Arthur Williams
Dr. Layng-Awasthi
English 112
December 10, 2012
Humanitarian Aid of Today
Humanitarian aid has always been a highly political activity and known all around the world. Practices of humanitarian aid personnel must be driven solely on the basis of need, because the humanitarian principles of neutrality and detachment are under persistent assault by people who do not support humanitarian aid. The difference between helping countries who never had anything and also comparing them to ones who just had a crisis is that it is never about the basis of need, but more about what can be gotten from helping. Going to help a country because they had a hurricane or earthquake is not the only reason for humanitarian assistance to go support the victims, it is more than just helping them as what could profit the people helping, which I feel makes it a political situation. Including there, when you help for profits it come to a different type of agreement, there are a lot more countries we never go help and they have always been in need of help. I feel humanitarian aid is a process of getting in good with the enemies or allies we are helping to lower the risk of violence. There are more and more political debates when it comes to humanitarian aid. The basic humanitarian aid principles, such as neutrality, impartiality, independence and universality are traditional. However, neutrality might be changing because of the different point of views coming to a change involving politics and neutrality. Neutrality changing and humanitarian agency taking sides may jeopardize the independence and security of aid personnel. The humanitarian aid is to help other countries and cities who have it hard, been through a disaster or different tragedies such as hurricanes, which brought them back down to nothing. I feel as if humanitarian aid is great and helping others is always a big impact in this world today. I also feel as if the United States tries to help everyone out but if the United States was in a crisis, such as Hurricane Katrina again, would everyone help us out with support? I feel that it is not all about receiving but I just never hear about others donating from Hurricane Katrina or the tornado that went through and wiped out a whole town. I'm the type of person to help others out but not always the first one to jump and say here you go, get what you want. The United States have multiple problems going on here in its own country, for instance, less jobs, and even high gas prices, etc. there are plenty of people struggling and sometimes it’s not even their fault they're stuck in that predicament. Stated in the article "U.S. Opinion on Development and Humanitarian Aid," "in addition, Americans perceive development aid as furthering democracy and, for a more modest number of respondents, as a way to fight terrorism" (Council.) Which seem as if there could be some truth to that because they wouldn't want to develop more problems than they already have. I got out of the statement above that the United States are not just helping people just to help, but helping to get something in return.
The United States is a sovereign nation. Sovereignty is a simple idea: the United States is an independent nation, governed by the American people that control its own affairs. The American people adopted the Constitution and created the government.
They elect their representatives and make their own laws
(Groves Steven).
Humanitarian aid is good for struggling families and others being helped because helping someone's a good thing and can take the helper a long way. Humanitarian aid starts national sovereignty, which is the state of helping others' and controlling their territory, because you’re on top and is in ownership of the country getting the benefits feeling as if they owe something. It could lead to positives and negatives both depending on the country/city/town getting help and the thoughts running through their head and plans, as in