International Intervention and Human Rights Abuse by State Actors

Once more, many thanks to bsh1 for accepting and participating in this debate and to all judges who may read it! First, I"m going to take some time to clarify two of CON"s misconceptions, and then I"ll rebut the points he"s made. Finally, I"ll refocus everything into why this necessitates an PRO victory. In the interest if clarity, I want to restate the resolution: "If international military intervention is a likely viable means to ameliorate human rights abuses by state actors, and intervention as such is in the intervening state's best interest, international military intervention is a justifiable." CON contends that the "threat of force" is not intervention because intervention requires "that positive action has been taken, not simply suggested." A threat is more than a suggestion, and intervention in this sense is the intentional exercise of hard power to coerce a given end. CON"s source (which is Wikipedia) doesn"t actually support his semantic issue against intervention including the threat of force, because it only talks about "military force" being used to the end specified in the resolution. Military force and intervention are not the same thing, because while intervention may mean military force being used, it doesn"t require "boots on the ground." It could be only the threat of force, which, again, would be an exercise of hard power, and therefor intervention. (Wilson, 2008) However, we are also not talking about all kinds of hard power, just hard power that entails military action. CON"s first tagline is "Humanitarian Intervention." He cites the example of Kenya where the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine was invoked as grounds for intervention, as articulated in a Brookings Institute Article by Roberta Cohen. But his conclusion that "military intervention has a losing record; it fails to establish long-term peace" lacks sufficient grounding because even if military humanitarian intervention did not completely succeed in one case, as the article suggests, that does not mean that in all cases all humanitarian military intervention will always fail. Moreover, that same article does not actually take a stance against military humanitarian intervention. Rather, Cohen only points out some obstacles that intervention as such must overcome if it is to be successful. There is a similar problem with the PBS article CON cites written by Joshua Foust, in that the article"s main point is to stress the costs of intervention. Foust does not argue that military intervention always fails, but rather contends that "military power is, at best, a clumsy instrument of statecraft" and therefore "if we choose to use the military to intervene for humanitarian purposes, we should be up front and honest about the likely high costs of doing so." I agree with Foust, here -which is why I"m proposing such a rigorous framework for humanitarian intervention. Says Cohen: "The international community to date has shown itself unwilling and unable to robustly protect people from atrocity crimes committed in their countries. [Responsibility to Protect] is a tool to raise awareness to the obligation we all have when it comes to protection. It should have the support of everyone here." I would argue, consistent with Cohen"s article and main point, that the reason why Kenyan intervention failed was that there was not that intervention as such is itself a problem, but that the way intervention in that case was planned was insufficient, and that intervening countries did not have enough of an incentive to see the "job" through to the end. This stresses why it is absolutely necessary for intervening countries to both ensure that intervention is a viable means to humanitarian ends, and why why intervening states must have an interest in the outcomes intervention is purposed to effectuate if intervention is to be successful. CON"s further sub-points to his first contention include that intervention (b) is often futile, (c) does not deter. CON"s Cato Institute article only argues American intervention is futile on the basis of it"s presupposition that the United States does not have in interest in preventing global instability. This is beyond the scope of the resolution, however, because the resolution explicitly requires that international military humanitarian intervention must be in the intervening state"s best interest if it is to be justified. So, if we assume the article"s premise is true that the US had no interest in intervening for the examples it lists, then the article and it"s points are irrelevant. But, that aside, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan (the examples CON and his article cites) were not military interventions executed principally for humanitarian reasons so they don"t necessarily hold water against evaluating the criteria for justifying humanitarian intervention required by the resolution. CON"s subpoints (d) and (e) are in conflict with one another because on the one hand he"s arguing that states are reluctant to intervene because of the risk intervention entails, but on the other he"s arguing that states will "jump the gun" to intervene for humanitarian reasons with ulterior motives. He"s right that states are reluctant to intervene, and that even when state"s do intervene, they are reluctant to commit sufficient resources to achieve the ends intervention is purposed to. But, that is the reason why, as I stressed in an earlier round, that states must also have an interest in intervention"s outcome and that they should not intervene only for altruistic reasons because only when a state"s humanitarian military intervention is in pursuit of its goals are state"s likely to commit enough resources to actually intervene successfully. CON"s second contention examines self interest from four different angles. His first subcont. denies that instability is a threat to security, which is irrelevant because the quote he cites is from the CATO institute article I addressed earlier. However, it is salient to note that the article only examines military intervention (and not necessarily humanitarian military intervention) from the perspective of US interests, and the resolution is not specific to the United States. This is likewise why his second subcont."s sub points (b), (c) and (d) do nothing to advance his argument, as they are only specific to the US. Moreover, while countering instability might be one reason that states would see an interest in intervening, countering instability could hardly be said to be the only reason why states might see an interest in intervening. So, CON"s conclusions are at once too bold, insufficient to negate the resolution and precariously close to non-topical. To be explicitly clear: this debate"s is to weigh two conditions" sufficiency for justifying international military humanitarian intervention. This debate"s purpose is not to contend that military intervention, humanitarian or otherwise, is not always in the United State"s best interest -which is all, more or less, CON has tried to prove. CON will be admonished to recognize that this resolution is only about whether or not international military intervention is justified if the following two conditions are met: (1) intervention is a viable means to stem human rights abuses by state actors, and (2) the state which is intervening has sufficient interest in doing so. As I have said before, this debate"s purpose is not to state specific cases where military intervention would or would necessarily be justified, but rather to debate the permissible conditions under which humanitarian military intervention would be justifiable. Once more, I have argued that "the link between effectiveness and justification" here "is based on the premise that military intervention for human protection purposes can only be justified in humanitarian terms if the intervention does more good than harm." (Holzgrefe, 2003; at 50) Therefore, IHMI must be a viable means to remediate human rights abuses, if it is to be justifiable. Likewise, military action should only be undertaken when political concerns are at stake for intervening nations because as Seybolt articulated, "to ignore politics is to invite disaster" for the reason that in the absence of an intervening state"s political interest"s being at stake, the probability of a successful intervention is dramatically depreciated. (Seybolt, 2007; at 21) So, international humanitarian military intervention must also be in the intervening state"s best interest, if it is to be justifiable. As such, because none of CON"s arguments have actually undermined those two conditions"s being sufficient to justify international military intervention to ameliorate human rights abuses by state actors, an PRO victory is therefore compelled. Again, many thanks to CON for this titillating intellectual exercise, and to all judges who may read/vote on this debate. More Sources: (Wilson, 2008): http://www.ernestjwilson.com...