Arthur Chrenkoff has a great post about Médecins sans Frontières - more commonly known in the USA as Doctors Without Borders (DWB). DWB has many, many patrons who continually criticize American Special Forces for interfering in it's areas and it's operations.
I happen to have been personally involved in one such issue with Médecins sans Frontières.
Back in 1991, in Northern Iraq, DWB had a Kurdish refugee camp where they (DWB) estimated 600 children would die of Cholera. When the US Army arrived, the Special Forces Soldiers (medics and doctors, mostly) were treated by DWB with immense scorn...that is until the American Group Commander, upon hearing of the plight of the Kurdish children, decided that NO children would die as a result of Cholera. The American SF Soldiers worked with DWB after that and earned their grudging respect.
The SF Soldiers devised a way to have the Kurdish mothers help with the medical care of their children. The DWB doctors did not want to show the Kurdish women how to care for the sick because they had been threatened by the fathers. In Kurdish culture, the husband/father must teach the wife/mother how to do everything. No one else is allowed to teach her - if you tried, you would probably get shot or stabbed. And the DWB doctors would rather let the children die than address the problem of having the mothers learn to prevent and stop Cholera.
After a few serious problems with the teaching method, a "process" and chain of medical responsibility was established to care for the sick. With DWB and the SF working together, the disease was stopped and only two children were lost. Not six hundred. DWB thought it was a huge success. They became our friends for the time being.
The American Commander went absolutely ballistic over losing two children to Cholera.
Now, you can take your pick on who you want to help you. You can decide what the motivations were for the Americans to help. You can delve further into the reasons behind DWB's mistrust of American SF Soldiers.
But there is no denying the result of 598 children living to see another day...
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