Overthrowing brutal regimes is an iffy business. In effect we're "missionary working" in third world countries, only instead of using talk and religion we're using deadly force "for their own good." Having said that, I agree that there is a time and a place for THE WORLD to engage in that good work, and, if the world fails to act quickly enough, there is a time and a place for America to act unilaterally.
But such actions should only be taken based upon a coherent POLICY that withstands moral and practical scrutiny, and only as a last resort. In terms of the Iraqi invasion, there are serious questions concerning the "sudden" need to immediately invade at a time when there were no "purges" in progress and the U.N. inspectors were indisputably making progress.
A good argument could, and has primarily outside of this country, been made that the real basis for the invasion was not the interests of the Iraqi people, but rather the oil and strategic interests of the U.S.. This is understandable in light of the initial expressed views of the Bush people and their initial cavalier attitude with regard to intervention in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. but even if you credit them with at least partly humanitarian motives in invading and occupying Iraq, they still fall short in two important aspects of a good interventionist policy; it should be a last resort in view of atrocities that are occurring and it should be structured to achieve it's ends.
Saddam could have been put on a short leash with the concurrance of the civilized world if we'd approached this as an atrocity + wmd issue. I think that we'd have secured the backing of most of the U.N. nations for such a policy as long as we left other nation's access to Iraqi oil options on the table. We didn't do that and that failure calls into question what our real intentions were, and are.
The feasability test is one that makes me disagree with you on involvement in Rwanda, and probably precluded involvement in Cambodia. There are some places where you can send your young men and women and when you're finished you're left with an adopted nation that has all of the same hatreds, violence and barbarism, only now your young men and women are sharing in the dying. How, in Rwanda, can you make a difference when the only thing that prevents EACH SIDE from savaging the other is police force and Rwanda cannot, even with our help, police itself. Unfortunately for the many victims in the world, the process of civilization is a hard and lengthy one that leaves in it's wake many casualties. I don't think you can jump start a savage culture by using force unless there is some infrastructure already there that is more civilized and is capable of stepping into the vacuum you create through the use of force.
When there is no "more civilized" and effective internal infrastructure to cede power to after we've intervened, when there is no effective way to end the hatreds and animosities that underlie the killings and when it will take decades, substantial casualties and billions of dollars to "make a difference," I'm not willing to send my kids to die tilting at windmills. (Of course someone else might be willing for MY kids to make that sacrifice.)
I have several problems with what we've done and are doing in Iraq. I question the judgement of those that claimed it was a sudden emergency priority. I question the judgement of those that claimed we'd be welcomed with open arms and that the Iraqis would embrace western style democracy. The question of whether we would go is, however, already decided. The question that remains is whether or not we are tilting at windmills and spending our lives and depleting our treasury for ends that are NOT doable.
If we are intent on creating long term rights to Iraqi oil, long term rights to maintain military bases in Iraq and the creation of a western style democracy in Iraq, then I think we are fools and that we will fail. If we don't achieve those ends then we could well end up with an Iraq that is a greater long term threat to America than the one that would have eventually emerged from the clutches of the Husseins. I say that because of the frictions, deaths and hatreds that are escalating in Iraq just as they do in EVERY instance where a foreign power forcefully takes control of a society as an occupying force. I believe that the longer the occupation, the greater the friction will be.
Time will tell, but I believe the issues are more complicated than just doing "missionary" work to "save" a foreign population from savagery. |
