An interesting lead Talk of the Town editorial in this
week's New Yorker by George
Packer on idealism: He says "The [Bush] Administration has given
idealism a bad name, and it will now take years to rescue Vaclev Havel
from Paul Wolfowitz. American power has received a bloody come-uppance,
but there's no happiness in that for Iraqis. They can't afford to give
up on idealism, because they can't leave on June 30th."
As an incorrigible idealist, I found this quite alarming. What happens
when we lose, or give up, our idealism? Packer says:
With the liberation of Eastern
Europe, the tragedies of Bosnia and Rwanda, and the qualified success
of Kosovo, a new conviction began to stir in certain quarters of the
liberal democracies -- that regimes don't have an absolute right to
slaughter their own citizens, that the democratic powers should
intervene when it's feasible to stop the worst atrocities and create
the kind of security in which democracy has a chance to grow. This was
always a fragile minority view, and it has become a significant piece
of the collateral damage inflicted by the [Bush] Administration's
blunders in Iraq.
So what is our responsibility to the people of other nations, when
things get bad?
In my view, this idealism has never been limited to a 'fragile
minority', and I think Packer is to some extent muddling several things
together. I believe deeply, as I've written on these pages, that we
have an absolute responsibility to every person, and to every living
creature on this planet. We are an inexorable part of a whole organism,
and when part of the organism is diseased or damaged we feel,
intuitively, naturally, the imperative to act, to heal it. When so many
turn the channel, or a deaf ear, to suffering, it is not so much that
they feel no responsibility as that they feel helpless to discharge it
-- they see the situation as hopeless, and if there's nothing that can
be done, what is the point in subjecting oneself to the grim images and
stories about it? Pragmatists tend to use a healthcare analogy rather
than an organic analogy to rationalize their sense of global commitment
and responsibility: the physician's oath to "at least, do no harm".
How do I reconcile my sense of responsibility with my vehement belief
that the bombing and occupation of Iraq was a grievous error? I believe
there are three ways in which one can discharge responsibility to a
suffering people outside one's own country: Through humanitarian aid, peacemaking aid, and military aid. On humanitarian and
peacemaking aid, I believe we must do all that we can do to reduce
suffering of all creatures on this planet. Cynics say that feeding
starving people merely allows them to produce more babies, but that
suggests that they are both colossally stupid and the cause of their
own misfortune, which is fallacious, and besides I don't believe this
cop-out is supported by the facts. Peacemaking is a very difficult
task, as anyone trying to separate combatants in a schoolyard or bar
can attest, and requires consensus-building skills and tact that many
politicians lack. And sometimes both humanitarian and peacemaking aid
aren't enough. But we have to try. The waffling and delays in helping
the people in Sudan, after the lessons of Rwanda a decade ago, are
inexcusable. I would go so far as to say our knowing failure to even
try seriously to help these people, who are facing both famine and
genocide, is a crime against humanity, one that should expose the
world's leaders to criminal charges.
On military aid to people suffering from an oppressive government I am
more ambivalent. Too often the effect of military aid has been to kill
the patient we're trying to heal. If the oppression is producing
humanitarian disaster or civil unrest I think we should offer
humanitarian and peacemaking aid. I certainly think blockades and
sanctions are foolish, even criminal, because they punish the victims
not the perpetrators. But what if the oppressive government is the
cause of the humanitarian disaster or civil unrest, and resists offers
of humanitarian or negotiation aid, or intercepts the humanitarian aid
for selfish use? This is the current situation in both Sudan and North
Korea. In both cases I believe we have a responsibility to keep trying,
never give up, do everything we can to get the oppressive
administrations to accept our aid in dealing with the humanitarian
crisis and trying to broker a just and lasting peace. The cost of
giving up trying is just too high.
What if that doesn't work? At what point does the suffering become so
morally intolerable that military intervention is justified? Is it
different if the oppressive government is in power in the aggrieved
country or invading the aggrieved country from outside? We allowed Mao
to starve eighty million of his countrymen to death and did nothing.
But we invaded, and largely destroyed, two Arab nations whose people
were dying as much from the complications of our imposed sanctions on
their government as from the actions of their government itself. If
military invasion and occupation are too great an intervention, how
about providing weapons and advice to the opposition? How about simply
assassinating the oppressive government's leader(s) and hoping that the
next regime will be more reasonable?
At this stage we're into an 'ends justify the means' argument, and it's
a slippery slope from there. While every situation must be judged on
its own merits, I have seen no evidence that offensive military
intervention of any kind 'works' as a solution to civil conflict or
localized war i.e. leaves the people markedly better off as a result of
it. I think even Bush's strategists know this, which is why they were
so desperate to justify the invasion of Iraq as a defensive act (the
fabled WMD) rather than a humanitarian one. In the absence of such
evidence, my tentative opinion is that military intervention in such
situations is just not supportable. I tend to think the two world wars
were a different matter, but then where and how do you draw the line?
Looking at the total suffering inflicted, the only thing that clearly
differentiates Hitler from Stalin or Mao is that the latter two despots
committed most of their atrocities in their 'own' country. Does that
difference alone justify the dramatic difference in our military
response to these three madmen?
If we can help rebuild infrastructure, deal with famine, or negotiate
peace, we should, almost to the point of obsession, but if we're not
welcome to do so, I fear we should in most cases wait until we are. If
the people would welcome us but the government would not, it's up to
the people to change the government. That may be a strangely pragmatic
conclusion for an idealist, but then the world we live in is far from
ideal.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
