Presumably, people are only considered vulnerable when they live in a country that might have some long term commercial interest to us.
Should they live in Zimbabwe, Tibet, Myanmar, Palestine, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Somalia, Sudan, Chechnya or North Korea then they can sort it out themselves.

Whilst I expect somewhat of a backlash from this article, just want to make clear that I was writing about the R2P doctrine, not intervention or protecting people per se. The title of the article is not my own.

My view is that the comprehensiveness and consistency the R2P doctrine promises and proposes is not being matched by the politicians who refer to it and selectivity is a problem (in terms of the doctrine). For example, it would be militarily feasible to intervene in Syria but it is not politicall sellable because it would cost too much etc. Politicians shouldn’t invoke R2P unless they really mean it and are willing to pursue it.

When weighing up all the practical issues/consequences of intervention through the R2P calculus, it can end up a restatement of the problem that it sought to solve: inconsistency.

re: Libya- Elections are often a catalyst for violence and the lack of a neutral third party security guarantee in Libya disturbs me. Perhaps Libya has developed enough institutions (including police) to manage the transition to democracy and I will be wrong. However, it is the UK’s commitment to an arms-length engagement which makes me nervous regarding the reconstruction/reconcilliation phase. There needs to be a process of disarmament/demobilisation but it is unclear who will perform that function.

Did Britain have a responsibility to enforce civil rights laws in America against populist white resistance in the southern states?

How about protecting civilian populations in the Middle East from Israeli aggresssion? After all, in the United Nations debate in 1947 on Britain’s Palestine mandate, the UK representative warned that partition of Palestine would lead to continuing conflict – which it has.

The trouble with R2P is that governments pick and choose when and where to apply it and use ever flexible criteria in making decisions. Some of us suspect that the decisions often relate as much to Bread and Circuses as anything else.

There must be a reasonable chance of success in halting or averting the suffering which has justified the intervention, with the consequences of action not likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.

How is this assessment supposed to be made?

Gastromancy? Astrology? Tarot cards?

The evidence of history tells us that the motivation for intervention is rarely altruistic and the consequences are almost always worse for those doing the suffering.

@ OP

“This inability to calculate future economic and political contingencies, such as the dip in Western appetite for confronting Syria, is intellectually fatal.”

Why is it fatal? You appear to be amongst those holding the view that absent some absolute guarantee of future success, or a similarly airtight guarantee that intervention would under no circumstances lead to fewer deaths than intervening, then the only justifiable policy is to do nothing.

No such guarantees are possible of course, which for many died in the wool anti-interventionists is just the point. The “all, or none-at-all” outlook isn’t likely to find favour because most of the people, most of the time, will answer “yes” to the question in the title…. and at the same time be capable of a nuanced approach that recognises that it isn’t “yes, anytime, anyplace, anyhow”.

If the international community isn’t going to give a supranational body like the UN the political power and military/fiscal means to IMPOSE R2P globally, then the only two alternatives are doing nothing, or a colaition of the willing to do what is feasible.

By calling for Labour to have abstained on the intervention in Libya, it is incumbent on you to explain what “proper intervention and post conflict institution building” you would support:

Should the UN or some other body do it on our behalf, and would you be prepared to fund this and give up some national sovereignty to see it happen? Or would you like to see “western” liberal democracies impose the tenets of R2P globally and in every circumstance? Or would you just leave those who rise up against tyranny to sort it out for themselves?

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the declared rationale of the German government was to protect the substantial German-speaking population of Danzig (now Gdansk) whose civil rights were threatened.

Given what had happened with Czecho-Slovakia in September 1938, when the Sudetenland had been ceded to Germany by the Munich Agreement, and then the annexation of what remained of Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939, the Poles had every reason to suspect the loyalties of German-speakers. The end result of that was a world war in which 55 million were killed. Some protecting.

The point of the UN Security Council was to prevent situations like that in Poland in 1939 from developing into global or regional catastrophes – and then Blair, with the approval of Parliament, puts British troops up to invade Iraq on 20 March 2003 without the prior sanction of the Security Council supposedly to liberate Iraq from the despotic tyranny of Saddam Hussein and end the threat of those WMD which could be deployed within 45 minutes of a command from Saddam. By recent counts, some 150,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq as a result.

