A Social Money-Making Machine

By Ursula B.G. Kilner, Salisbury

A couple of months ago, I wrote on the Red Cross and my husband's experience with that organization and my own experiences and observations [My Experience with the Red Cross, December 7]. The Red Cross has justified my distress with their way of "business."

After September 11, with so many persons killed by the Taliban and allied terrorists (we really do not know how many organizations are involved even now), we in our country—which seems to be the only country that comes to the aid of countries in distress—do not feel kindly toward the terrorists; in fact they are perhaps fortunate they haven't been shot out of hand. So the rather horrid bunch of captured terrorists are now harbored in Guantanamo, our naval base in Cuba. I happen to know quite a lot about Guantanamo, as one of my cousins, while teaching in the American school system for children of service personnel overseas, was stationed there for a full tour (three years) and later returned for another three-year tour, which was interrupted by the processing of Cubans at the base.

Guantanamo is considered a pleasant assignment by most service people and is certainly wasted on unkempt, filthy, hate-filled terrorists. No matter, there they are—probably being cleaned up for the first time in their lives. They are apparently complaining and screaming Islamic epithets at their guards, and objecting to being in chains and handcuffs and other restraints. Did they expect a picnic when they were captured after what their allied terrorists did in New York City, in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon? Apparently they have heard what softies we are for a "sad story," and now the Red Cross is showing them how right they are.

The Red Cross, after throwing away blood and donated money—money given for the victims of the terrorist attacks, not for the Red Cross to give to some of their pet, good-publicity projects—now has sent their do-gooders to Guantanamo to check and see if the Taliban terrorist prisoners are being treated "humanely." Why should they be treated "humanely"? What business is it of the Red Cross to intervene in what amounts to U.S. foreign policy? The more things the Red Cross does like this, the more the organization is cutting its own throat. What began as a decent, humanitarian organization has become a social money-making machine which spends about half of its donations on overhead.