May 7, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
In appealing to help for victims of the cyclone in Myanmar, First Lady Laura Bush should have known better than to “mindlessly repeat the toothless U.S. policy positions on a government we disapprove of,” writes Richard Walden on the Huffington Post.
Mr. Walden, president of Operation USA, in Culver City, Calif., says that most aid workers have strong views about the governments in countries where they work.
“But when disaster strikes, a bad or ineffective local government is an obstacle to be danced around not bludgeoned to death thus guaranteeing it will not allow the entry of urgent humanitarian aid for its people,” he says.
“Laura Bush read the administration’s long-standing talking points on Myanmar while simultaneously demanding that its government accept a team of US disaster officials to make an independent assessment of its needs,” he says. “That the International Red Cross, the United Nations, the European Union and a number of highly competent relief agencies were already on the ground doing exactly that did not seem to matter.”
What do you think of Mr. Walden’s criticisms?
