The Old Humanitarianism
One of the stranger political developments of the past ten years has been the evolution of a faction on the left from the belief that military force should sometimes be employed to serve humanitarian ends as an extension of liberals' traditional humanitarian concern to the belief that humanitarian missions should be undertaken only when humanitarian goals can be achieved through the use of military force.
For example, you hear a lot about Darfur and the need to do more to save lives there. You almost never hear anyone get indignant about the looming starvation for tens of thousands of Zambians that could be prevented without controversial Security Council votes, without killing or threatening to kill anyone, and, indeed, without doing anything other than appropriating a lousy $8.5 million to buy some food for refugees. Obviously, it's not an either/or choice here, but the amount of money involved is so tiny that the least little bit of hubub domestically could get this problem resolved.
I am a bit curious as to what 'faction' you attribute that position. I don't know that I agree necessarily. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that when human beings are slaugtering other human beings, that issue might get more attention.
Of course, you are right. We could do a little more. We could always do a little more. But its not like we can pretend that the U.S. doesn't shovel aid to non-violent areas either.
February 23, 2006 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
The amount of money is, indeed, so tiny and the solution so simple that it's just not an important government issue. George Soros could solve this out of petty cash, or any medium sized religious charity. When it comes to debates about government intervention, the use of military force is going to predominate, because that's what it does that no one else can do.
February 23, 2006 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is one hell of a strawman.
Do you really believe there are liberals out there just sitting around, ignoring food shortages and disease outbreaks and instead just biding their time until a situation arises where humanitarian goals can be achieved only through the use of military force?
Yep, that is "the left" for you - if we can't use the military to fight starvation, well then starvation just isn't that important.
What I'd love to see is thousands of US soldiers parachuting into Zambia and physically shoving food down people's throats, 'cause if the military ain't involved, then it ain't worth doing.
February 23, 2006 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
You can't delegitimise the arab/muslim world by talking about Zambia.
February 23, 2006 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Sachs' costing of the UN development goals is a perfect example of how, with minimal political will, much human misery could be alleviated.
This is also an extension of the damage caused by the Iraq war. Disingenuously focusing the debate of 'humanitarian intervention' on a case that arguably did not meet any of internationally accepted conditions for the use of large scale military force, shifted attention from the many humanitarian disasters desperately needing attention.
www.taylorowen.com
February 23, 2006 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like Michael Walzer's "National Liberals." But hey, I could be wrong.
February 23, 2006 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gosh, "otto" and friends, you're a tough cookie. :-)
What can we do to break the hynoptic hold that the Islam has on you?
Would this do it?
Congolese flee rape, murder onto floating islands
Don't like that continent?
Manila: Coup talk sparks crackdown
Philippines' Arroyo Declares a State of Emergency (Update2)CNN International - Feb. 24
February 23, 2006 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here'sa a classic example of that old journalistic wheeze that if you find more than one example of something, you can write about a trend. Except that in this case, Matt doesn't even bother with more than one example.
To be clear, I am not aware of any "faction" of the left, right or center that thinks we should only care about humanitarian crises that require military force. In fact, I can't recall ever hearing anyone express such a preposterous idea. Probably because no one has.
The reason Darfur gets more attention than Zambia is that the scale of the humanitarian disaster is such that it has been repeatedly described as the #1 such disaster in the world. In other words, the sad fact is that we tend not to pay too much attention to humanitarian crises unless they get so big that they are impossible to ignore, and even then we often punt (see Rwanda, Bosnia etc.).
Instead of making lame and unsupported generalizations about us (I mean - how self-absorbed can you get?), how about doing something useful, like starting a blog campaign for Zambia to raise the profile of that particular crisis?
February 24, 2006 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink