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December 24, 2006

What It Really Takes To Stop Genocide

Filed under: Africa, Defense/Military, Human Rights, North America — Stephen Wertheim @ 6:22 am

Observing the failure of an overextended US military to intervene in Darfur, Michael O’Hanlon offers a creative proposal in the latest New Republic: form a rapid-deployment US military division dedicated to stopping genocide in the future. A 20,000-strong force should do the job, he argues. The problem is, it can’t. O’Hanlon—like many in the stop-genocide movement—neglects what military intervention really entails.

Once the force halts genocide, what happens next? If the mayhem in Iraq should teach us anything, it is that invaders need to be ready to rebuild. Countries rarely come equipped with shadow governments that are organized, legitimate, and desirable for instant installation—especially countries torn by genocidal violence and hatred. That means US troops will be in charge.

They cannot withdraw prematurely, plunging the country right back into genocide. They could hope the Europeans or United Nations takes over, but they cannot count on that, not when post-genocide stability seems likely to be uncertain. So if they really want to help, they better be willing and able to dig in and rule. A rapid-deployment division is designed to get in and get out. It will probably be capable of long-term occupation in neither manpower, training, nor doctrine; the US military as a whole lacks troops, military police, and civil personnel equipped for nation-building. That is to say nothing of domestic political pressures for withdrawal once casualties mount.

It would seem impossible to intervene to stop genocide only to do more harm than good. But unless America is willing and able to stay for years, exactly that might happen. The result would be tragedy for all involved.

“What happens next” seems like an obvious question to ask. Of course it ought to factor into decisions to intervene. Yet O’Hanlon ignores it. So do many fellow human-rights interventionists (notably Samantha Power in her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Problem from Hell). So did the Bush administration before the Iraq war. Why?

1. Perhaps intervention seems so imperative as to justify deception about the burdens it imposes. Such a view, however, is not only morally questionable but possibly self-defeating if it prevents recognition of actions needed to make intervention work.

2. Maybe the question is not asked because war evokes combat. Postwar stabilization is an afterthought in major wars, appropriately; the day after Pearl Harbor, FDR did not need a Japanese reconstruction plan to know to declare war. But such wars are fought to eliminate existential security threats. Humanitarian intervention, by contrast, is intended for the good of the local population. Those who would do good need to find out whether they can deliver.

3. The United States officially is not an empire and never acts like one (unofficially, not unless it feels like it, the Philippines and Haiti remind). Other Western nations are equally if not more anti-imperial. As I have argued, nations are unlikely to envision occupations they by nature “don’t do.”

4. Then there is good old idealism that can obscure reality. I have yet to hear an advocate of stopping genocide refer to “invasion.” Sometimes the term is “genocide prevention,” which would actually mean marching in before genocide started. Most often, however, it is “intervention.” Intervention is not invasion. It is clinical and cooperative. It’s what you do when you get your friends together to tell her he’s not the guy to date.

Intervention is war. “We should never be in a position where we are hesitant to stop a genocide because our troops are otherwise occupied,” O’Hanlon writes. I would say the opposite. We should always hesitate to stop a genocide, even if troops are available. We should hesitate in order to make sure we would do good. We should hesitate in order to imagine the possible and probable consequences. We should hesitate in order to plan realistically and farsightedly. If we will not do good, we must not go.

Advocates of stopping genocide like to ask why, despite post-Holocaust avowals of “never again,” genocide has been allowed to occur again and again. If they want to know the answer, they have to get real about what stopping genocide requires.

December 22, 2006

One Step Forward, Two Goode Steps Back

Filed under: National Politics, Religion — Omar Abdelsamad @ 5:39 pm

The recent midterm elections were not simply significant because of the shift of power from Republicans to Democrats, but also because this past November brought the election of America’s first Muslim Congressman. Keith Ellison, Democrat from Minnesota, made history while reminding the country of the fact that there are five million Muslims living in the United States. While Ellison has received death threats and other expressions of discontent, overall opinion has been positive. It did not take long, however, for a congressman to attempt to profit from his coworker’s landmark by playing on the phobias of his constituency. In a letter to his voters, Representative Goode did his best to portray Ellison’s use of the Koran, as opposed to the Bible, in a private swearing-in ceremony as a threat to America’s values.

It’s difficult to believe protectionists who are so racist, so intolerant, and so afraid of foreigners can be elected to the US Congress. But, then again, Louisiana reelected its thoroughly dishonest and corrupt Representative William Jefferson, the subject of federal investigation for, among other things, having $90,000 hidden in his freezer. Perhaps Goode happened to be the lesser of two evils.

But it is important to note that however far the election of one of its representatives can take the Muslim community, phobia-inducing congressmen can reverse any good done with regard to American opinion. This is especially true when analysts on television news support this intolerance. Terry Jeffery on CNN’s Situation Room said “I do believe it is a serious problem,” going on to explain that Muslims need to assimilate more into American society to create one nation. In essence, the hard-line conservative view, as represented my Mr. Jeffery, seems to be: freedom of religion is fine, as long as the religion is Christianity.

Goode’s comments are part of a greater concern of increased protectionism and intolerance in the United States. While the private swearing-in of a representative should be of no concern to other congressmen, attempting to garner votes by denouncing it is reprehensible. Democrats were right when they distanced themselves from Goode and his comments. Perhaps the voters will take notice.

If the voters do revolt, Goode always has a job in Louisiana.

December 19, 2006

Why We Should Care About American Empire

Filed under: General, North America, Terrorism, Theory — Stephen Wertheim @ 10:55 pm

Is America an empire? In the midst of much academic debate, political scientist Alexander J. Motyl asks a practical question: what does it matter?

