The Myth of “Humanitarian” Intervention
By Ivan Eland*
What does a bellicose Bush administration do when even unearthing nuclear
centrifuges from Iraqi gardens cannot rescue it from exaggerations and
deceptions about the imminent threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
(remember Dick Cheney’s hysterical pre-war claim that “we believe he [Saddam
Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”) and when both the CIA
and United Nations can’t find any link between Saddam Hussein and the September
11 attacks? It’s time to fall back to the fort and drag out the ever-popular
“humanitarian” justification for war. After all, the administration tells us,
Hussein was a brutal dictator and Iraq is better off without him. Such
idealistic justifications for war have been used over the centuries and have
been particularly successful in the United States. In modern history, remember
Woodrow Wilson, with the “war to end all wars,” and
Bill Clinton, who used the “humanitarian” fa�ade to become the
most interventionist president in the last twenty years (of course, the jury’s
still out on whether George W. Bush, despite the sheer magnitude of his wars,
will surpass Clinton in the number of interventions). But what is so wrong with
deposing petty despots and bringing democracy and free markets to the world at
the point of the bayonet?
First, we may liberate others, but enslave
ourselves. The founders of the United States, reacting to European monarchs who
took their countries to war at the expense--in blood and taxes--of their people,
created a constitutional restraints designed to curb this practice. That system
is now in shambles. Congress, the presumed arm of the people, no longer declares
wars. The imperial executive can now take us to war without any congressional
approval--and often does. Also, with every conflict, America’s unique civil
liberties at home erode, especially after the war’s blowback--read
terrorism--happens on our own soil.
Second, the humanitarian veneer can
be used to justify wars that are really undertaken for reasons of realpolitik.
For example, President Clinton justified interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo on
humanitarian grounds, but probably conducted those interventions to shore up the
NATO alliance. After the Cold War ended, to justify the continued American
military presence and hegemony in Europe, NATO needed a new offensive mission.
The Clinton administration knew that if the United States intervened in
Rwanda--experiencing a much more severe humanitarian crisis than was Bosnia--it
would have been precluded from intervening in the Balkans, which was perceived
to be more strategic than Africa. Also, Clinton threatened to invade Haiti, not
for the humanitarian reasons stated, but to stem the flow of poor refugees from
there to U.S. shores. Those examples show interventions are rarely undertaken
for purely humanitarian reasons
Third, the U.S. record in nation-building
in the developing world is abysmal. Lebanon, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo,
Afghanistan and Iraq all have been or are becoming disasters. Either the
countries are no better off (and sometimes worse off) than before the U.S.
intervention, or violence and instability will likely resume when the United
States tries to withdraw from the quagmire. The often-cited post-World War II
models of Japan and Germany have little relevance to conflict-ridden places in
the developing world. Japan and Germany were first-world nations (with
tremendous reservoirs of human capital) who were ready to quit fighting after
being pummeled into the dust. They had a strong sense of national identity and
were not fighting amongst themselves. Germany even had some prior experience
with democracy. Most of those Japanese and German advantages are not shared by
fractious developing nations.
As for Iraq, it is even debatable whether the
average Iraqi is better off now than under the oppressive Hussein. In Hussein's
Iraq, if you kept out of politics and minded your own business, the regime
probably would have left you alone. Now, the average Iraqi is faced with rampant
looting, interruptions of electric power, high unemployment (partly due to the
much lower oil output than before the war), and the possibility of being shot by
a looter or getting caught in the cross-fire between U.S. forces and Iraqi
guerilla fighters. And what if the guerilla war intensifies or is prolonged (as
now appears possible) or a full-blown civil war ensues?
Even if we accept
the dubious claim that the average Iraqi is better off without Hussein, the
United States may have “liberated” people in one country only to find that
“democratization” has caused neighboring nations to increase repression. A
democratic and free Iraq, especially if supported by the U.S., might well
unnerve other repressive regimes in the region. For example, if Iraq is ever
allowed to have democracy, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia will likely
preemptively tighten the screws on their populations to prevent the contagion of
Iraqi freedom from spreading to their countries.
But perhaps the biggest
reason for avoiding wars unnecessary for self-defense is the unintended
consequences. The best example of the severe unplanned effects of a war: to
needle the Soviet Union, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan thought they would aid
the Mujahideen rebellion in an unimportant backwater called Afghanistan. They
ended up creating a group that morphed into one the few genuine threats to the
U.S. homeland in the history of the republic--al Qaeda. Who knows what
unintended consequences will arise from the U.S. invasion of Iraq or other
future "humanitarian" interventions.
*Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif., and author of the book, Putting "Defense" Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in the Post-Cold War World. For further articles and studies, see the War on Terrorism.
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030627Eland.html