We have a duty to protect other countries from the ruthless greed of our global corporations. We also have a responsibility to protect our own citizens from this insatiable drive to make profit whatever the cost. We aren’t doing well at that, either.

Western nations, especially the NATO countries that provided crucial air support to the rebels, want to make sure their companies are in prime position to pump Libyan crude.

Eni, with BP of Britain, Total of France, Repsol YPF of Spain, and OMV of Austria, were all big producers in Libya before the fighting broke out, and they stand to gain the most once the conflict ends.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/08/23/firms_are_eager_to_tap_into_libyas_oil_wealth/

So, do we have a responsibility to protect people in foreign countries?

“Eni, with BP of Britain, Total of France, Repsol YPF of Spain, and OMV of Austria, were all big producers in Libya before the fighting broke out, and they stand to gain the most once the conflict ends.”

In other words, oil companies benefit from (1) a new government in Libya, or (2) a continuation of the old government.

So why would they care either way to lobby for a war?

So why would they care either way to lobby for a war?

Because Gaddafi drove an embarrassingly hard bargain at times.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7892112/BP-admits-lobbying-UK-over-Libya-prisoner-transfer-scheme-but-not-Lockerbie-bomber.html

The new lot will be a pushover by comparison- it will be more like ripping off the Nigerians.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d like to see a few pence off unleaded like everybody else I’m just not prepared to suspend disbelief and swallow all the democracy and freedom bollocks used to justify what’s going on.

^ = Not evidence of lobbying for war.

The oil companies are used to dealing with corrupt dictators, and historically have largely backed them over any government that is more democratic. Given the choice between paying off the Gaddafi family, as they had been doing for years, and throwing the dice that an intervention always represents, most would have rather the status quo.

This “its about the oil” happens to ignore the crucial fact that the western establishment was very reluctant to intervene in the first place. Having dealt with Gaddafi for years, they may have regarded him as mad, but it was also the case they were playing the long game. Hence Saif al Islam attending the LSE, owning property in London, and being bigged up as the new face of the regime (described as a ‘moderate’ likely to lead Libya in the right direction).

Indeed the first reactions of many in the western establishment to the entire Arab spring has been disgraceful, supporting established dictatorships ahead of democratic reform and trying to label the uprisings as Islamic based. In Egypt we had Blair defending Mubarak, and the only reason that didn’t turn into a bloodbath was because Obama refused to sanction the Egyptian military – and the crowds were very careful to cultivate a pro-western image.

In Libya Gaddafi first of all tried to portray the uprising as being an islamic fundamentalist group linked to Al Qaeda. Indeed when it first started he was supported by Berlusconi’s Italy who issued several statements calling for EU/NATO intervention to protect Gaddafi for these reasons. Elsewhere there was an extreme reluctance to intervene, Obama pretty much extremely sceptical (for good reasons) and even when some of Gaddafi’s government officials and army officers defected – publically stating he was planning a massacre – there was still a reluctance to do anything. Only Sarkozy showed any enthusiasm for this war.

I think it was the extensive media coverage of events at the time, plus a sense that change was going to happen regardless, that forced Cameron et al to issue statements condeming the violence, and welcoming Gaddafi overthrow (plus some party political stuff they could throw at Blair). I suspect they only took action once it became clear that Gaddafi was going to survive and use military means to stay on to power. Thus, having backed the wrong horse, they faced losing what had been a fairly standard African country.

A planned war this was not.

I can see the argument about oil when it comes to Iraq. Companies many of them Western got new access to Iraq when Saddam was removed. Contrary to what most people believe, the oil companies who won the best Iraq contracts were not American. The UK, China and Russian firms have the best fields. The companies will earn higher profits in Iraq because some fields will only cost a few dollars to produce a barrel of oil. Whereas, in more difficult fields it might cost around $60 to produce a barrel of oil. Therefore, less profit. However, oil blends cost the same on the open market no matter where the oil is produced or how much it cost to produce the oil.