“Imagine,” he writes, “that policy analysts and scholars stopped applying the label to the United States. Would it make any difference? I think not. The challenges facing the country—war in Iraq, nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea, rising authoritarianism in Russia, growing military power in China, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, terrorism, avian flu, climate change, and so forth—would be exactly the same, as would US policy options…Life would go on, and no one—except for scholars of empire—would notice the difference.”

Motyl is undeniably right that challenges and policy options would be exactly the same. What he misses is that policymakers might never think of them or take them seriously. Here are two recent examples from Motyl’s own list.

If policymakers thought of America as an empire, they might have thought it prudent to plan for postwar occupation of Iraq. “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building,” George W. Bush declared in the 2000 presidential debates. Evidently he believed his rhetoric. When deciding to invade Iraq, the Bush administration found little need to draw up long-term plans to rule and reconstruct the country. Nor did Democrats in Congress press the point. Nor, for that matter, is the US military equipped in doctrine or manpower to conduct large-scale nation-building. Why prepare for what America by nature “doesn’t do?”

If policymakers thought of America as an empire, they might have been quicker to grasp Islamist terrorism as a major threat before 9/11. Policymakers were focused on state actors. And rightly, if America is solely a nation-state capable of being threatened solely by nation-states. By contrast, stateless tribal fighters are the age-old enemies of empire. They sacked Rome until Rome fell. They raided China from the north, conquering the realm several times despite the Great Wall built to keep them out. Pirates harassed Britain at sea. A clear lesson of empire is to beware the barbarian on the frontier. But if there is no empire, there is no frontier and no barbarian to beware. The US government devoted so little resources to tracking terrorism that almost no officials knew Osama bin Laden was a terrorist leader until 1996, even though bin Laden became al Qaeda’s leader in 1988, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.

Objectively, long-term occupation was a policy option and bin Laden was an enemy. The problem was subjective: they were not perceived as such.

Realist theory imagines an objective world. It assumes international relations consists of perfectly rational actors. Their interests are self-evident facts, and policy options obvious. These assumptions are necessary to explain the operation of the balance of power—probably the first thing any policymaker or analyst needs to know about international relations. But the balance of power is a structural phenomenon and no more. It’s foolish to think realism should explain everything. International relations is conducted by people, who are not perfectly rational, who conceive of interests differently and who must filter policy judgments through some ideology without which the world would appear as a bombardment of random events.

Yes, it matters whether America is an empire. And it matters whether policymakers think so, in the most practical ways.

December 18, 2006

Person[s] of the Year

Filed under: General — Omar Abdelsamad @ 12:01 pm

TIME Magazine again chose to avoid actually choosing a Person of the Year by giving the distinction to as broad a group of people as possible, “You.” Although TIME’s importance to US culture has dwindled, its Person of the Year still draws plenty of media coverage the world over. Yet, TIME seems to have lost its way, as of late. Perhaps it was when it chose to use the same cover for the death of Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi as it did for the death of Hitler. Little explanation needs to be given for why a man who led small-scale anarchy in an occupied state is far different from one who caused a World War.

The real problem with TIME’s Person of the Year is not necessarily that it is not a person–although a lively argument on semantics could be had with its editors–but more importantly that it is not anyone of consequence. Although the Web 2.0 movement is quite revolutionary, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Myspace don’t cause wars, pioneer shaky dipolomacy, or create nuclear imbalance in Asia. There is quite an extensive list of influential persons the world over that could have been better used.

If TIME wanted to continue its trend of ambiguous generalities, the issue could have been used to shed light on an underappreciated topic, not a common knowledge phenomenon. A better choice would have been “The Forgotten.” The people of this year have been the innocent Lebanese caught up in the Israel-Lebanon War, the Palestinian civilians cut off from medical supplies, money, or freedom of travel, and the people of Sri Lanka beseiged by the government’s war against Tamil rebels. More importantly, it would have been another opportunity to mention the people of Sudan. Calling for action against the country’s horrible genocide can never be overdone.

Media in TIME’s position should be presenting issues that matter; issues that change regimes; issues that shed light on those who rarely have a light shone upon them.

December 11, 2006

Don’t Lose Hope in Iraq

Filed under: Defense/Military, Middle East — Omar Abdelsamad @ 2:11 pm

From www.economist.com.When evaluating strategies for correcting troubles in Iraq, it seems that even the most non-partisan of groups suggest solutions that are more successful at vote garnering than fulfilling some more important long-term goal. Far be it from any man to deride the work of the great James Baker, but at best, the report of the Iraq Study Group seems to pander to “Iraq hysteria” instead of appreciating the possibility for positive long-term effects in the country and region. If the United States were to entertain this week’s Economist suggestion to not set a cut-and-run date, the region could feel long-term positive effects from renewed US interest.

The United States does not want to win this war. If it did, it would double or triple troop levels, make concessions to dissatisfied Middle East countries, take a hard-line with corrupt Iraqi leadership, and effect a reinvasion and revitalization of massive scale. Instead, President Bush finds troop levels negatively correlated with his approval rating–as one goes up, the other goes down–forcing the country into war-time purgatory. Troop levels and commitment to the war are lacking, and unless these are improved, leaving the country may be the correct choice.

But for such an embattled, unpopular, and desperate president, President Bush has a unique opportunity to effect enormous change in the country. The United States has already gone so far in this war, that it might as well finish the job. Although Congress can control troop pay, supplies, and benefits, troop levels can be boosted at the president’s discretion, giving him the chance to do as he chooses in the country. Stabilizing Iraq while bringing in Iran, Syria, and moderate Middle Eastern countries would boost US popularity in the region as well as its influence in later diplomacy.

President Bush should reject the Iraq Study Group Report, as many have already done. Such a low approval rating can’t really get much worse, but placing Iraq on the right track can do much for a legacy.