Luis: Agreed. But it is not me that has put these restrictive conditions on the concept of humanitarian interventions it is international law, state practice, authortiative judgments of international courts and tribunals, important treaties and countless books and articles of scholarly importance. Norm, however, blithely ignores them all and just comes up with own defintion. Fine, but I take up those arguments on the more recent thread.

Phomsey: there is a basic law of actions and consequences. Norm wrote an article critiquing my views on humanitarian intervention. If you wish to – approvingly – summarize this as being

“…when genocides are in progress, the killers should just be allowed to get on with it… unless this particular genocide passes a basic series of tests as defined by various scholarly reports ensuring that everything will go right and there’s absolutely no chance that anyone will have to feel bad about anything except the bad guys (whoever they may be)”

that is fair enough – if you think that is a clever put-down to someone whose work involves both being in such situations and understanding the legal context of them. You would not be the first – and won´t be the last – regular at Harry´s Place to say similar.

If, on reflection, you think that might be a rather stupid and insulting thing to say, then don´t press the ´submit comment´ button. If you do decide to submit the comment then expect me to think that you are a bit of a w@nker. Similarly, telling me that I hold views, which I clearly do not, or that I come down on one or other side of political squabble involving the 57 varieties of British Trotskyism is not going to make me hold you in very high esteem.

Are you referring to me? If so, I never suggested such a thing and never would. It is precisely that which makes you ultimately a liberal/humanitarian interventionist.

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were not liberal interventions – discussing them as such only lends credence to the perpertartors.

The US and its client states invaded to bolster their own dominance in the ME with its natural resources (yes the oil), geographical importance and undeveloped (as far as western capitalists are concerned) markets.

These wars are Armed Robbery – no Armed murdering, pillaging and taking over – on a massive scale.

Forget liberal interventionism and stop supporting a corrupt regime.

This is the latest in a series of Luis Enrique “why can’t we all just get along posts”. Not, I admit, a very popular series.

I am not sure what Patrick does not get about this argument, but I find being told that if I did not support the invasion of Iraq I must be in favour of doing nothing in the face of another Rwandan genocide deeply offensive and childishly stupid.

Interesting response from Professor Norm, to whit a) he doesn’t like being called “Professor Norm” one little bit and b) if those who disagree with him were just willing to grant him roughly twenty times the amount of intellectual charity he allows others, we’d understand and enthusiastically agree with his proposals.

Of course, we’re once more dealing with the Decent refusal to deal with reality and their knee-jerk tendency towards airy magical thinking. Yet again, Professor Emeritus of Government Norman Geras is presenting the clear-cut genocide-prevented-by-successful-military-whizzbang thesis that lives in his brain, while blowing us off for pointing at the actual, in-reality horrific bloodbaths that have ensued from previous campaigns that he urged us all to support and, in fact, castigated us in severe terms for opposing.

I think the fundamental point is that we can all agree that the conceptual in-theory succesful interventions that live in Professor Emeritus of Government Norman Geras’s brain are an excellent idea that should be put into practice whenever conceptual, in-theory preventable genocides occur in Professor Emeritus of Government Norman Geras’s brain.

In reality however, we’re faced with some unfortunate truths – namely, that

a) the recent track record of military whizzbang for preventing bloodbaths is very poor indeed, bordering on catastrophic in some cases, and that

b) in light of recent events, the doctrine of liberal intervention does not look anything like a concrete and fully-functional framework providing for the workable implementation of successful genocide prevention. It looks far more like a windy, highly theoretical list of justifications for poorly-planned and badly-implimented military clusterfucks that people like Professor Emeritus of Government Norman Geras can enthusiastically advocate while severely castigating their opponents, before utterly disowning the disastrous outcome and severely castigating their opponents. Again.

As for his closing gambit, well, hats off…

The main reasons those who want to dump the doctrine have and give for dumping it may be summed up in a word: Iraq. And yet most of them don’t actually think the Iraq war was a liberal intervention. They think it was fraudulent or misjudged or wrong-headed, or all of these and possibly more. So why dump the doctrine?

