The Faceless Face of Humanitarianism

For the second year running, the International Rescue Committee has put Yemen at the top of its annual list of countries most likely to face humanitarian catastrophe. Thanks to the ongoing compassion and mercy of Her Majesty's Government's favourite fundamentalist head-choppers, it is estimated that about eighty per cent of the people will be in need of humanitarian assistance, and another five years of the same could cost £22,000 million, though not to anyone who matters. The Elder Milibeing, who heads the IRC and seems to be nearly as memorable a fund-raiser as he was a government minister, did a bit of hand-wringing about the human suffering and proclaimed, for anyone who might be in doubt, that somebody ought to do something about it. The Elder Milibeing does not appear to have specified how many more of the countries on the IRC's list have been basking in the ministrations of Britain's wealth creators and their friends; and such was the profundity on display that Britain's leading liberal newspaper never thought to wonder.