I support humanitarian efforts. And I must admit, I was a bit taken aback by the United States’ statements of restraint. However, the more I read and thought about it, the more upsetting the matter became.

The fact is, war is war. And death is indeed death. When military action is begun, there is no way around it. Men, women, and children will die. Mothers, sons, nephews, fathers and aunts will be blown to pieces in Afghanistan just as they were in New York City, Washington D.C. and rural Pennsylvania.

On Sept. 11, firefighters, police officers and other rescue personnel risked their lives and perished to try to save others.

The United States demands that the blood runs in Afghanistan too.

There will be destroyed homes, offices, economies and lives. There will be gruesome scenes of corpses and destruction.

This is what happens when the military launch missiles and carpet bombs places where people live, and our government would rather we forget that detail.

They are attempting to sanitize actions by committing token acts of relief work. Certainly, that work should take place, but not in association with military efforts.

They tell us that the military will “do everything humanly possible” to protect civilian lives. And when we kill civilians, as reports already confirm, it is casually dismissed as an unavoidable side effect of war.

They tell us that with one hand, we will sprinkle good will and compassion with food and medicine packages, and with the other hand we will drop home-destroying and flesh-pulverizing missiles.

It is designed to legitimize the U.S.-led operations, to soften the blow of the retaliation in the world’s view. It is part of a thoroughly planned public relations campaign to disguise the wickedness of this war.

Humanitarian organizations with decades of experience of aid work in Afghanistan and around the world were some of the first to respond.

The French medical aid organization, Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), winners of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize for its medical relief work in more than 80 countries, including Afghan-istan, released a particularly biting statement – “isn’t in any way a humanitarian aid operation, but more a military propaganda operation, destined to make international opinion accept the U.S.-led military operation.” They were not alone.

The Guardian (UK) quoted Will Day, head of Care International, as saying, “Air drops make great TV but they often represent a failure to respond to a food crisis.”

Critics say we should welcome any aid given to a nation of people that, according to the World Health Organization, has an average life expectancy of 40-45 years and a place where about 12 percent of the populace has access to safe water.

This is a narrow view. Taking into consideration some of the implications, two central claims arise against combined U.S. military and humanitarian efforts.

First, the U.S. Air Force is using C-17 cargo planes to drop supplies from a high altitude. The supplies are dropped during night raids in large cardboard boxes that tear apart in mid-air, according to CNN. Then the individual rations land in over wide 3-square-mile areas.

According the BBC, “Indiscriminate drops could force desperate Afghans to venture into areas riddled with land mines, the number of which is estimated at 10 million by the United Nations.”

Barbara Stocking, director of the UK-based humanitarian organization Oxfam said, “Trucking of food is cheaper and is tried and tested. Air drops are risky, random, expensive, and likely to meet only a fraction of the need.”

Second, in the long term, the U.S. military aid drops will associate Western aid with the same campaign that is bombing. That complicates future humanitarian efforts.

A spokesman for Oxfam said, “We feel quite strongly that humanitarian assistance is best not mixed with military intervention as this does create future problems for humanitarian workers,” the BBC News reported.

Doctors Without Borders added, “Dropping a few cases of drugs and food in the middle of the night during air raids, without knowing who is going to collect them, is virtually useless – and may even be dangerous.”

The organizations insist that the United States pressure Afghanistan’s neighbors to open their borders. This will allow those relief efforts to rush supplies to refugees before the brutal winter sets in. Of course, offering aid to a suffering people is a worthy cause, but it is also imperative that the implications of such actions are carefully weighed.

Do what it takes. Ask your congressperson to reconsider the war offensive in Afghanistan and to halt the aid propaganda campaign.

Advocate an independent, multilateral humanitarian effort in Afghanistan and encourage bringing those responsible for terror to justice in international court.

Omar Tesdell is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Slater. He is online editor of the Daily.