Somali Crisis Article Response

Being an optimistic person, I want to believe that al Qaeda gave out the food as a purely philanthropic gesture; however, I cannot bring myself to think that there is no motive driving them to help these people in despair. One reason they may get involved is to save the starving Muslims. Al Qaeda, being a strict religious group, would want to help save Muslim lives. They are dedicated to their religion and will go to any measures to protect it. If they gave food handouts to starving Somalis, they could save Muslim lives, expand the religion, and, as the article stated, recruit children. If a child was starving for weeks on end and learned that his food came from al Qaeda, he would view the group in an extremely positive light. He then might go join al Qaeda and, not knowing anything else, he may become a suicide bomber or attacker. This is absolutely sick. Al Qaeda is taking advantage of people being tortured by hunger just to get more members. No person or group that genuinely cares about the well being of others would do this. Sure, they may be helping save lives, which is good; however, with motives such as these, it is disgusting. People should want to help others merely to help them, not for personal benefit. Also, al Qaeda getting involved is, in a way, a slap in the face to Western NGOs. Al Qaeda was able to send help; al Qaeda was able to get Somalis food. Western NGOs, however, can’t. This is al Qaeda’s territory and they want to make that quite clear.