[E-rundbrief] Info 349 - W. Bello: Doctrine "Humanitarian Intervention"
Matthias Reichl
mareichl at ping.at
Mo Jan 30 11:12:39 CET 2006
E-Rundbrief - Info 349: Walden Bello (Focus on Global South/ Thailand):
Humanitarian Intervention: Evolution of a Dangerous Doctrine.
Bad Ischl, 30.1.2006
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HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION: EVOLUTION OF A DANGEROUS DOCTRINE
By Walden Bello*
(Revised version of a speech delivered at the Conference on Globalization,
War, and Intervention sponsored by the International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War, German Chapter, Frankfurt, Germany, January
14-15, 2006.)
As war clouds gather over Iran, the topic we are focused on in this
conference is very timely: great power military intervention in the affairs
of sovereign states for "humanitarian reasons."
"Humanitarian intervention," defined simply, is military action taken to
prevent or terminate violations of human rights, that is directed at and
carried out without the consent of a sovereign government. While the main
rationale for the invasion of Iraq by the United States was its alleged
possession of weapons of mass destruction, an important supporting
rationale was regime change for humanitarian reasons. When it became clear
that there were in fact no WMD, the Bush administration retroactively
justified its intervention on humanitarian grounds: getting rid of a
repressive dictatorship and imposing democratic rule.
IRAQ: DEAD END OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Iraq shows the dangers of the humanitarian rationale. It can so easily be
used to justify any violation of national sovereignty to promote the
interests of an external force. Yes, under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi
people were subjected to systematic repression, with many people executed
and jailed. Yet, most of us, at least most of us in the global South,
recoil at Washington's use of the humanitarian logic to invade Iraq. Most
of us would say that, even as we condemn any regime's violations of human
rights, systematic violation of those rights does not constitute grounds
for the violation of national sovereignty through invasion or
destabilization. Getting rid of a repressive regime or a dictator is the
responsibility of the citizens of a country. In this regard, let me point
out that not even during the darkest days of the Marcos dictatorship did
the anti-fascist movement in the Philippines think of asking the United
States to do the job for us.
Now, for some people in the North, who belong to states that dominate the
rest of the world, national sovereignty may seem quaint. For those of us
in the South, however, the defense of this principle is a matter of life
and death, a necessary condition for the realization of our collective
destiny as a nation-state in a world where being a member of an independent
nation-state is the primordial condition for stable access to human rights,
political rights, and economic rights. Without a sovereign state as a
framework, our access to and enjoyment of those rights will be fragile.
So long as nation-states remain the prime political collectivities of human
beings, so long as we live in a Westphalian world-and let me say emphasize
that we are not in a post-Westphalian world-our defense of national
sovereignty must be aggressive. And absolute, for imperialism is such that
if you yield in one case, it uses that as a precedent for other, future cases.
Are we not exaggerating our case? No. The Iraq tragedy is a result only
of the American Right's drive to place US power far beyond the reach of any
potential rival or coalition of rivals. The way to Iraq was paved by the
actions of liberal democrats, the very same Clintonites that currently
criticize the Bush administration for its having plunged the US into a war
without end. In other words, the road to Iraq would have been more
difficult without the humanitarian intervention in Yugoslavia in the
1990s. As one conservative writer so aptly put it, George W. Bush, in
invading Iraq, simply took the "doctrine of 'democratic engagement' of the
first Bush administration, and that of 'democratic enlargement' of the
Clinton administration, one step further. It might be called 'democratic
transformation.'" (1)
KOSOVO, REALPOLITIK, AND INTERVENTION
Kosovo has been called, along with the US troop landing to put Jean
Bertrand Aristide in power in Haiti in 1994, a classic humanitarian
intervention. But rather than being emulated, the Kosovo military
intervention is s omething we cannot afford to repeat. Let us look at the
reasons why.
First of all, it contributed mightily to the erosion of the credibility of
the United Nations, when the US, knowing it would not get approval for
intervention from the Security Council, used the North Atlantic Treaty Orga
nization (NATO) as the legal cover for the war. NATO, in turn, was a
fig-leaf for a war 95 per cent of which was carried out by US forces.
