Justification of "Humanitarian" Military Intervention

The 1994 Report introduces a new concept of human security, which equates security with people rather than territories, with development rather than arms. It examines both the national and the global concerns of human security.

The conflict in Kosovo is an example of the international community stepping in to preserve people.

I think Kosovo is not the right example. There you had a civil war with both sides committing atrocities and the NATO response was to level Serbia.

US Intervention Needed in Syria
(Matt Johnson, Opinion Essay, PoliticalFiber.com, August 31, 2012)

The Obama administration has handled the Syrian civil war with startling inconsistency and complacency. Whether it’s electoral politics or a lack of personal resolve, something has deflated the once-robust executive stance on human rights in the Middle East. In the face of indiscriminate abominations, a steadily increasing casualty count and a widening humanitarian crisis, it’s time to muster the will to intervene in Syria.

On Aug. 20, President Obama made the following statement during a White House news conference:

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

But Obama’s current “equation” is oddly divorced from the strength of his past rhetoric.

The most obvious dissonance arises between his inactive policy in Syria and his swift, forceful action in Libya. On March 28, 2011, Obama delivered a rousing speech at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He detailed the nightmare scenario that was avoided in Libya. “We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world. It was not in our national interest to let that happen. I refused to let that happen,” he said.

So, the NATO warplanes were scrambled, Gaddafi’s forces were bombed and the regime ultimately fell to the resistance. The campaign lasted seven months.

Why isn’t this option being discussed for Syria? The fighting has already created more than 200,000 refugees and piled up over 18,000 corpses. Just last Sunday, the grisly aftermath of a government-sponsored massacre was uncovered in Daraya, Syria. Local activists posted a video of blood-soaked bodies sprawled out on a basement floor. A “coordination committee” claims to have found 150 bodies crammed into the basement of a mosque; some had been stabbed, while others had bullets lodged in their heads. The borders of the city were sealed off while scores of men, women and children were systematically executed.

Of course, before these orders were carried out, Daraya was ruthlessly shelled from afar. According to local sources, the death toll for the week was over 630, almost half of which were executions.

Unfortunately, Obama will only consider intervention once chemical weapons are either mobilized or used. This strategy flirts with disaster on an offensively gruesome scale. When a regime is already slaughtering civilians without hesitation, it’s simply nonsensical to wait until only the vilest weapons are used. There’s also no guarantee that “a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around” will be detected in time. The “conscience of the world” is already squirming under a veil of guilt, and the crimes of Assad have already “reverberated across the region.” There has been much talk about “arming the opposition” and the risks entailed by doing so, but this route can be circumvented. The U.S. should lobby for an air campaign to protect defenseless cities like Daraya.

However, because of the imposing (but surmountable) difficulties involved, an international coalition similar to the one that acted in Libya should be formed. Such cooperation is of paramount importance because, according to a recent article from the U.S. Naval Institute, a mission in Syria would require “…at least 191 strike aircraft, at least six times the number of comparable aircraft in the opening phase of Odyssey Dawn, and perhaps several times more bombers and cruise missiles.”

The necessity of such drastically multiplied forces stems from Syria’s expansive integrated air defense system (IADS). Although the U.S. has more than enough fighters and bombers, the international community has already asserted its willingness to complement American action. The obvious hurdles are Russia and China, but the case must be made regardless.

Last May, I wrote an article condemning the United Nations for its colossal failures in Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. In December 2006, former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan lamented the lack of engagement in Darfur by chiding, among others, “…those whose reflex of solidarity puts them on the side of governments and not of peoples…”

In the wake of a decade of war and the air campaign in Libya, many commentators and leaders have a reflex of inaction. I had the happy task of commending the UN last year for its stalwart commitment to Libya. Hopefully, the U.S. will courageously open up the opportunity for me to do so again.

My own view is that humanitarian military intervention is only a last resort. Obviously, diplomatic actions and economic sanctions should be tried first. The norms for using humanitarian intervention have been evolving since Rwanda and Kosovo.

A Review of NATO’s War over Kosovo
Noam Chomsky
Z Magazine, April-May, 2001

...

