Should the US try to free the kidnapped Nigerian girls using military means?

[pampango]

34. Boko Haram- a suitable case for UN-approved intervention

• A classic case of 'responsibility to protect'
• Principle designed to prevent atrocities undermined by distrust of UK and others using intervention as means for regime change

The whole question of how to intervene, when, and with what, was the subject this week of a high-level roundtable in London run by the British United Nations Association (UNA-UK) on the "responsibility to protect". This principle or pledge - R2P, as it is known - was agreed by heads of state and government at the 2005 UN world summit. It held out the promise of a world free from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

The principle was employed by the UN security council in response to crises in Darfur, Libya, Ivory Coast, Yemen, South Sudan, and Mali. It raises the whole question of national sovereignty and of (often pre-emptive) "liberal intervention".

On the face of it, the R2P principle should be more acceptable now given that most violent conflicts are intra-state rather than between states.
"Non-state" actors - terrorists, warlords, drug traffickers - are the common enemy of states, east and west - Russia, China, and the US - which otherwise have competing interests.

Boko Haram attacks might seem to be a clear candidate for R2P intervention approved by the UN. The UN should be seen as a legitimate arbiter of intervention, one leading participant at the UNA-UK roundtable suggested.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2014/may/08/nigeria-boko-haram-uk-un