Foreign Military Intervention

[Jeremy]

Having just read a fantastic book, Bad Hair Days by Pamela Bone, a journalist who defended the war in Iraq, I think I've changed my mind on this issue fairly significantly. Pamela Bone certainly can't take all the credit - people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris have contributed a lot as well. Although Pamela concedes that had she known the consequences of the war she would have opposed it and that it was fought and sold for the wrong reasons - which I agree with, I think there was definitely a moral obligation to remove Saddam from power and that that same obligation should be applied to Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma and many other such countries around the world.

I would say that such intervention should come from the UN and certainly not the US, who have very little credibility in international conflict since WW2, perhaps the US have an opportunity now with a new leader to restore that confidence. At the moment the US stops the UN from working, and then complains that it doesn't work. This certainly needs to change.

So my position now would be that going to war in Iraq was the right decision, but for the wrong reasons and executed so poorly that it caused more problems than it solved. Ideally I'm still a pacifist but I accept that we don't live in an ideal world and the use of force is the only way solve many problems around the world. I think no leader of a country should have the right to treat their citizens with such merciless disdain and it should be the responsibility of the rest of the world (but particularly the wealthy nations) to remove such leaders from power.

[slapdash21]

wow.

[Blue_turnip]

IMO there are simply too many countries with douchebag dictators, and you shouldn't just choose one and go for it. while it would be great to get rid of them I don't think there would have been a battle strat good enough to justify causing such a conflict. Even if the plan seemed really well and good there's always that risk that you'll just completely fuck up an entire country.

Risk > reward.

[PoisonTaffy]

Not every society and culture is "democracy ready", and the prospect of freeing a country from a ruthless dictator and be greeted as saviors by the grateful masses has been blown to bits several time in this short century alone, and led to mass scale tragedies in the previous century.

The outcomes of the Iraq invasion have been more dramatic than what I remember most people anticipated before it happened, and it has thrown the Middle East into a turmoil that right now allows a rise to power of a much worse government - the Muslim fundamentalist and imperialist Iran. It wasn't the right move even more so than it was not for the right reasons, and the real outcomes of it are still unfolding.

I don't think the U.S global role should be the forceful removal of dictators, it should be to support democratic oppositions in such countries and the support and protection of liberal, democratic countries around the world. Democracy is so much stronger when achieved by the people themselves, and not forced upon by an external, unrelated party.

[King Monkey]

Democracy is so much stronger when achieved by the people themselves, and not forced upon by an external, unrelated party.

Unfortunately though, when the ruling group has most of the social, political and military power, its virtually impossible for democratic movements to even establish themselves and remain potent, let alone exact change, without someone to do the 'legwork' for them.

[Jeremy]

Good job at the idealistic left wing characterisation Roy .

As I said, the Iraq war was poorly executed and caused more problems than it solved. Indeed Pamela Bone says (and I agree) that those who opposed it should feel sadly vindicated in their opposition (sadly because it would have been much better to be wrong). But of course there are more than two options in every circumstance, and what I'm really advocating is neither what actually happened, or only non-violent action.

I would say that the first step needs to be identifying the places where action needs to be taken, but the second step needs to be figuring out what appropriate action is. Probably in the case of Iraq, the Coalition send in far too small a force, on account of a general lack of international support and being spread to thin with other conflicts around the world (especially Afghanistan). Of course the same criticism can be made of Afghanistan as well.

It's hard, maybe impossible, to think of successful military interventions, especially if you look at the long term consequences for the people in the region (perhaps the Balkans to a degree). Of course that might be too speculative - we can't really know the outcome of taking a different course than what was actually taken. Still a lack of success in the past doesn't mean it can't ever be done


We have a set of standards we expect society to meet and the conditions in places like Burma, Zimbabwe and Sudan completely fail to meet those standards. Given our massive wealth and power we really do have the ability to stop these grievous human rights abuses from happening.

It doesn't really have anything to do with democracy. We don't need to be instilling new Western Democracies in these countries (although presumably some kind of new leadership needs to be put in place). What we need to be doing is getting rid of leaders that kill 200,000+ people. In today's age that kind of governance should be considered completely unacceptable.

If the US is going to get involved, they need to do things correctly, and as I freely conceded in my initial post, they haven't so far. But at the same time somebody needs to be doing something real in these situations. It shouldn't be a question of responsibility, it should be a question of "what needs to be done?" I don't think there's a lot of evidence to support the claim that democracy is much stronger when achieved by the people rather than forced on to people by an external force. I would argue that in most cases around the world, democracy came about because of the actions of small groups of people while the majority of people had no real say in the issue. I also think you're asking people to make a massive sacrifice with far too much faith in the future. Consider the 800,000 people in Burma right now in forced labour - essentially slaves. You're saying that those 800,000 people should be sacrificed for the good of a strong future democracy that might take decades to arrive or even never come? I can't accept that.

[FlexThis]

Maybe unrelated - but definitely interesting:

In the US during the civil war we picked sides and fought each other until one side prevailed.

If only that were an option in IRAQ. Unfortunately technology has made it impossible for a people without said technology to defend or defeat their oppressors who control that technology.

I know that if terrorism were to happen in the US on a hand-to-hand level, there would be a ton of rednecks shotgun firing to defend the US. And they would do it with a smile on their faces.

There is something about Freedom - even for the ignorant who don't fully grasp it - that drives men to defend it to the death.

I feel that the US, even if wrong in their approach, fight with their hearts. Something I have not seen out of many other countries that criticize the US so often.

That same freedom can be said to invoke the hatred that terrorists have against the US. They want the freedom to do as they wish and not have the US interfere. I understand that completely, but genocide and oppression should not be tolerated.