Comments:Red Cross appeals for US$33 million in food relief for Zimbabwe

Unintended consequences
In the usual course of events, oppressive governments would have problems with unrest when policy is so perverted that it effectively starves the citizens. Aid of this kind has the effect of placating the oppressed, stabilizing tyrannical regimes and subsidizing their inefficient and backward policies by freeing them from the consequences. Maybe with the relief from the burden of supplying any food whatsoever, the Zimbabwean regime can move more political cronies onto the land occupied by its few remaining productive private farming operations and lay waste all the agricultural production of what should by rights be the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa, rather than just most of it. The most endearing aspect of this possibility is that it would have no ultimate effect on the food supply and the same number of people would starve anyway. 209.30.92.75 (talk) 16:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)