn't come out in opposition to the Iraq war. They joined the protest march on February 15 last year 'only "to raise awareness of the potential humanitarian consequences of war in Iraq"'.

Potential humanitarian consequences? After the devastation of Afghanistan, there could be no doubt that the invasion of Iraq by the world's most powerful army would trigger a humanitarian disaster. Were Care and many other aid organisations... more concerned about a cut in funding than the consequences for the Iraqi population?

Brown concludes:

Margaret Hassan, as the director of Care in Iraq, was caught in the compromise NGOs make when they rely on western governments for their funding. No matter her vociferous condemnation of the invasion, no matter her genuine dedication to helping those in need, Iraq is simply too dangerous a place for aid workers.

She may have been abducted by gangsters in a plot to extort money which went tragically wrong. The more likely scenario, I believe, is that she was killed because she was considered to be collaborating with the enemy. Indeed, elements within the Iraqi resistance have long since called for all foreigners, except journalists, to leave the country.

Note first, here, what Brown, concerned for the independence of humanitarian NGOs from government, understands by independence: not just that they shouldn't rely on government funding, but that on a major and very divisive political issue they should not be neutral. He criticizes Care for not opposing the Iraq war. But surely their independence of government entails their freedom to come to an independent judgement? This would presumably allow a choice between opposing the war, supporting it, and doing neither. But apparently not; independence of government, and on an issue where there was a deep division of opinion about the morality and the likely consequences of the war, was to think just what Ian Brown thought. Nor does he offer a single word in defence of the view that humanitarian organizations, which according to him should be drawing their funding from general public support, will increase that support by becoming overtly politicized. I think his view is wrong, but I've posted about it before, so I'll move on.

The main thing I want to draw attention to is this. In all the criticisms Brown levels or implies - against the governments and political leaders who took the US and Britain to war in Iraq, against Care International and other NGOs for their reliance on government funding, and against Care again for not suspending operations in Iraq - notice who gets a free pass. Those who have actually been taking hostages and killing them in Iraq are treated by Brown as if they were merely part of the natural background and not (what they in fact are) the people to blame for these murders. In an attempt, probably vain, to forestall some predictable objections, let me make it plain what I am not saying. I am not saying that Ian Brown approves of either the killings or their perpetrators. I'm confident he doesn't. What I am saying is that the lack of balance in the way he respectively assigns and doesn't assign criticism and condemnation puts him in the position of simply accepting the terms in which the conflict is viewed by the hostage-takers and their ilk.

He may not intend this, but it happens willy-nilly. Thus: NGOs are 'compromised' by taking funding from Western governments; Margaret Hassan was 'considered to be collaborating with the enemy'; 'elements within the Iraqi resistance have long since called for all foreigners... to leave the country'. So, that's just how it is, is it? They get to set the terms? No matter that these are people in breach of some of the most fundamental of humanitarian norms and of rules of conflict that are encoded in international conventions; people who have attacked Red Cross personnel, and attacked UN personnel, and kidnapped civilians, and decapitated them, and all the rest of the sorry and now familiar litany. We have to shape our norms and our conduct according to their lights. Where does this end? Brown criticizes Care for relying on government funding and not pulling out of Iraq. But why does he stop there? By the same logic, he could have said that Margaret Hassan was herself compromised by working for a compromised organization - and was therefore guilty for her own death.

Well, no to that, and no also to what leads to it. Because they, the murderers, don't get to set the terms, our terms. They're on the other side. We have different, and better, norms. Brown's article wouldn't have been worth this much commentary, but for the fact that it typifies so much anti-war criticism. The responsibilities of the other side are just put in brackets and everything that happens has to be the fault of someone on our side. But that's not the way it is or has ever been. Like any other, the war has two sides.