And excerpts from follow-up Winds of Change article:
windsofchange.net
The Congo Ideology-Trap
Therein lies the essence of the ideological trap that is The Congo: the vast disconnect between what's required for success, and the belief systems of the intervenors. Here's what I see as the requirements for a successful intervention that really stops the violence and allows a functioning and decent polity to emerge. All contrast dramatically with [the 20th century transnationalist mindset]:
* Forceful, armed intervention that shoots first rather than last, at least until order is restored, TV cameras and public image abroad be damned.
[Extreme care in all use of force and refusal to fire first, even in the face of danger or extreme provocation - many U.N. blue berets come back with stories of having to watch rapes, kidnappings, murders, etc. and not intervene.]
* Heavy support via air, helicopters, armor, and artillery that gives intervenors massive fire superiority, and makes even neighbouring states hesitant to act against them.
[All neighbouring states and regional bodies/players must agree, and potentially 'provocative' equipment must be left at home.]
* Strenuous and organized efforts to kill those fomenting and organizing the violence, even if they have not directly threatened troops on the ground. Since "human shield" tactics are only to be expected in response, these either would have to be ignored or bypassed somehow.
[Threats must be proven to legal standards first, or action is immoral. No action can be taken against human shield tactics if it endangers large numbers of civilians, even if that policy has the effect of encouraging such tactics in future.]
* Non-neutrality. Actively making a judgment and taking sides against the primary perpetrators of the carnage, to the extent of crushing the Lendu and Hutus as an organized movement if necessary and reserving aid for other areas until the situation is in hand.
[Neutrality between the warring parties regardless of behaviour is an article of faith. Besides, evil doesn't really exist - there are only different and equally valid narratives.]
* Demonstrated willingness to use military assets on the ground, and more, if neighbouring states calculate that no punishment will be forthcoming for attacks on the intervention force.
[That would touch off a wider war, avoidance of which trumps all other missions.]
* Refusal to treat national borders as sacrosanct if doing so gets in the way of dealing with the problem, esp. a willingness to continue "hot pursuit" across borders and remove any sanctuaries for hostile elements.
[National sovereignty is sacrosanct.]
* Willingness to reorganized national borders if necessary in order to implement a long-term resolution.
[q.v. national sovereignty; borders are sacrosanct, especially in Africa.] The "necessary measures" above would have been completely familiar to any European colonialist of 100 or 200 years ago. As noted, every item here is also completely foreign to the U.N. mindset, and Flit is right to point that out. African states and the OAU would close ranks en masse against every single one. Such measures are, of course, equally foreign to many of the Western voices now pushing for intervention.
The Tragedy
Absent these kinds of measures, we can expect continued survival and mischief by those behind the current problems, more death, no stability, endless rounds of "peace process" that cannot realistically lead to real resolution, and an open-ended military commitment in perpetuity. That won't be forthcoming, especially if the effort is failing visibly due to other deficiencies. Which means failure is almost inevitable for intervention under the banner of the U.N. and/or the transnationalist mindset of the 20th century.
....
The Wages of Failure
The "problems from hell" of the 21st century are genocide, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. All fundamentally engage and challenge the same set of views and assumptions about independence and state sovereignty. Many aspects of that worldview are no longer appropriate to new social and technological realities, or to the threats they produce. As a civilization, we can't afford that kind of "stability." The willingness of some left-liberals to engage these Problems from Hell in a serious way and use force if necessary is a critical component of long-term civilizational health, and even failure may well be part of that re-learning process.
Without the self-examination that follows failure, the broken aspects of the 20th century's transnationalist worldview will not be seriously challenged from the left. Failure's aftermath would create precisely that challenge.
Does this mean the anti-Western left would vanish? Of course not. The murder of 3 million Cambodians by the Marxist Khmer Rouge didn't make a dent in their views, and neither will a few million more dead Congolese. Reasons will be found to blame America, and in most cases that will be the end of their examination.
Most cases, but not all. For some on the left, this would be a "Kronstadt moment" that calls their core beliefs into question. Meanwhile, the ensuing debates would dramatically pit the hard left against the liberal hawks. The left would once again be arguing for doing essentially nothing, and the liberals would be left unable to accept either the left's arguments or the prospect of a similar debacle next time. The Right would also be involved in the wider debate, but it too would be fragmented along internal fissures between neocons and classic Hamiltonian republicanism.
.... |
