Humanitarian aid workers are indeed deployed as the charitable equivalent of diplomatic “honest brokers.” Their broader social function is to connect those who look at catastrophe from the comfortable distance of the West and those everywhere else who must actually live amid its aftermath. The trucks full of food, tents, and medical supplies are evidence that the blessed of the world are “doing something.” In sending aid, Western governments and their citizens can feel a bit less embarrassed about their wealth and good fortune and assure themselves that they are indeed, still and forever, the “good guys.”