Armed citizens around the world must be made to respect the rights of aid workers. Respecting them does not mean shooting them. I guess the people who kidnapped and killed Margaret Hassan don’t understand that.

When I read about Hassan’s capture and execution, what I felt was beyond rage. Hassan was the director of CARE International in Iraq. She spent 30 years giving humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people. A CNN article describes how patients at an Iraqi hospital took to the streets in protest against her kidnapping. The patients said she did much to rebuild their hospital.

To the insurgents, this was not important. What was important was that she was a British citizen, and Britain has troops in Iraq. So they captured her on Oct. 19, 2004, made a heart-wrenching video of her pleading for her life, then shot her in the head.

For hundreds of years, belligerent nations have tried to limit such insanity though treaties like the Geneva Convention. Provisions of the Geneva Convention say that persons taking no active part in hostilities should be treated humanely. The treaty forbids violence, hostage-taking and murder involving such people.

Explain that to the people who ambushed and killed five aid workers in Afghanistan on June 2, 2004. The workers were traveling in a vehicle clearly marked as belonging to Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). A Taliban spokesman later claimed responsibility, saying the organizations like MSF work for American interests.

Maybe MSF also has anti-Sudan intentions. One Doctors Without Borders worker, 20 year-old James Koang Mar, was killed with four Sudanese civilians in the village of Nimne on Feb. 15, 2002. They were killed by bombs dropped by Sudanese government planes.

The murderers have made the ridiculous assumption that CARE and MSF secretly advance U.S. interests, but how exactly are they doing this? By feeding hungry children and treating sick mothers? People who are sick and starving don’t care who gives them aid. As Mohandas Gandhi said, “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” I don’t understand why certain nationals in Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq want their own people to suffer.

Anyway, the idea that CARE or MSF is a U.S. front is a joke. MSF was founded by a small group of French doctors in 1971. CARE is in over 70 countries worldwide. Both organizations meet the standards for charity accountability set by the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, a respected charity watchdog group.

Because of this, I am left to conclude the people who killed these aid workers are demented monsters who don’t have any guts. People who have guts and want to attack real “American interests” would shoot at soldiers carrying M-16s and driving Abrams tanks.

Unfortunately, MSF and CARE have pulled out of Iraq because of such atrocities. MSF has also pulled out of Afghanistan.

So thousands of innocent people will suffer without aid. The United Nations must use all force necessary to defend aid workers. Otherwise not only the aid workers, but the thousands they help, may die.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff