New York Times Article

After learning about the crisis in Somalia today in class I now know how dangerous this famine can be, and how much food is needed in the country. I also learned that Al Shabab is only letting particular aid into the country to help their starving citizens. Al though they claim that they are taking all types of donations most of it is not taken or only 20 percent is given out to the citizens. After reading the article about the aid brought in by Al Qaeda I was immediately suspicious as to why they would aid a country since they are not known to be a humanitarian driven group. The sketchy part about this article was the man that was helping distribute the rations given by the “Al Qaeda campaign on behalf of Martyr Bin Laden Charity relief for those affected by the drought”, was white with an American accent claiming his brothers in Al Qaeda had brought the food for them. I was also confused as to why they would be donating food to the victims when Al Shabab was sworn to Al Qaeda and is imprisoning thousands of victims. The hipocracy of the situation is uncanny and the newfound humanitarian aid is most definitely propaganda towards the terrorist group. The article mention that Al Shabab created this famine with the use of the drought and it was their own doing. I agree with that because the drought was inevitable but the fact that Al Shabab wasn’t letting people leave the country to find food and he is letting thousands of people die, most being children, is no where near the fault of the drought. The group took a natural occurrence to cover up their wrong doings in their country. Lastly I believe that the groups know what they are doing wrong in the sense that they deny that they are not violating their citizens rights, if they didn’t think they were doing any thing wrong then why wouldn’t they just admit what they are doing?