With Libya the oil companies already had access so they did not need a conflict and the removal of the regime for new access. We do not get oil any cheaper if it is produced by a so-called pro-western regime compared to an anti-western regime. It costs the U.S. and everyone else the same for the same blend whether the oil is produced in Iran or Canada. The British consumer does not get cheap oil just because what they are filling up their car with may have come out of the North Sea.

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the declared rationale of the German government was to protect the substantial German-speaking population of Danzig (now Gdansk) whose civil rights were threatened.

Actually, that’s not true. The formal cassus belli was actually self defence and retaliation for the Gleiwitz incident:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident

That’s generally not treated as problematic for the right of self defence under international law, though perhaps it should be. Any time a propaganda machine gets to make up its own facts, the laws those facts get checked against matter little.

@13: “Actually, that’s not true.”

Your interpretation is arguable. Nazi propaganda at the time was making much of supposed ill-treatment and the plight of German-speakers resident in Danzig – possibly with some justification as some historians have suggested. As mentioned the Poles had good reason to have suspicions about the “enemy within” in the light of the fate of Czecho-Slovakia in September 1938 and March 1939. However, Nazi Germany was keen to establish a just cause for the invasion of Poland for international consumption. The implicit ascent of the Soviet Union had already been secured through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939.

However, the essential point is that the UN Security Council was established to prevent similar cross-border incidents and threats from escalating into major conflicts – and Blair disregarded that.

No because naturally, it means picking sides. Benefitting one faction above another. It denys self-determination to the people involved and the nations and sides which the UK PLC will pick to protect will follow certain, but varied political and other vested interests. There is no getting away from this, that R2P is intervention and imperialist. Unless, you think the UK state is some neutral body, then frankly you are deluded.

Furthermore, the doctrine of R2P is one part of the spectrum of ‘humanitarian intervention’. The road to Iraq was paved by ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Europe in the mid 1990s.

R2P is just a distraction anyone who believes Nato intervened in a libya to protect civilians is a fool.

R2P is just a distraction anyone who believes Nato intervened in a libya to protect civilians is a fool.

Anyone who thinks Carmeron, Sarkozy and Berlusconi would have been happy with a half million or so humanitarian refugees showing up on their doorstep is a rather bigger one. Especially under circumstances when some of them would understandably have been asking ‘if NATO won’t do the right thing, maybe there is some other group out there that will help us?’

I mean, the UK is not even much of a net importer of oil. I doubt many refugee ships would make it across the Atlantic. Which governments were pressing for this, and which were tagging along in the rear?

Sharp-eyed observers will note that Nato did not actually spend very much time at all “protecting civilians” this last few months. What it did instead was give air support one side in a war in which both sides used heavy artillery on urban areas and fought street by street in heavily populated areas.

It’d take a heart of stone not to enjoy the celebrations of the Libyan people tonight, but let’s not pretend that Nato’s campaign had anything to do with protecting anyone. It was a political campaign from start to finish. Don’t go imagining that will have gone unnoticed around the world, and don’t imagine it won’t have consequences the next time we invoke R2P.

You are considered vulnerable if their is something in it for us.

“It’d take a heart of stone not to enjoy the celebrations of the Libyan people tonight, but let’s not pretend that Nato’s campaign had anything to do with protecting anyone.”

Why not? Another unverifiable claim about the motivations of the West/NATO? Rodent, the responsibility is yours to provide convincing evidence for such big claims. Articles in Socialist Worker with even more unverifiable claims about peoples motivations don’t count either. Forgive me, but it will take more than simply trusting your gut feeling/ideology for me to believe you.

“Don’t go imagining that will have gone unnoticed around the world, and don’t imagine it won’t have consequences the next time we invoke R2P.”

I don’t see how this relates to you, rodent. You and the Stoppers will oppose R2P the next time, whatever the situation. Unless of course its some sort of military action against Israel perhaps..

There is another dimension to R2P that rarely gets mentioned. If there is no basic human responsibility to intervene to prevent the slaughter of innocent lives, I certainly see no human moral responsibility to maintain a welfare state. The law of the jungle you see. The only difference is one group are foreigners and the others aren’t.

“Do we have a ‘responsibility to protect’ people in foreign countries”?