As NATO forces entered Kosovo, tremendous efforts were undertaken to discover evidence of war crimes, a “model of speed and efficiency” to ensure that no evidence would be lost or overlooked. The efforts “build on lessons learned from past mistakes.” They reflect “a growing international focus on holding war criminals accountable.” Furthermore, analysts add, “proving the scale of the crimes is also important to NATO politically, to show why 78 days of airstrikes against Serbian forces and infrastructure were necessary.”

The logic, widely accepted, is intriguing. Uncontroversially, the vast crimes took place after the bombing began: they were not a cause but a consequence. It requires considerable audacity, therefore, to take the crimes to provide retrospective justification for the actions that contributed to inciting them.

One “lesson learned,” and quickly applied, was the need to avoid a serious inquiry into crimes in East Timor. Here there was no “model of speed and efficiency.” Few forensic experts were sent despite the pleas of the UN peacekeeping mission, and those were delayed for four months, well after the rainy season would remove essential evidence. The mission itself was delayed even after the country had been virtually destroyed and most of its population expelled. The distinction is not hard to comprehend.

In East Timor, the crimes were attributable directly to state terrorists who were supported by the West right through the final days of their atrocities. Accordingly, issues of deterrence and accountability can hardly be on the agenda. In Kosovo, in contrast, evidence of terrible crimes can be adduced to provide retrospective justification for the NATO war, on the interesting principle that has been established by the doctrinal system.


http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200005--.htm

Humanitarian military intervention refers to a nation or group of nations using military force against another nation for the sole purpose of ending human rights violations in the nation being attacked.

The classical right to sovereignty for each nation agrees with what you say, hawkeye. This is why the idea of humanitarian intervention is so controversial.

This is why the idea of humanitarian intervention is so controversial.

The Syrian people are not worth all that, especially after what they did to us in Iraq.

in this case the evaluation has been made that pissing off Putin, China and Iran all in one shot probably is not a great idea.

Syria opposition pleads for arms, intervention
(The Lebanon Daily Star, September 3, 2012)

MADRID: Syria's main opposition group pleaded Monday for weapons and urgent military intervention to defend civilians from bombardments by President Bashar Assad's army.

"We need a humanitarian intervention and we are asking for military intervention for the Syrian civilians," Syrian National Council leader Abdel Basset Sayda said after meeting Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

"I have the duty of asking for weapons that will allow us to defend against the Syrian armor and weapons that are killing civilians all the time," he told a joint news conference.

Sayda said the Syrian conflict had now killed 30,000 people and forced millions from their homes, including more than three million internal refugees and 250,000 who had fled the country. Another 100,000 had been detained.

"Every day we have dozens of martyrs and hundreds of wounded and disappeared," he said in Arabic, addressing journalists through a translator.

"We are seeking very quick action by the international community," he said.

Syria's opposition believed the European Union could persuade Russia to change its posture at the UN Security Council so as to establish safe havens for refugees, Sayda said.

Russia, an ally of the Assad regime, and the Security Council's other veto-wielding members have failed to reach agreement on a proposal to set up protected enclaves for displaced civilians, which would imply authorizing a highly controversial protective military operation.

Following criticism that the SNC was not sufficiently representative, Sayda vowed to call a national dialogue so as to forge a unified position on a post-Assad transition to democracy.

"Syria is a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country and everyone will have a part in its future. We want everything to be organized according to this principle," he said.

A spokesman for the SNC told AFP on Sunday that the group had agreed to expand its membership and would hold a vote later in September to elect its leadership.

Sayda's mandate, which was due to expire on September 9, had been extended until the leadership vote, he said.

Spain's foreign minister condemned the Assad government's onslaught on Syrian civilians.

"We will do all we can to provide humanitarian help to the Syrian people who are suffering a slaughter," Garcia-Margallo said.

"The Spanish people view the killings with horror."

But he urged Syria's pro-democracy opposition to join forces to avoid a power vacuum.

"In Syria we clearly are talking about a change of regime, Bashar cannot carry on a moment longer for humanitarian reasons," said the foreign minister.

But "the disappearance of al-Assad cannot be transformed into a power vacuum that could be used by factions," he added.

"Spain is worried about the unity of the democratic forces," the minister said. "Our desire: that the democratic forces come together, including all the minorities except for those that opt for violence," the minister said.

"We encourage you to be increasingly inclusive."

Re: oralloy (Post 5095133)
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How come it isn't?