Defending The Weak and Fighting Injustice; When It's Convenient

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it."- John F. Kennedy

         We've heard presidents all throughout history espouse this idea that America and the world has a moral obligation to fight the evils that haunt our civilizations, from genocide, to oppression, to famine, to corruption. George H.W. Bush is quoted as saying "Yes, the United States bears a major share of leadership in this effort. Among the nations of the world, only the United States of America has both the moral standing and the means to back it up. We're the only nation on this Earth that could assemble the forces of peace. This is the burden of leadership and the strength that has made America the beacon of freedom in a searching world". Bill Clinton echoes the same sentiment- 'We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs". Now, George W. Bush- "America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman". Anybody who has any reading comprehension skills can tell you, all of these quotes have a common theme. It's the idea that America, has the moral obligation to help defend the weak against tyranny, fight oppression abroad, battle injustice, and further enhance freedom around the world, not only for the sake of humanity, but for our own future. It sounds pretty idealistic and if somebody had read only what the presidents listed here said and what others in leadership positions in America have said about our duty to uphold this kind of moral righteousness and ideal of leadership, they would probably say these American leaders are some pretty noble guys. I just want to dissect this a little bit for my own research, and answer a few questions. When is it necessary to intervene to protect these ideals? When have we and when haven't we? What were the circumstances that surrounded these interventions and the variables that either prevented us or enabled us to deploy such complicated military missions to subdue our enemies and lift our moral fiber?

         As most of the world knows at this point, America has recently intervened in Libya, a largely Arabic nation that happens to hold the largest oil reserves in the continent of Africa. It's leader is Muammar Gaddafi, a vicious tyrant who was implicated and convicted in the Pan Am airline flight 103 bombing in 1988, killing 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. His oppressive rule and terrorist past leads me to believe he is a ruler well worth taking out. His people live under an oppressive regime with virtually no political rights, and his government is not scared of using brutal force to subdue any political unrest. After the political upheaval and protests began, a rebel militia group formed to defend the civilians against Libyan aggression and to take out Gaddafi's government. After taking several key cities and town, opposition forces attempted to gain more ground and headed towards Tripoli. From there the Libyan governments began using their air force to severely weaken the opposition, setting them back and killing a number of rebel fighters and civilians. 
        With calls from the international community, various governments, human rights organizations and the rebel fighters themselves, the United Nations passed resolution 1973, which authorized member states of the UN to protect the civilians and rebel fighters from Libyan air strikes through the use of military measures. This seems to me to be one of the first times in recent years we as Americans have used our military force in a way that has actually defended freedom, fought injustice and preserved humanity. With this being said, this seems to be a 'just' war, but with all the extenuating circumstances like our involvement in two other Arab nations with which we are currently using massive military operations to further our own interests in, our domestic economy's own problems, political unrest as the growth in wealth disparity continue and protests rise up around the country, is it in our interests to intervene with all these other problems looming overhead? What makes Libya of such dire importance that America and the rest of the world have no other obligation but to intervene? Barack Obama in his speech said "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.". This was very clever. His use of metaphor, comparing Benghazi to a populated and sophisticated city like Charlotte, North Carolina, is a way to conjure up an image of such an attack to a town like that right in our backyard. He has successfully created this mental bridge in which we are to view the Libyan people and cities as citizens and cities like our own, and therefore, it is our undeniable duty to defend against such injustice and slaughter.

           What I'm going to say right now is that this is morally right and I wish our country would do this more often. Fighting on the behalf of democracy, helping delegitimize dictatorships, and promote liberty and freedom for all. Instead of justifying baseless wars on such loosely organized and gathered intelligence like America did with Iraq, we are instead doing something which actually holds some merit when it comes to our professed beliefs of defending the weak and fighting injustice. America's allegations that Saddam had attempted to obtain enriched uranium from Africa and the minute probability of weapons of mass destruction hidden in Saddam's factories was just an excuse to intervene in a sovereign nation for an array of special interests. 

A mass field of skulls in Cambodia

            But what about all the other world's problems America and everybody else so obliviously ignore? Darfur? Cambodia? The Armenian Massacre? These are just a few examples of governments that have not only endorsed, but carried out and encouraged the mass extermination of a certain race of people and virtually nothing was done or even talked about by the international community. What about oppressive regimes like Burma? Iran? Even Saudi Arabia, which has some of the worst human rights records against women and criminals, with beheading in the town square still a legitimate death penalty. Nobody is calling for the intervention of these countries. Nobody is crying for regime change and military operations to overthrow these terribly oppressive governments.

          It seems to me to be all circumstantial. Our interests lie here, so we go there. Libya has large oil reserves and also happens to be experiencing a humanitarian tragedy, so lets kill two birds with one stone. Darfur has a desert and a bunch of impoverished tribal societies, and a large scale genocide has wiped out thousands. The sectarian strife has become so potent that Darfur is spiraling into a failed state, but our interests do not lie there, for there is nothing to gain. Vietnam had the Vietcong, a communist revolutionary group bent on overthrowing the government and imposing communism. Our government had very strong interests to protect there; to contain the spread of communism around the world. When vicious ruler Pol Pot in Cambodia began slaughtering his own people which ended up resulting in 2 million left dead, the only country that intervened was Vietnam, which left a stalemate and the eventual occupation of Cambodia by Vietnamese forces. Nobody in the international community blinked an eye.

United Nation Peacekeeping Operation in Congo

         So what does this mean? Does this make us amoral and hypocrites? Are we wrong and are we just greedy, resource grabbing, imperialistic opportunists? Or are we merely choosing our battles wisely as to what will not benefit only us, but the world. In my opinion, I believe it's both. While I do believe there are those that are in this game to purely reap the benefits and rewards out of intervening and occupying a country, whether it's political power or economic power, there is also the underlying message that we do want to preserve freedom around the world and that for the sake of humanity have an innate and unyielding duty to fight these injustices. The only problem I have is America shouldn't tout freedom and democracy for all, then only fight the fights that are convenient to the shareholders and political forces. Don't veil greed and imperialism with the flag. Instead, we should be more pragmatic, objective, and real with our rhetoric. Our president is one who does not tout his patriotism, but rather his pragmatism and his diplomatic character. "It’s true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right.". Finally, some honesty.

Signing Out- John Thomas