Intervention in Darfur?

Matthew Iglesias has an interesting piece in the American Prospect about whether the circumstances in Darfur constitute genocide and why this matters:

As everyone knows by now, terrible atrocities have been and are continuing to be committed against the civilian population of Darfur in Sudan. According to many observers, these atrocities amount to the crime of genocide. In terms of international law, they may well be correct. But, though I fear I may get thrown out of polite society for saying so, I think that choice of terms should be resisted. The legal definition is a bit broad, and it's best to leave it up to the lawyers at the State Department and the United Nations to argue over whether it fits the case at hand. What comes to mind when non-lawyers hear the word "genocide," however, is something akin to the events of the Holocaust, where a regime pursues the destruction of an ethnic group as an end in and of itself. Without denying that monstrous things are being done in Darfur, I don't think that genocide -- in this sense -- is what's happening.

His point is that the killings in Darfur arose as a tactic in a war, not simply as a desire to exterminate a particular group.   And this matters because once we recognize that a war is taking place, we need to address a number of hard questions before considering any intervention.  Reasonable people might still advocate intervention.  But they should have good answers for all the questions that Iglesias poses in order to make their case.

Comments

[Douglas Miron Nydick]

This post raises the question of exactly what is "Libertarian Foreign Policy." During discussions of the libertarianism around the Miron family table we generally focused on domestic policies. I think that I and most libertarians I know tend to favor non-intervention generally, but the posting implicitly suggests that the word "genocide" requires a higher level of scrutiny.

I think that generally libertarians do not believe in interfering in other countries just because we do not like their government, leaders or policies. Lots of folks feel that way, both Democrat and Republican. Many of those folks, however, believe that intervention is called for in the case of "genocide." Do libertarians agree?

(BTW, if you are wondering, I do admit that Jeff is my full-blood brother. Miron is my "maiden" name.)

[James]

Nydick,

My libertarian view on foreign intervention is that intervention isn't the main issue anyway; It's forcing people to pay for things that they claim not to want. Not that I'm ok with the needless death of innocents that gets called "collateral damage," I just believe that the death and destruction of war is much more likely to happen if some agency enjoys the priviledge of being able to force other people to pay for what they claim not to want.

[Chris]

At the very least, I don't think that foreign intervention should even be considered unless we are asked to intervene.

Once asked you have to determine if the party requesting intervention is in a position to request action. The second question is whether the intervention is in the best interest of the US.

I could be pursueded that some actions are so henious that invervention is morally imperative - but that bar would have to be fairly high.