The Humanitarian-Bureaucratic Complex: Save the Children.

The disturbing film images of children suffering and dying from an alleged chemical weapon attack carried out by the Assad regime in Syria has led to the humanitarian-bureaucratic complex gearing up for action and calling for something to be done. Save the Children's charity's chief executive, Justin Forsyth, stated 

'The appalling attacks on children in Syria are a crime. Those who are responsible should be held to account by the international community. Already far too many children have been killed, maimed and traumatised by this conflict. The world must act to protect the children of Syria'.

The chemical weapons attacks are no less a crime because they have been committed against children. The attack on Ghouta , east of Damascus, was also an attack on all civilians, including children, who were killed. It seems that Save the Children is an arm of political power when it calls on 'the international community'

It seems odd that people  were surprised by the exhorbitant salaries that the heads of 'charities' such as Forsyth were awarded. Only 31% of Save the Children's funds come from private donations. It is in reality part of the what Theodore Dalrymple calls the 'charitable-bureaucratic complex'.

Many of the top echeleons of save the Children have worked closely with politicians. Like New Labour politicians with whom they are close, they are New Labour careerists and ones ready to launch wars. Justin Forsyth, the chief director, was Gordon Brown’s communications and campaigns director.

Fergus Drake, the Director of Global Programmes, 'worked for the Office of Tony Blair, in Rwanda advising President Kagame and his Cabinet in achieving their Millennium Development Goals' Gordon Brown is now working on those goals in his new supposedly post political career.

The fact is that organisations such as Save the Children are in the business of acting as an auxiliary arm of the British government's humanitarian intervention in nations such as Afghanistan. They work along with governments to serve political ends and work with corporate partners including Chevron.

Save the Children is a business corporation that has crossed the line from being an 'independent charity' into one that in Afghanistan clearly bolsters a geopolitical agenda of intervention through military power, where children are saved by benificence of the one hand and drone bombed on the other.