I think Juan Cole answers that pretty well in his article ‘Top Ten Myths About The Libya War’:

…”But here I agree with President Obama and his citation of Reinhold Niebuhr. You can’t protect all victims of mass murder everywhere all the time. But where you can do some good, you should do it, even if you cannot do all good. I mourn the deaths of all the people who died in this revolution, especially since many of the Qaddafi brigades were clearly coerced (they deserted in large numbers as soon as they felt it safe). But it was clear to me that Qaddafi was not a man to compromise, and that his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to.”

Why not? Another unverifiable claim about the motivations of the West/NATO?

Quite the opposite – don’t look at what they say, look at what they do.

Nato said they were only intervening in Libya to “protect civilians”, but what they actually did was provide air support for assaults on populated, urban areas by the rebels, who did actually use artillery on those towns and did actually do all the house-to-house fighting that the Nato said they were there to prevent. That does not look like “protecting civilians” to me.

Nato said they weren’t interested in regime change, but they actually did target Gaddafi for assassination right from day one, while declaring the rebels the legitimate authority over the country. That is, they said their actions were apolitical – that governance was a matter for Libyans – but they did in fact throw all of their weight behind one faction in a power struggle between a dictator and a mass popular movement. That doesn’t look like “not seeking regime change” to me.

…it will take more than simply trusting your gut feeling/ideology for me to believe you.

Because the evidence of your own eyes re: six months of broadcast, print and internet reporting on one of the least controversial aspects of the war has left you confused?

What “Responsibility to Protect” means, in practice, is the right of militarily powerful states (the only ones with the capacity to “intervene”) to ignore questions of national sovereignty where a humanitarian justification can be prestented.

And since no powerful state ever went to war without accompanying humanitarian rhetoric, irrespective of reality, what R2P really means is simply the right of powerful states to ignore questions of national sovereignty full stop.

Now it may be that the interests of powerful state sometimes happen to align with outcomes that are morally defensible. But I would gently suggest that history shows this not always to be the case. What R2P means in practice is granting privileged rights to military power. Any progressive person should have serious qualms about that.

Noam Chomsky’s paper to the UN General Assembly dialogue on R2P is well worth a read [pdf]
http://www.un.org/ga/president/63/interactive/protect/noam.pdf

“what R2P really means is simply the right of powerful states to ignore questions of national sovereignty full stop.”

Even before R2P, powerful states routinely ignored national sovereignty. R2P just happens to be the PR reasons given these days, but it is also a step forward as it imposes a few limitations on the conduct of the war. The conduct of NATO in this campaign, the british in sierra leone and bosnia (the cases where R2p has been used most strongly) has been far better than in cases where R2P hasn’t been used as the primary justification (Iraq being the obvious example – as despite what the decents said – R2P was never used as a main justification).

It’s also worth considering how libyan expats themselves used the doctrine to force the hand of the government, back in February there were numerous demonstrations in cities accross the UK calling for international action to prevent this. At the time the Cameron government’s response was very cautious (rightly – we are talking about a war) and emphasising an extreme reluctance to do anything. I guess they thought the regime was about to implode with all the defections etc. Worth repeating; this wasn’t a planned war, the west was perfectly happy dealing with Gaddafi and the rest of the North African dictators.

@ 15:

“It denys self-determination to the people involved”

And how much self determination do you think the Libyan people had under Gaddafi?

“There is no getting away from this, that R2P is intervention and imperialist.”

Yes it is. So what?

Blurble, blurble: the only things stopping any sovereign from doing whatever the hell he likes is, in fact it restrictions on his sovereignty. Modern international law (human rights, etc, etc), is all about restricting the actions of otherwise sovereign powers. That’s the whole fricking point. R2P is merely the apotheosis of this trend.

One can legitimately argue about the consistency of its application but I cannot see how anyone calling themselves progressive can have any issue with the principal of R2P itself.

@ OP:

“This inability to calculate future economic and political contingencies, such as the dip in Western appetite for confronting Syria, is intellectually fatal.”

Broadly speaking, the UK should intervene where morality and the national interest converge. And Libya was one such. The UK has an interest in Libya’s oil; and the UK has an interest in preventing a massive migration of Libyans away from tyranny, as once in the EU many would have headed to the UK.

