Don't bomb the roads

NEWSPAPERS this week have given big headlines to some small shipments of food
aid into Afghanistan: 400 tonnes to Kabul and 200 tonnes to Badakhshan. This
hardly scratches the surface. The people facing starvation in Afghanistan need
some 5000 tonnes a week—the equivalent of 125 Hercules plane “drops” a
day. In the wake of the US terror attacks, they are unlikely now to get it from
the UN World Food Programme, which has effectively abandoned plans to deliver
the million and a half tonnes of food aid needed to feed the country through the
winter. Worse, by the middle…