IIRC, Professor Emeritus of Government Norman Geras assured us that Iraq was a liberal intervention, since it met his test of a sufficiently appalling government with a proven record of butchery. When asked Why dump the doctrine? I have to respond Because people like Professor etc. etc. will use it to support future catastrophic bloodbaths, then spend the next six years typing excupatory blog posts refusing to accept any responsibility for it while castigating the people who opposed it.

Or, if that’s too blunt – I’ll be in favour of liberal intervention when it ceases to be a phantasmagorical, windy bag of whatever the fuck the Professor Norms of the world say it means today, and starts looking more like something that will actually work in the real world.

I’ll also be willing to ditch the tones of rich sarcasm the Professor complains of, right at the second that the he stops waving the waggy finger at us all like we were naughty children who just don’t want to listen to what he’s saying rather than people who have paid close attention to his schtick and found it gravely lacking.

Or even shorter – I’ll consider Norm’s case proven when our countries-saved-to-countries-destroyed ratio rises from its current, shambolic state to something more like 1:1.

This denial is quite literally lethal, as the same people who refuse to even admit that they made such bloody errors in Iraq are currently making British policy in Afghanistan.

Who would have thought that the ‘qualities’ that make a government minister might not be the same qualities that make someone competent at running a war – or, indeed, a country?

This denial is quite literally lethal, as the same people who refuse to even admit that they made such bloody errors in Iraq are currently making British policy in Afghanistan.

Because, Conor, you are a Liberal/Humanitarian Interventionist. As are others commenting here (mixed in with the various Isolationist Douglas Hurd’s masquerading as “liberals”).

After all, in the absence of Liberal/Humanitarian Interventionism, what’s left? Nothing but a strict adherence to the doctrine of Isolationism and/or pure self-interest Real Politik.

Right?

In which case, Norm Geras’ summary: “…when genocides are in progress, the killers should just be allowed to get on with it…” – is only lacking the proviso “Unless our self-interest is threatened”

Right?

Thing is – this very post confirms that you’re a Liberal/Humanitarian Interventionist. You just place a series of tests that need passing before you’ll agree it’s a bona fide Liberal/Humanitarian Intervention.

So we should redefine Geras’ summation thus: “…when genocides are in progress, the killers should just be allowed to get on with it… unless this particular genocide passes a basic series of tests as defined by various scholarly reports ensuring that everything will go right and there’s absolutely no chance that anyone will have to feel bad about anything except the bad guys (whoever they may be)”

…..

Sorry that was more caustic than I intended when I set out on this post – but, let’s face it, it’s true. It’s the crux of this stupid and bizarre slanging match that involves so many good people with good hearts and good intentions.

The Afghan and Iraq wars were NEVER liberal/humantiarian interventions. The question was, simply, could they and should they be supported by liberal/humanitarian Interventionists on lib/hum Interventionist principles.

That is where the split happened. This is where all the bile and vitriol stems from.

,

The OSCE were in Kosovo from October – January 88/89 and there is some controversy about how they interpreted their mandate (several of my friends were on the mission). What happened at Rambouillet still also remains a bit of a mystery. However, I think the war was more a fuck-up then anything else. Blair and Clinton seem to have hoped that a few ‘surgical airstrikes’ would cause Milosovic to crumble and they did not really have a plan B for what to do next (apart from keep bombing).

I would classify Kosovo as a humanitarian intervention (as opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan which clearly were not) but one that went horribly wrong because it ended up killing far more people than it saved. I think that most people who work for the UN or humanitarian aid organisations would probably agree with that. What I found genuinely surprising when I started following the political discourse in Britain was how disconnected our view was from that of mainstream politicians, pundits, etc. who all seem to have bought the Blairite historical revisionism.

