With us or Against us? NGO Neutrality on the Line

Navigating an uncertain course among military and for-profit actors in Afghanistan and Iraq, and confronted by intensifying security threats, NGOs may be forgiven for reacting with alarm to what they see as a gathering storm against non-governmental humanitarian action. From the White House, the State Department, USAID, and conservative think-tanks with close ties to the administration, the message is that neutral humanitarianism has no place within the framework of the ‘global war on terror'. In the past, the mainstream US NGOs have often dismissed with irritation the European fixation with humanitarian principles, regarding such navel-gazing as of little practical value. In the face of the new US foreign policy, the neutrality question has suddenly become less academic, and US NGOs are facing some very difficult choices.