It's not just Iraq, it's not just war, and it's not just the American government. I've seen relief projects in Africa where First World service groups brought in used shoes or school books in an language they couldn't understand because those things provided tax write-offs and good feelings at minimal cost. The Africans were left wondering how a pile of beat-up shoes is going to feed the orphans with AIDS or provide the most basic medical care in outlying villages.

But a deeper question, aside from the obvious cultural misunderstandings and differing goals on the two sides, is are we really helping when we do help actual needs? I did a water project to provide water for school children in an African country, but eventually I started wondering: "There are lots of healthy young men here. Why don't they get some shovels and dig a well so their children don't have to walk two kilometers everyday to get water from a polluted stream?" Are we enabling indifference on their part? Maybe their culture doesn't put a big priority on taking care of physical needs. Can we change that? Should we even try?

So many times our "help" in "less fortunate" places is so much more about benefiting ourselves, and comes mixed with generous helpings of patronizing superiority and preconceived notions about the people being helped.

I don't regret the water we provided to the innocent children, but were we simply moving them from a culture of apathy to a culture of dependence? Others have gone back to similar projects a few years later, only to see the well useless and broken for lack of maintenance, and the children again toiling on the path to the stream. Is there any way an outsider can come in and actually help in the long term? Honestly, I don't know the answer. I wish I did.