World Food Programme

The World Food Programme (WFP) is presented as a vital food-delivery organization whose operations in Afghanistan were interrupted by the 2001 airstrikes. In Chomsky’s account, the contrast between its truck convoys and the highly publicized U.S. food airdrops makes the Programme a measure of the gap between humanitarian claims and the practical effects of military action.

Aid Operations Before the Airstrikes

In early October, the WFP moved hundreds of tonnes of food toward Afghanistan. Even before the airstrikes, however, the deliveries could meet no more than 15 percent of the country’s needs. Those needs had grown after the September 11 attacks, when international teams withdrew and deliveries stopped for three weeks. The Programme’s effort therefore began against a sharply constrained humanitarian situation, not with enough food to stabilize supply.

Suspension and the Risk of Famine

After the airstrikes began on October 7, the WFP announced that it had to suspend all its convoys and food distributions organized by local teams. The interruption affected the principal delivery method: aid organizations considered food transported by truck far preferable to airdrops and said trucks could reach nearly all parts of the country. A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesperson reported that 7.5 million Afghans lacked food and faced famine; humanitarian representatives also warned that a mass departure of 1.5 million refugees was becoming increasingly likely.

Convoys and Airdrops

The WFP’s position, as reported by Chomsky, was that airdrops were a last resort, whereas overland deliveries could move larger quantities of food. Aid organizations criticized the U.S. drops as publicity rather than an effective means of reaching people in urgent need, particularly because airstrikes had interrupted the WFP’s truck routes. Programme officials said drops should take place during the day, with advance warning and volunteers on the ground to gather and distribute the food. The distinction was operational as well as symbolic: a visible relief measure did not replace the delivery network that the bombing had stopped.

Consequences and Significance

Chomsky argues that the combination of airstrikes and airdrops had, at least in the immediate period, significantly reduced food reaching an already hungry population. A newspaper report he cites said truck deliveries had fallen by about half, while severe winter weather was expected to reduce food distribution further. Against that prospect, the WFP’s suspended convoys stand at the center of his account of how military action could worsen a humanitarian crisis even as food aid was publicly displayed. The Programme is not described as causing the crisis; its disrupted operations serve as evidence of the consequences of the air campaign for civilian food access.