Contemporary challenges in the civil-military relationship: Complementarity or incompatibility?

has come in a context in which the US backed coalition has consistently sought to use humanitarian aid to build support for its military and political ambitions. MSF denounces the coalition’s attempts to co-opt humanitarian aid and use it to ‘win hearts and minds’. By doing so, providing aid is no longer seen as an impartial and neutral act, endangering the lives of humanitarian volunteers and jeopardizing the aid to people in need. Only recently, on May 12th 2004, MSF publicly condemned the distribution of leaflets by the coalition forces in southern Afghanistan in which the population was informed that providing information about the Taliban and al-Qaeda was necessary if they wanted the delivery of aid to continue.” (Statement by MSF, 28 July 2004)