Tragic Aid

Years ago, during the first Gulf War, I worked for a news producer who went on assignment in the Kurdish north of Iraq. He told me how the food supplies were dropped by parachute from cargo planes on the refugees camps. A number of desperate people were killed by the pallets as the landed. Truly a sad situation.

That's why this story creeped me out.

U.S. helicopter drops load of aid supplies into Indonesian mall
A load of relief supplies slung under a U.S. military helicopter fell and slammed into a car parked at a shopping mall in the Indonesian city of Medan early Wednesday, local officials said.

Provincial government spokesman Eddy Sofyan said there were no injuries but that one car parked at the mall was damaged.

Sofyan said the North Sumatra provincial government wants U.S. forces to stop transporting heavy loads of aid in nets hanging below helicopters.

The Navy was investigating and cooperating with local officials, said Navy spokesman Lt. Billy Ray Davis. It was not immediately clear if the Navy had changed the way it delivered aid.(More)

I hope history doesn't repeat itself here.