The Flaw in Many Humanitarian Arguments for War

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/the-flaw-in-many-humanitarian-arguments-for-war/275961/




Prior to the Iraq War, the war in Libya, and any intervention we may or may not undertake in Syria, some hawks insistently argue(d) that there is a humanitarian imperative to step into the breach.

Their arguments can be powerful.

Innocent people are dying at the hands of a tyrant. We have the most powerful military on earth. If we do nothing, the slaughter will continue. And don't most of us agree that some military interventions, like the one that stopped the Holocaust, would've been justified on purely humanitarian grounds, even if stopping the death camps wasn't the rationale for WWII at the time?

There are many non-interventionist counterarguments. One is that even in situations where death is guaranteed absent intervention, it is still possible to unwittingly make a terrible situation worse.

[snot]

1. K&R'd. While I'm not sure what the answer is,

I'm pretty sure our public conversation on this subject has been overly-influenced by the wrong vested interests, and has, as a result, been tragically uncreative.

[stevenleser]

2. Good article. Since 1946, the wars we should have fought we didnt and mostly vice versa

We should have intervened in Rwanda and we should have stopped the Genocide in Guatemala, not propped up Rios Montt.