Second, the humanitarian rationale was undoubtedly the purpose of some of
its advocates, but the operation eventually mainly advanced Washington's
geo-political designs. The lasting result of the Kosovo air war was not a
stable and secure network of Balkan states but NATO expansion. That is not
surprising, since eventually that was what the air war was mainly
about. Milosevic's moves in both the earlier Bosnian crisis and in Kosovo,
ac cording to Andrew Bacevich, "called into question the relevance of NATO
and, by extension, US claims to leadership in Europe."(2) If it did not
successfully manage Slobodan Milosevic, the US could not have supported its
drive for NATO expansion. For the Clinton administration, such expansion
would fill the security vacuum in Eastern Europe and institutionalize US
leadership in post-Soviet Europe.
In Washington's view, according to one analyst,
"NATO enlargement would provide an institutional framework to lock in
domestic transitions under way in Eastern and Central Europe. The prospect
of alliance membership would itself be an "incentive" for these countries t
o pursue domestic reforms. Subsequent integration into the alliance was
predicted to lock in those institutional reforms. Membership would entail
a wide array of organizational adaptations, such as standardization of mi
litary procedures, steps toward interoperability with NATO forces, and
joint planning and training. By enmeshing new members in the wider
alliance institutions and participation in its operations, NATO would
reduce their ability to revert to the old ways and reinforce the
liberalization of transitional governments. As one NATO official remarked:
"We're enmeshing them in the NATO culture, both politically and militarily,
so they begin to think like us -- and over time -- act like us."(3)
A major aspect of the politics of NATO expansion was securing the Western
European states continuing military dependence on the United States, so
that the European governments' failure to follow through on an independent
European initiative in the Balkans was quickly taken advantage of by
Washington via the NATO air war against Serbia to prove the geopolitical
point that European security was not possible without the American guarantee.
Third, the air war soon triggered what it was ostensibly meant to end: an
increase in human rights violations and violations of international
treaties. The bombing provoked the Serbs in Kosovo to accelerate their
murder and displacement of Albanian Kosovars, while doing "considerable
indirect damage" to the people of Serbia through the targeting of
electrical grids, bridges, and water facilities--acts that violated Article
14 of the 1977 Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Convention, which prohibits
attacks on "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian
population."(4)
Finally, Kosovo, as noted earlier, provided a strong precedent for future
violations of the principle of national sovereignty. The cavalier way in
which the Clinton administration justified setting aside national soverei
gnty by reference to allegedly "overriding" humanitarian concerns became
part of the moral and legal armament that would be deployed by people of a
different party, the Republicans, in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the right-
wing thinker Philip Bobbitt saw it, the Clinton administration's actions in
Kosovo and Haiti served as "precedents" that "strengthen the emerging rule
that regimes that repudiate the popular basis of sovereignty, by overt
urning democratic institutions, by denying even the most basic human rights
and practicing mass terror against their own people, by preparing and
launching unprovoked assaults against their neighbors -- jeopardize the rig
hts of sovereignty, including the inherent right to seek whatever weapons a
regime may choose."(5)
FROM KOSOVO TO AFGHANISTAN
When the invasion of Afghanistan took place in 2001, there was relatively
little opposition in the North to the US move to oust the Taliban
government. Washington took advantage of sympathy for the US generated by
the Se ptember 11 events and the image of the Taliban government sheltering
Al Qaeda to eliminate negotiations with the Taliban as an option and throw
international law out of the window by invading Afghanistan, with little
prot est from European countries. But to strengthen its position, the Bush
administration not only used the rationale of bringing the perpetrators of
September 11 to justice. It also painted its move into Afghanistan as a ne
cessary act of humanitarian intervention to depose the repressive Taliban
government--one that was justified by the precedents of Haiti and
Kosovo. Invoking the humanitarian rationale, states belonging to the North
Atlan tic Treaty Organization like Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands
also eventually sent armed contingents. And in this connection, it must be
pointed out that many NGOs-including many liberal organizations-supported
the U S intervention for the same reason
Like the Kosovo air campaign, Afghanistan soon showed the pitfalls of
humanitarian intervention.
