The Logic of "Humanitarian Intervention"

The Logic of "Humanitarian Intervention"

Sun, 14 May 2006 10:22:22 -0700

Summary: We in the West tend to believe that if a white developed country is sending troops to the third world, it must be a good thing. But until we can envision a situation where third-world intervention against the U.S. or other great powers is realistic and possible, the “Responsibility to Protect” exists simply as a tool for “us” in the West to continue subjugating and running the affairs of other countries, particularly Sudan. Those who would have us intervene in Sudan on the basis of combating unrest under the “Responsibility to Protect” would have us face the ridiculous situation, as in Kosovo, of “needing” to violate a country’s sovereignty as a result of the West having previously violated it.

[Posted By ShiftShapers]
By Brendan Stone
Republished from The Center for Research on Globalization
Neocolonial tool serving geopolitical interests
On his recent speaking tour across Canada, former Haitian minister of defense Patrick Elie, an elected representative in the first government of Jean Bertrand Aristide, was asked by a member of the World Federalists NGO to support Canada’s new “Responsibility to Protect” (RtP) doctrine. The idea behind the “RtP” is that other countries should intervene in the politics of a sovereign country if they perceive instability or a human rights crisis.

Patrick, who spoke at McMaster University early in March, acknowledged the need to protect people whose human rights come under attack. But since this “RtP” doctrine is coming largely from the developed Western nations, many of which are currently violating human rights at this very moment, Elie asked, “Who is protecting the rights of the people of Iraq, killed by the bombs of those who would grant themselves the “responsibility to protect?” For example, the lead author of the Lancet’s Iraqi casualty estimate has recently updated the death toll caused by the U.S./U.K. war to 300,000.

Patrick, in asking this question, pointed out the dissonance between countries like Canada and the United States who are, on the one hand, waging illegal wars across the world that have killed tens of thousands, while on the other hand painting themselves as angelic figures who can be trusted to shepherd and steward the “benighted” peoples in Africa, South America, and elsewhere.

When you think of the term “humanitarian intervention” or “responsibility to protect,” do you envision soldiers from Ethiopia or India coming to the U.S. to arrest George Bush for war crimes, for the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, and for neglecting his own population in health care, infant mortality, and New Orleans? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous. You think of soldiers from the white, former and current colonial powers like the U.S. and Britain, going to the dark continent and fixing the problems of the natives, whom we implicitly and imperialistically assume are incapable of self-government.

And that is where the current focus of the RtP doctrine lies. Patrick asked, “what about the colonial powers in Africa, namely France and Belgium, whose interference in Rwanda created the problem there in the first place?” As author Tony Black has detailed, the invasion of Rwanda by a U.S.-backed Tutsi army from Uganda, which we call the “Rwandan Genocide,” did not happen because “we” in the West were not there. It happened because we were there.[1] To use the conflict in Rwanda, precipitated by thirty years of Western involvement following the “post-colonial” period, to justify intervention into countries like the Sudan is disingenuous at best.

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This is an important point. In situations like Rwanda, the object is not to prevent genocide. The object is to blame the west. That's what's really important.

 

So Point, you are not going to debate the issues raised or just say they shouldn’t be raised?

It doesn’t matter if the policies of western governments may have been wrong only that it is wrong of someone to point out that they might have been wrong.

What kind of argument is that?

Think about it?

You’re basically saying that mistakes should be talked about or leant from.

But that is not how you work, you are always trying to point of the supposed mistakes of the left wing.

So what are your saying by words and actions.

That if you support something it should be blameless but if you don’t support something it is full of blame?

Come on man you’re an intelligent man you must see that such a stance is just silly.

If you have something of substance to say, say it, if not, don’t try and fill the void with this kind of bullshit comment.

 

preventing genocide would be all well and good if that were ever actualy on the agenda.

where was preventing genocide when malosavich was shelling sariavo in then newly indipendent yugoslavia. when bush sr had a higher priority to play footsie with sadam husane over kewhite because some of his rich oil buddies lived there abusing their phillapino maids and who knows how many abducted children and wanted to keep it that way?

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