As for Syria, the UK has no direct interest…

Do other countries have a responsibility to protect people in Britain if the governments of those countries believe that civil rights here are being threatened or not protected by our government?

“Do other countries have a responsibility to protect people in Britain if the governments of those countries believe that civil rights here are being threatened or not protected by our government?”

Exactly.

Where was the Libyan airforce when our citizens took to the streets last month?

@30: “Where was the Libyan airforce when our citizens took to the streets last month?”

Reflect back. Before the Good Frday Agreement in Northern Ireland of April 1998, didn’t Col. Gaddafi arrange to supplies arms and Semtex explosives to the IRA – perhaps because he believed, correctly or otherwise, that they were engaged in a valid liberation struggle?

If we believe that Britain has a responsibility to intervene in other countries to protect civil rights, we can hardly complain if the governments of other countries believe that they have a corresponding obligation regarding Britain and civil rights here.

It was those kinds of reciprocal sentiments which led to the Thirty Years Year in Europe 1618-48 – and to the Peace of Westphalia in which the signatories undertook not to interfer in the internal affairs of other countries.

Nazi propaganda had it that the invasion of Poland in September 1939 was to protect the German-speaking population of Danzig. By the end of WW2, 55 million people had been killed.

“Nazi propaganda had it that the invasion of Poland in September 1939 was to protect the German-speaking population of Danzig. By the end of WW2, 55 million people had been killed.”

Because without a spurious legalistic argument the whole business would never have got started?

It’s an argument I suppose.

26 & 27 have the best of it. The answer to BobB’s question at 29 is that, if the British Government failed the criteria then he’d be crying like a stuck fucking pig for intervention by anyone, because he would not recognise the country he lived in.

The UK is not exceptional.

@33:”if the British Government failed the criteria then he’d be crying like a stuck fucking pig for intervention by anyone, because he would not recognise the country he lived in.”

That’s total garbage IMO. I don’t accept that Britain has this imperative unilateral obligation to intervene in the affairs of other countries any more than I accept that other countries have an obligation to intervene in British affairs to protect civil rights here.

I would much rather British governments paid rather more attention to ailments at home – recall that Cameron has recently talked about Broken Britain and moral decline. We have much to be concerned about at home, ranging from bankers mis-selling insurance on the scale of billions, to nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training by recent news reports.

As for Britain’s illustrious history, am I expected to applaud the Opium Wars? The Boer Wars?

That’s total garbage IMO. I don’t accept that Britain has this imperative unilateral obligation to intervene in the affairs of other countries any more than I accept that other countries have an obligation to intervene in British affairs to protect civil rights here.

I would expwwexpected much rather British governments paid rather more attention to ailments at home – recall that Cameron has recently talked about Broken Britain and moral decline. We have much to be concerned about at home, ranging from bankers mis-selling insurance on the scale of billions, to nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training by recent news reports.

As for Britain’s illustrious history, am I expected to applaud the Opium Wars? The Boer Wars?

No, you daft cunt.

You are expected to try to see wars for what they were. You are also expected to grow up – along with your daft chums – and see WR1 – World War One, you daft bastard – as a step forward. Which we, later folk think that is upper class shite. Fuck them, I say…..

But you are such a thick and stupid idiot that you can’t see that.

Welcome to the past, the tits such as you running the planet.

I love these threads – the usual right-left divide totally disappears and I find myself wondering if Pagar is insane and praising Planeshift (in both cases, more than normal…).

Anyway, that aside, anyone trying to pick on Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 as an analogy has one problem. If you notice, several countries worldwide did not believe this justification, and declared war on Germany. It’s quite a famous war…

No-one declared war to defend Gaddafi (even the Chavez’s and Ahmajadine’s of the world have their limits…). Maybe because there is no historical doubt of his atrocities – many might excuse them (which means they will one day have to watch their own populations (apart from maybe in Russia where they seem to like macho idiots in charge)) but none tried to defend them.

And there is the key – this sort of intervention can work in removing tyrants – and whatever comes next, it is in the hands of the people: for all those holding up Iraq or Afghanistan, can you deny they are more democratic now than before the interventions – for all we should have withdrawn support from Hamad Khazi when it became clear he was seeking to subvert democracy?