“Why is it that the choice to express our humanitarian benevolence through the use of missiles and jets gets on the table—to the top of the agenda, even—again and again, but the choice to express it less truculently so rarely does? If our humanitarian values really set the agenda, how likely is it that the prospect of urgent military intervention would come up so often?”
-A highly interesting and thought provoking statement from an Economist article entitled, “Foreign Aid: Anti-Malarial Bed Nets Vs. F-35's.”
This statement begs the question, what are our humanitarian values, both as a nation, and as a collective group of nations that has, through historical, colonial, economical, and military means, controlled the levers of power in the world for centuries? Are there a core set of beliefs that can truly be seen, through both words and actions, as supported by the international community? And with this, is the true test of a set of beliefs and values their even implementation across a blank canvas of internationalism? Some of these questions are obviously rhetorical, but yet, the hypocrisy seen in the actions of the powerful nations of the world is startling in its bluntness and brutality. The nation of France, who just 16 short years ago shielded and armed the perpetrators of one of most vicious and bloody genocides of the 20th century (yes, I'm talking of Rwanda), is now leading the charge for the protection of civilians in Libya? The British, still reeling from the loss of their own empire, aiding another failing power in its middle east conquests (yes, im talking of Iraq), and now blasting over the skies of the Mediterranean in its Hornet fighter jets in defense of a nascent rebel army whose aims, goals, and leadership are as ambiguous as the air strikes that have defended it. I am not defending the actions of a madman, or madmen, in any way; I am a staunch defender of human rights and humanitarian intervention, but also a humanist first, a believer in bednets, not F-35's, and ethical historical action playing a larger role in our historically collective humanitarian amnesia. Granted, civil wars, bloody uprisings, and rebel armies cannot be contained by wrapping them up in bednets; however, the smallest actors on the world stage, the peons whose lives are actually held in the balance by the actions of these globalist powers, deserve a voice, and if not, deserve at the very least to live lives free of Malaria and Dengue Fever due to the employment of a $3 bed net, even as the world powers fly overhead in $2 billion fighter jets dropping $20 million guided smart bombs on $10 million tanks.
The author continues, strikingly, that, “...the 2011 budget submitted by the House slashes the State Department's budget for aid to fight malaria (and AIDS, and tuberculosis) in the developing world by billions of dollars, while leaving the budget for bombing Libya (and everything else the Defence Department does) untouched.” I won't touch this statement, its words are menacing enough on their own.