First, great power logic soon took over. Hunting for Bin Laden yielded to
the imperative of establishing and consolidating a US military presence in
Southwest Asia that would allow strategic control of both the oil-rich
Middle East and energy-rich Central Asia. Moreover, Afghanistan was seized
on by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as what one analyst described as "a
laboratory to prove his theory about the ability of small numbers of ground
troops, coupled with air power, to win decisive battles." (6) The
Afghanistan invasion's main function, it turned out, was to demonstrate
that the Powell Doctrine's dictum about the need for a massive commitment
of troops to an intervention was obsolete-a view that skeptics had to be
persuaded to accept before they could be convinced to take on what emerged
as the Bush administration's strategic objective: the invasion of Iraq.
Second, the campaign soon ended up doing what its promoters said they would
eliminate: the terrorizing of the civilian population. US bombing could
not, in many cases, distinguish military from civilian targets-not surpr
ising since the Taliban enjoyed significant popular support in many parts
of the country. The result was a high level of civilian casualties; one
estimate, by Marc Herrold, placed the figure of civilian deaths at between
3,125 and 3,620, from October 7, 2001 to July 31, 2002. (7)
Third, the campaign ended up creating a political and humanitarian
situation that was, in many respects, worse than that under the Taliban.
One of the fundamental functions of a government is to provide a minimum of
order and security. The Taliban, for all their retrograde practices in
other areas, were able to give Afghanistan its first secure political reg
ime in over 30 years. In contrast, the regime of foreign occupation that
succeeded them failed this test miserably.
According to a report of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, "security has actually deteriorated since the beginning of the
reconstruction in December 2001, particularly over the summer and fall of
2003."( 8) So bad is basic physical security for ordinary people that one
third of the country has been declared off limits to United Nations staff
and most NGOs have pulled their people from most parts of the country. The
Washi ngton-installed government of Hamid Karzai does not exercise much
authority outside Kabul and one or two other cities, prompting UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan to state that "without functional state institutions to
serv e the basic needs of the population throughout the country, the
authority and legitimacy of the new government will be short-lived." (9)
Worse, Afghanistan has become a narco-state. The Taliban were able to
significantly reduce poppy production. Since they were ousted in 2001,
poppy production has shot up, producing a record crop in 2004 and earning
Afgh anistan the dubious honor of supplying close to 80 per cent of the
world's heroin supply. Some 170,000 Afghans now use opium and heroin,
30,000 of them being women.(10)
Government officials are involved in 70 per cent of the narcotics traffic,
with about a quarter of the 249 recently elected members of Parliament
linked to the drug trade. One estimate in a study conducted for the indepe
ndent Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit concludes that at least 17
newly elected MPs are drug traffickers themselves, 24 others are connected
to criminal gangs, 40 are commanders of armed groups, and 19 face seriou s
allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses. (11) For these people,
who dominate Afghanistan's political life, "insecurity," according to Kofi
Annan, is a "business" and extortion is a "way of life."(12)
Can one really honestly claim that this life is an improvement over Taliban
rule? Many Afghans would say no, saying that at least the Taliban were able
to provide one thing: basic physical security. Now, this argument ma y not
cut any ice with upper and middle class people in the North that live in
safe suburbs or gated communities. But talk to poor people anywhere, and
they put great value on ridding their shantytown communities of crim inals
and drug dealers.
Oh yes, what about the impact of NGO humanitarianism? Well, on the heels
of the US troops came a veritable army of NGOs of different kinds, all
seeking to help the Afghan people with hundreds of well-funded
projects. In deed, like the Southeast Asian tsunami disaster and that
wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the US, raising money for "helping the
Afghans" soon became a profitable operation that made humanitarian-related
NGO jobs among the most desirable in local economy. How positive these
projects have been is another story, since like the military campaign,
there were many badly thought out and badly executed projects whose main
effect was to stoke res entment in the local population.
