Sunday, October 21, 2012

Mali once again

Apparently the current position of the US left is that any and all military intervention is good if it has the support of international organizations such as the UN. This is a radical change from the left's position in earlier decades and is especially strange given that the UN Security Council is currently dominated by the US, UK, and France without even the presence of a Soviet veto any more. So the American left seem to believe that military intervention in Mali by the US is a good thing because it has the support of the UN, AU and ECOWAS and will be supporting ECOWAS troops on the ground. They also seem to think that the intervention in Libya was the greatest thing ever. I remember a time when they opposed US military intervention abroad even when it had the support of organizations like the UN and SEATO. Fortunately, I am not a leftist and I do not think that the stamp of approval from international organizations automatically makes military intervention in Mali a good thing or that the earlier US intervention in Libya was necessarily the correct decision. In fifty years we can do a proper historical examination of these things. In the mean time I think it is prudent to limit military solutions to where they are absolutely necessary and not to try and bring democracy to the world, maintain the borders of post-colonial states, or eliminate Islamic political movements through the barrel of a gun.

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