In fact, with much liberal intervention, other factors were at work, with the most cynical being that Blair favoured intervention in the Balkans in order to dictate defence in Europe and to keep Britain at the front of the European scene despite not signing up to the single-currency. For Clinton and the Americans this was strategically important because of the ‘special relationship’ it had with Britain was also one with Europe.

My own conclusion was that the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) was doing a good enough job at preventing ethnic cleansing in the region. It was only when NATO announced it’s bombing campaign that the OSCE had to withdraw and the Serb nationalists carried out a vigorous ethnic cleansing of the Albanian Kosovar population.

I remain a sceptic of liberal/humanitarian intervention.

So what, exactly, about opposing and denouncing the likes of Milosevic and Saddam for their genocides, do you object to, Andrew?

Conor and Flying Rodent have answered your question admirably so I have little to add. No one is questioning whether the likes of Milosevic and Saddam should be opposed, it’s the way that the likes of Norm try to portray those who question the wisdom of military intervention as objectively supporting them and try to dissasociate themselves from its unfortunate consequences which many of us object to.

This kind of Love Saddam, do ya? thing is just an involuntary response, isn’t it? I’ve seen variations on it tossed out and brutally slapped down so many times now that I’m starting to think it’s time we stopped picking such arguments apart for their pisspoor logic and just started parroting back things like My wheenemy’s wheenemy is my fweend in high-pitched, childish tones. That response would be almost as logical and productive as the question itself.

As for Norm etc., it’s clear they really don’t regard themselves as having been implicated in the bloodbaths of the last decade at all. The rest of us are forever stained and shamed by every daft statement from cranky academics, opportunistic politicians or nutty journalists – whether we agreed with them or not – but the beautiful souls of Decency are never, ever tarnished by the gigantic piles of corpses that the policies they clamoured for have produced. It’s like bad satire, and I certainly know a thing or two about that..

We really need to start ignoring them rather than giving them the air of legitimacy. Norm included.

I have just seen a link to a Trot website which seems to be arguing that we should all support the Chinese Communist Party. But, seriously, outside the really nutty fringe was anyone ever saying that Saddam and Slobbo were the type of guys that they wished their daughters were dating? (apart from Neil Clark, who I accept might well have been).

This is an argument about British foreign policy and how it should have been conducted over the last 12 (or 20) years. It is a real world discussion about when British troops should be sent into combat situations, how British aid money should be used, and what the consequences of not acting would be in situations like another Rwanda or Srebrenica or acting when that results in predictable fuck ups like Afghanistan and Iraq (or indeed Kosovo).

If the left can’t engage in those sorts of debates without resorting to the silly childishness that says ‘if you don’t support invading a country ruled by a dictator then that must be because you secretly support it’ or ‘oil is the only reason why you want to send troops to x country and all the other evidence about y atrocity has been faked by the CIA’ then it is hardly surprising that no one is paying much attention to what the left is saying.

Sorry to be harsh.

So what, exactly, about opposing and denouncing the likes of Milosevic and Saddam for their genocides, do you object to, Andrew?
Or is it “My enemy’s enemy is my friend?”

Not to mention the fact that there are a whole range of actions that lie between Let’s cheer and whack off and Exterminate all the brutes! So, why say all this in the first place?

Bonus Professorial fun – Norm has a post up at Dissent today about the lessons that can be drawn from the post-Soviet era. Readers of Norm’s regular gig will be astonished to learn that the chief lesson he draws from the post-Soviet era is that the left are bastards, largely because they have different politics from Norm himself.

Guano: yes Kosovo was a disaster. It was partly the experience of working there -and seeing all that close up – and then listening to the LibInts going on about what a success it had been that turned me into a sceptic.

Ali Eteraz is very good on this, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/19/oneeyedideology

Professor Norm seems to be hinting that the invasion of Iraq was to punish Saddam for things he did 20 years previously. That really is irresponsible, and has nothing to do with the doctrine of R2P.