I'm very pleased that Sen. Clinton gave her strong, gracious endorsement to Sen. Obama today, but I am also appalled at something I read about in today's newspaper. Just when you think Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe can't get any worse -- he does:
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime is using food and the threat of hunger as a weapon to cling to power ahead of the June 27 presidential runoff. ... The suspension order hampers aid delivery to more than 4 million people and puts at least 2 million at greater risk of starvation, homelessness and disease, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Sick, sick, sick. (The full article is here.)
So what can we do? I don't claim to be an expert, but seems to me maybe that, in the tradition of the Berlin airlift 60 years ago, we could get around the ban on ground delivery of food aid by dropping food from the air. Does Mugabe have much of an (or any) air force? (or surface-to-air rocket launchers?)
I don't think we should do it unilaterally -- we ought to work with other countries on this, even if there isn't time to get formal U.N. sign-off. And we ought to be careful (again, as time permits) even about the labeling on the packages. Better to have U.N. or CARE or some other kind of labeling on it, but time is of the essence -- if we have to drop some food with U.S. flags or "USA" on it, so be it.
And if Mugabe did try to fire on our aircraft helping the people he refuses to help, well, that sounds like justification for taking out (multilaterally, if possible) his air force and/or other anti-aircraft capability.
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