[Peace-discuss] Humanitarian Intervention

[C. G. Estabrook]

Noam Chomsky Questions Humanitarian Intervention At Williams

By Andy McKeever
iBerkshires Staff
10:33PM / Saturday, September 17, 2011



Noam Chomsky is one of the most controversial figures in American  
politics because of his criticism of U.S. foreign policy.
   WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Controversial linguist and political pundit  
Noam Chomsky told Williams College students to question if  
humanitarian intervention even exists.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor weaved through the  
history, as he is known to do in his books criticizing U.S. Foreign  
Policy, of humanitarian intervention to make the point that those  
actions are not simple and come with a huge amount of politics while  
simple things that could truly save lives are overlooked.

Chomsky started with the 1850s with John Stuart Mill posing the idea  
that England should intervene not only when its safety and interest  
are in danger but because it is dedicated to peace. Philosophers added  
to the growing thought - painting a "saintly glow" of modernized  
countries - by saying "barbarians" needed protection from the  
civilized power.

While the ideas may have begun then, it wasn't until after the Cold  
War when the idea began to pick up momentum. When the Soviet Union  
fell, NATO - against handshake agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev -  
expanded to the entire world.

"The condition was that NATO does not expand one inch to the east.  
That meant east of Germany. NATO immediately moved east of Germany and  
then further east," Chomsky said. "These were only gentleman's  
agreement.. He was stupid enough to believe western diplomats."

NATO continued to expand and became a "global, U.S. run intervention"  
organization and with that the U.S. also shifted their foreign policy,  
Chomsky said. Former President George H. Bush continued to keep a  
large military presence to ensure global safety by keeping an eye on  
the Middle East.

"It wasn't because of the Russians, it was because of the  
technological sophistication of third world powers," Chomsky said.  
"There was an ideological change too, a  large, sudden interest in the  
concept of humanitarian intervention."

In 1999 the "crown" of humanitarian intervention came with the bombing  
of Serbia. In what sometimes considered NATO's first humanitarian  
intervention, the goal was the end ethnic cleansing of Kosovo  
Albanians. When most of the world condemned the move humanitarian  
intervention took another turn, he said.

"At that point a new concept was invented. That was called the  
responsibility to protect," Chomsky said but added there were two  
versions.

The version that was adopted by the rest of the world, including the  
countries that condemned the Kosovo action, did not include a  
stipulation that the western world took. When western cultures point  
to the responsibility to protect and say it was supported by the rest  
of the world, that is not entirely correct, Chomsky contends.

"It provides for NATO and NATO alone to intervene freely anywhere  
without authorization from the Security Council," Chomsky said. "There  
is only one region that can do this... The one regional group that can  
do that is NATO and the region of their authority is the world."

While Kosovo is often considered the first humanitarian intervention,  
Chomsky contends that there are many other world actions that should  
also be considered but had fallen of the radar.

Chomsky cited a scholarly study on humanitarian intervention written  
by Sean Murphy, who found three examples between the two world wars.  
Those examples are Italy's invasion of Ethiopia led by Benito  
Mussolini, Japan's invasion of Manchuria and Adolf Hitler's invasion  
of parts of Czechoslovakia. All three invading countries had  
"convinced" themselves that they were sacrificing themselves for the  
betterment of the other country and the rhetoric followed.

"They all had the properties of humanitarian intervention," Chomsky  
said. "They meant it."

Also left out of consideration, Chomsky contends, is India's  
intervention of East Pakistan to end Pakistani atrocities and  
Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia that ended Pol Pot's reign.

"Neither of these figures in the literature of humanitarian  
intervention because of two reasons. One reason is, wrong agency. They  
did it. We didn't do it. The second and more powerful reason is the  
U.S. was bitterly opposed to both of these interventions," Chomsky  
said. "There are cases where intervention has had benevolent effects."

But with all the political jargon and political forces that have  
changed humanitarian intervention throughout history, six million  
infants die every year in countries that lack the ability to perform  
simple medical procedures that would cost very little to the  
wealthiest nations, Chomsky said. With on a "tiny percentage of the  
GDP" from the largest nations the most elementary form of humanitarian  
intervention could save six million, he said.

Chomsky appeared at Williams as the first part of a two-part dialogue  
about the dilemmas in humanitarian intervention. Fiona Terry will be  
the next speaker on Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 8 p.m., also at the '62  
Center. 
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