THE CASE AGAINST HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Popular among certain elite circles in the US and Europe in the 1990s,
humanitarian intervention has earned a bad name, especially in the
South. Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq underline the bitter lessons of
humanitarian intervention. To repeat:
1. Humanitarian intervention seldom remains the dominant rationale for
long, with geopolitics quickly becoming the driving force of a military
operation. 2. Humanitarian intervention ends up doing what its proponents
say they are out to prevent: instigating increased human rights violations
and violations of human rights and related international accords. 3.
Humanitarian intervention sets a very dangerous precedent for future
violations of the principle of national sovereignty. Kosovo opened up the
road to Afghanistan, and both led to the tragedy of Iraq.
All this does not mean that states and international civil society should
not make use of all the moral and diplomatic means at their disposal to
isolate repressive regimes such as the Taliban. Indeed, when one can be
certain that their impact will be felt mainly by the regime and not the
people, economic sanctions are valid and useful in certain
circumstances. Sanctions had a positive role in apartheid South Africa but
they had a very negative on ordinary people in Iraq, but that is a topic
for another discussi on.
But we must always draw the line when it comes to the use of force by one
state on another. Forcible regime change is not only wrong. It has
far-reaching destabilizing consequences for the whole international state
syst em. Once it has managed to get the green light from significant
others in one case, you can be sure that the hegemon will resort to it
again and again, driven by the imperative of increasing its power and
accumulated adv antages within the international system. You begin with a
Haiti or a Kosovo, and you end up with an Iraq.
In international relations, there is a distinction made between "status quo
powers" and "revisionist powers." Status quo powers seek to maintain the
structure and distribution of relative power within the system. Revisi
onist powers seek to change the structure and distribution of
power. Ironically, the US is today a revisionist powe -- that is, it seeks
to achieve a balance of power in its favor that is even greater than that
it enjoys today. By going alone with its earlier "humanitarian
interventions" in Kosovo and Afghanistan, many states and civil society
organizations must bear some responsibility for creating this unrestrained
hegemon.
We must forcefully delegitimize this dangerous doctrine of humanitarian
intervention to prevent its being employed again in the future against
candidates for great power intervention like Iran and Venezuela. Like its
coun terpart concept of "liberal imperialism," there is only one thing to
do with the concept of humanitarian intervention: dump it.
*Walden Bello is executive director of the Bangkok-based research and
analysis institute Focus on the Global South and professor at the
University of the Philippines at Diliman. <waldenbello at yahoo.com>
NOTES
1. Philip Bobbitt, "Better than Empire"
<http://www.gavinsblog.com/mt/archives/00895.html>
2. Andrew Bacevich, American Empire: the Reality and Consequences of US
Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 163.
3. G. John Ikenberry, "Mu.ltilateralism and US Grand Strategy," in Stewart
Patrick and Shepard Foreman, eds, Multilateralism and US Foreign Policy
(Boulder: Lynne Reiner, 2002), pp. 134-135.
4. Michael Mandelbaum, "A Perfcct Failure," Foreign Affairs, Sept-Oct 1999,
p. 6.
5. Bobbitt, ibid.
6. Richard Clarke, quoted in Seymour Hersh, "The Other War," New Yorker,
May 12, 2004 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040412fa_fact.
7. Herrold, cited in Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (London: Verso, 2003),
p. 130
8. Amy Frumin, Morgan Courtenay, and Rebecca Linder, The Road Ahead: Issues
for Consideration at the Berlin Donor Conference for Afghanistan, March
31-April 1, 2004) Washington: CSIS, 2004), p. 22.
9. Secretary General, United Nations, The Situation in Afghanistan and its
Implications for International Peace and Security, A58/742/S2004/230, p. 4.
10. "Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, "A Harvest of Treachery," Newsweek, p. 30.
11. Ibid.
12. Quoted in Secretary General, United Nations, The Situation in
Afghanistan..., p. 16.
*************************************************
from: "Focus on Trade #115", 28 Jan 2006
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330 THAILAND
Tel: 662 218 7363/7364/7365/7383
Fax: 662 255 9976
E-mail: N.Bullard at focusweb.org
Web Page http://www.focusweb.org
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