Option of Intervention

-- By WendyFrancois - 17 Apr 2010

It is generally acceptable to say that, anti-interventionist ideals have fallen out of sync with modern notions of justice, thus implying that humanitarian concerns are influencing modern state policy to a greater extent. A humanitarian act can be described as one in which one intervenes to protect those who cannot defend their own rights. Realists would adamantly respond that such undertakings are dangerous and should be avoided. Indeed with every undertaking, there is an associated cost, but intervention has been deemed appropriate where the humanitarian costs of failing to intervene are too high. Humanitarian crises counter democratic principles and can become a threat to international security. These costs are far too great to ignore. With the Helsinki Final Act the Western states introduced the concept of personal security to define human rights and recognize situations and acts that threaten it as requiring action, in effect establishing a right of intervention.

Today’s democratic states realize that to choose nonintervention in humanitarian crises is to go against the unwritten rule of the protection of human rights. Democracy has become the poster board for human rights, liberty and freedom, and equal opportunities. Allowing humanitarian crises and gross human suffering to endure, goes against all of these precepts.

Within weeks of the earthquake that affected parts of Haiti, the U.S. had 20,000 troops on the ground in Haiti. Actions of the U.S. were swift and forceful. The U.S. entered Haiti, with a main focus that was not to help facilitate medical practitioners and supplies, or to deliver ship loads of food and water, but to maintain a minimum level of decency and order by establishing a strong, fear-inducing presence. Many doctors and medical professionals complained about being obstructed by the U.S. security forces whose planes of equipment took precedence over the planes of doctors that were circling the airports in the Dominican Republic hoping to be allowed to land lengthy delays and countless diversions to Miami. The U.S. entered Haiti at its own expense and at a time when many Haitians could not do for themselves. After all, humanitarian crises can indirectly imperil security and set the stage for civil or interstate war due to the migration of the citizens. Democracy cannot be promoted when a humanitarian crises is lurking in your back yard. The rights to food, water, and life were compromised. Intervention was necessary. But, this form of intervention was dominated by security concerns.

To me, the U.S.’s response was eerily similar to what took place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The government was heavily criticized, and currently police officers are being prosecuted, for their obsessions with maintaining security, at all costs, in the face of extreme lack and dire need. In both instances, the U.S. presence had the appearance of containment and policing rather than relief and aid.

Intervention is complicated by self-interest and as Gayatri Spivak explains, the classic humanitarian scenario of a “dispenser of human rights” aiding the “subaltern recipient of human rights bounty.” The self-interest of states continues to be a problem in legitimizing intervention as the international community is wary of hegemonic dominance (especially by the U.S.). Complications would likely exist even if intervention for humanitarian aid is established as an international policy that is blind to nationality, culture, economic risks, or economic interest because of the neo-colonial (in the sense of a value-regulating mechanism) dynamic of humanitarianism. The intense focus on security in the face of a severe health concerns creates an uncomfortable tension between the ideals of humanitarianism and what that translates to in reality.

There is a victim-savior complex, but the savior is not there to help the victim get what he needs, but rather to protect the victim from what it believes the victim will devolve into should its presence be absent. Thus, focus is not that Haitians will starve to death, but that they will become unruly, harm Americans that are there to help, take to the seas and head for the U.S. and/or kill. But, American military presence alone cannot guarantee the real security that the U.S. should invest in—an economically stable and prosperous Haiti. If the U.S. is going to value security, mainly that of its shores, above all other needs that the earthquake has created or exacerbated, I think it would be best that it not intervene at all. The commitment the U.S. made seems to be to the U.S. and Caribbean region’s security, not to the helpless and needy earthquake victims. This commitment does not need to be made by placing 20,000 troops in Haiti.

When American troops landed in Haiti, their primary goal was setting up barricades and security. As the first ones on the ground, they commandeered the airport and what was left of the roads, limiting other states’ ability and the needed access to provide aid. The U.S. is not obligated to manage or coordinate relief efforts, but it cannot shut out others that are willing to assist in that capacity. The U.S. wanted to prevent chaos in the streets, but caused chaos in the airports and relief sites, the places where chaos caused great harm. Security and social organization are definitely priorities, but I hope that in the upcoming months, underlying fears of chaotic outbreaks will not cloud the pressing needs of health and sustenance. Otherwise, the U.S. may find itself trapped in a cycle in which it plants the seeds of violence, instability, and underdevelopment by blocking access to basic material resources, only to later provide aid, for example in the form of loans, to alleviate the distress that it caused, creating an economy of victims.

There is something destructive about macro security objectives that fail to equally value the basic concerns of the individuals whose cooperation is needed to maintain security. The situation in Haiti has yet to fully play out, but I see Iraq and realize that the presence of American troops does not guarantee security, and does not guarantee recovery.

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