Another cheery topic

There's an interesting interview with the director of Amnesty International in Salon today. It's mainly a critique of the anti-war movement (or at least its most visible members). But rather than start Iraq Debate Round 8072 I want to discuss these lines from the interview:

"Certainly I have argued within Amnesty that in the face of genocide, such as in Rwanda, the organization is utterly remiss not to take a position in favor of military intervention."

"I personally believe that in the face of genocide the world community should intervene militarily. That situation clearly trumps national sovereignty. I think it was the Clinton administration's greatest shame that it blocked the United Nations from intervening in Rwanda."

There seems to be an emerging consensus on the left, that military intervention, possibly including unilateral intervention, is justified in the face of an imminent genocide; and that the failure to do anything in Rwanda
(and closing off all possibility of U.N. action) was the greatest sin of the Clinton administration. This started with the work of Gourevitch and continued with Power.

The Kosovo war is an obvious example, and its success changed some people's mind about whether this could work. But in the 2000 debates 2000 Gore still said that Clinton was right to keep the U.S. military out of Rwanda: "I think in retrospect, we were too late getting in there. We could have saved more lives if we had acted earlier. But I do not think that it was an example of a conflict where we should have put our troops in to try to separate the parties for this reason." And Bush, famously, derided "nation building" in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo in the same debate.

Today, I think the Democratic candidate is likely to answer that question differently. (Oddly, I have no idea whether Bush would.)

--Wesley Clark was an early advocate of military intervention to stop genocide.
--Howard Dean said in the Washington Post last week that "There are some circumstances which allow unilateral interventions. One is to stop genocide if no other world body had taken the responsibility to do that." (Link here.)
--I can't find current statements by the other candidates right now. I do know that Kerry was a strong supporter of Kosovo, since I saw him speak about it at the time; I don't know if he'd feel similarly if it was not in Europe. Same goes for Lieberman. I can do more research on the other candidates if people are interested.
--I know I've read a post by Eric Alterman about how ignoring Rwanda was Clinton's biggest failure; I can't figure out how to search his archives, though.
--Anecdotally, almost all of my liberal friends have been convinced.
--There was even a West Wing episode, set in a fictional African country, about this.

Now, there is a caveat. As Power shows over and over again in her book, it is one thing to say "never again" but another to do it. You can usually argue that of course we must stop genocide, but this conflict is not genocide, only "ethnic cleansing", or political oppression, or civil war, or something else.

Some would argue that opposing the Iraq war shows we're not serious about this. But I think you can distinguish between trying to stop an imminent genocide, and punishing the leader of a genocide that took place ten years ago. The head of Amnesty tells Salon that, "To the best of my knowledge, neither Amnesty nor any other human rights organization had documented active genocide going on in Iraq. There were profound human rights violations going on...."

I could go on about this, and I may post again if people are interested, but this already unbelievably longwinded by blogging standards. I will say: I think there's something real, and important, going on here.

Comments

[Zack]

Okay, I'll bite. I'm a lefty who's still profoundly disgusted at Madeline Albright's disgraceful behavior during the Rwandan genocide. I got into an argument once with a Clinton supporter who asserted that after Somalia, an American humanitarian intervention in Rwanda would have been political suicide for Bill. I'm not sure if I buy that, but even if he was right, I think saving 800,000 people from being hacked to death might be worth sacrificing a second term.

[Katherine]

I won't defend the administration; I will defend Albright personally based on Samantha Power's book (page 367, for those following along at home). Warren Christopher (then Secretary of State) sent her:

"one of the most forceful documents produced in the entire three months of the genocide. Christopher's cablle instructed Albright to demand a full UN withdrawal. The directions....were unequivocal about the next steps."

A UN ambassador cannot defy the secretary of state (well, maybe nowadays, but I very much doubt she could have then.) This is the sort of thing worthy of resigning in protest--but if Albright had she would've probably simply been replaced, and she couldn't have led Clinton's foreign policy in a much better direction his second term.

There's also an account from a U.S. official's journal excerpted on page 385, that I suspect is Albright--but this is pure guesswork on my part (and the fact that pronouns that would reveal the official's gender are not used):
"We have a foreign policy based on our amoral economic interests run by amateurs who want to stand for something--hence the agony--but ultimately don't want to exercise any leadership that has a cost.

They say there may be as many as a million massacred in Rwanda. The militias continue to slay the innocent and the educated...Has it really cost the United States nothing?"

[Dave]

I have always thought that Warren Christopher got his start as one of the bad guys in "Dick Tracy". Can't remember which one, was it "Pruneface"?

Have always had a better opinion of Albright, although she has disappointed. I was pretty convinced from the TV footage on one UN escapade (might have been this one, I can't remember) that she had been blindsided and left out of the loop. All of this is conjecture based on my read of her reactions on camera as she stood by and heard what was being said. I expected her to resign at that point. I would have expected any professional to have resigned had they been treated as I suspected she had (I wish I could remember what the incident was, but memory is the second thing to go....). The fact that she did not convinced me that either I had been wrong about her reaction or she was in fact not as worthy of my respect as I had thought. During the years since, I have pretty well gravitated to the second option. Personal opinion.

[Katherine]

after seeing Clark's Russert interview, I think that diary could just as easily be his as Albright's. For whatever that's worth.

[greenone]

Can someone please point me to the press release from Amnesty International condemning the torture of the two American soldiers?

thanks