Geneva -- The record rise in expenditure of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for its humanitarian interventions around the world in 2008 clearly reflects the increasing vulnerability among millions of civilians affected by conflict and disaster. The impressive – if not shocking – array of facts and figures outlined in its just released 2008 Annual Report also underscores the exceptional food, medical and shelter relief provided by the Geneva-based organization for affected populations throughout such crisis zones, but also – an ICRC specialty – visiting detainees in 83 different countries. What the report does not convey, however, is that many of these operations are little more than bandaid substitutes for political failure by the international community. The collapse of mediation efforts in Sri Lanka and Somalia, but also the mixing of agendas by the United States, Europe and other players leading to increased insecurity in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan are among the most blatant examples of such failure today.

As  I have witnessed only too often over the past three decades in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, many governments and insurgent forces simply do not care about their own people, or those they are seeking to suppress. They exhibit an extraordinary sense of self-righteousness and arrogance that suggests they have right to do whatever they want, regardless what the world thinks.

Often, too, armed conflict is egged on, inadvertently or not, by outside interests which fail to understand the situations on the ground or which have their own ambitions to pursue, regardless of impact. The sad conclusion is that many of these conflicts could have been prevented, or at least tempered, had their been more long-term, political commitment from the very beginning rather than leaving it up to the humanitarians to pretend that something is being done.

And, as we all know, civilians are the ones worst hit in times of conflict. The surging exodus of nearly 2.4 million Pakistanis in recent weeks – a figure rapidly approaching the three million Afghans who fled the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1980 – is the latest such example.

One reason for such explosive  humanitarian predicaments is that  civilians tend to find themselves caught up in the firing line between the belligerents, so they have no option but to flee. But civilians are also   deliberately targeted. Or warring parties, whether the Israelis in Gaza, the Americans and Taliban in Afghanistan, or the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers on the island of Ceylon, have failed to distinguish between civilians, combatants and military objectives.

For the ICRC, "much of this suffering could have been avoided if conflict parties had improved their compliance with international humanitarian law." As an born optimist, I would like to believe this. But how does one oblige belligerents to comply, when they perceive it as against their interests? The saving grace of the Israelis is that many Israelis were themselves shocked by the behaviour of their own government and military, and are now, finally, realizing that you cannot simply go on repressing a people for your own ends.

And so it is up to organizations such as the ICRC to step in. As the 2008 Report shows, ICRC spending hit an all-time high in 2008, rising to over one billion Swiss francs. Nearly half of this (47%) went to field operations in Africa with another 20% to the Middle East. This increase in expenditure was largely due to what the ICRC described as the “deteriorating humanitarian situation in many countries, such as Sri Lanka, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan.”

At the same time, the report noted, this reflects improved ICRC access to crisis-affected populations. According to Jakob Kellenberger, the Swiss head of the ICRC, this clearly indicates that his organization’s “neutral and independent humanitarian action does bring significant benefits for victims of armed conflicts,” particularly in countries or regions where others cannot step in, such as the Sahel, Georgia, Iraq and Somalia.

The ICRC regularly operates in extremely hazardous conflict situations, the majority of which are human-instigated. And thank God the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations are there to do this work. But they are not really helping to resolve the situations at hand. And nor should they be expected to do so. That's not their job. Instead, they serve as our conscience for not doing enough politically.

So the question remains, what can we do to help prevent such situations? How can we assure that the ICRC’s of this world no longer have to kick in with humanitarian succour in order to let people survive?

I am returning shortly to Afghanistan to finalise another book on Afghanistan, a country that I first began reporting in October, 1979, three months prior to the Soviet invasion. I went on to cover the situation  throughout the 1980s, 90s and 2000.

A publisher recently asked me: what will my proposed book offer that is new? My response is that this precisely problem. It is not a matter of seeking what is new, but rather to understand what happened in the past in order to respond to the present.

Much of what is happening today in Afghanistan is because of what we - the Americans, Russians, Pakistanis, Indians. Chinese, Iranian - did 20, 30, or even more years ago. When the United States and the international community intervened militarily in October, 2001 and then proceeded to embark on a now 25 billion dollar recovery initiative, many of us failed to make the effort to understand the realities on the ground.

The result is that we are now involved in a disastrous and rapidly expanding conflict situation that has spilled over into Pakistan, nourished by arrogance, ignorance, and stupidity. And much of it in the name of differing political agendas ranging from “war on terrorism” to counter-narcotics strategies that have only succeeded in creating further resent and war.

And as elsewhere in the world, the civilians suffer. And so, yet another – or perhaps the same - reason why ICRC continues to work in Afghanistan, just as it did during the 1980s.

Coward in Kabul is a personal post by Edward Girardet, a Geneva-based writer and journalist focusing on humanitarna, conflict and media issues. He is currently writing a book, his third, called: "Killing the Cranes - Beyond Afghanistan's Unwinnable Wars" based on over three decades of reporting and travelling in Afghanistan and the region.