Moral intervention is the new Just War Theory that's all about liberating the people good and hard. National sovereignty is sacrificed to the moral violence of a United Nations dominated by the usual suspects vying for power around the world. Meanwhile both the cost and causes of war are forgotten.
For nearly three years, from 1992 to 1995, a horrific international conflict took place in what was Yugoslavia. In interviews, before and after the reoccupation of Iraq, Tony Blair called UN intervention in Kosovo a "moral crusade" borrowing the language of the centuries earlier slaughters in the name of western 'Christian powers'. Intervention into selective regimes has become the new catch all for Just War Theories and we seem to love it.
For nearly three years, from 1992 to 1995, a horrific international conflict took place in what was Yugoslavia. In interviews, before and after the reoccupation of Iraq, Tony Blair called UN intervention in Kosovo a "moral crusade" borrowing the language of the centuries earlier slaughters in the name of western 'Christian powers'. Intervention into selective regimes has become the new catch all for Just War Theories and we seem to love it.
Blair then used this conflict as an
example of the value of international intervention in domestic
conflicts. Comparing the Yugoslav war to the present and continuing reoccupation of Iraq. New documents released by wikileaks, pointing to the IMF as at fault, remind us that Tony
Blair's remedy and Blair's disease are not far removed one from
the other: violence begets violence.
We will never know what else could have
been done sooner or instead of UN military intervention but we can
know that those who wage war always seem to have the most to gain and
the least to lose and that social unrest doesn't come out of nowhere
– the violence begins with the way empire exploits and frustrates
poor communities around the world.
The moral argument for 'pre-emptive
humanitarian intervention', or 'just war theory' as we used to call it, has levered open the case for war against
the governments of Libya and Iraq and will soon be used against the
government of Iran. It hasn't been used against the DRC, Zimbabwe or
Israel despite each having among the worst human rights records in
modern history. But there are reasons in each case for western moralisers like Blair to look away.
In order to truly understand a
humanitarian response to conflict one must first understand the
causes of a conflict. A fire is not always put out with water, for
example, an oil fire would only be exacerbated by water and needs
smothering instead. Or, if we are in a boat that is filling with
water we may choose to bail out but first we should find out where
the water is coming in. If someone is using a pick axe to bail out
the boat you can be pretty sure that's the cause of the problem and
not the solution.
Previously secret documents from the
private intelligence agency 'Stratfor' have been released by
Anonymous and Wikileaks relating to the Bosnian
conflict. They reveal one of the most important causes of the war:
the IMF. Blair, then British Prime Minister, did more than any other British premier - even more than Margaret Thatcher - to push the sort of global neo-liberal economics that crippled countries like Bosnia.
In the document from
2009, titled 'Europe Analytical Guidance', Stratfor speculate as the
possible violence that may result from IMF austerity measure imposed
on countries like Greece. They write: “Don’t
forget, the IMF austerity measures imposed on Yugoslavia was in part
to blame for the start of the war there. We need to be aware of any
economically motivated social discontentment.”
The
document only pins part of the blame on the IMF, at that's fair
enough, any conflict is complex and it wouldn't honour anyway to boil
it all down to one despotic supra-national and monstrous institution.
But
we know there is a link between economic injustice and social unrest.
If the 1930s depression taught us anything it's that mass feelings of
powerlessness lead masses to hand over authority the strong-arm
powers and find scapegoats for their abstracted problems.
What
Bosnia needed was not more intervention from the UN it was less
intervention from world banks and transnational corporations that
were allowed to roam free across the lands for Serb and Croat alike,
atomising households, alienating neighbours and creating an
insatiable restlessness for whatever privileges 'the other' seems to
have.
Colonial
powers never stop claiming to be a force for good in the world. It's
what Alexander the Great, the Caesars, and The British Raj did and
it's what Tony Blair never tired from doing and continues with to
this day with his 'Faith Foundation' that continues his programme of
lining the pockets of the few at the expense of the many.
The
early church new of this propagandising of war first hand. St Paul
wrote to the Thessalonian Church, 'They say “peace and security”
but sudden destruction will come upon them' (1 Thess. 5: 3). “Peace
and Security” was the Roman Peace promised through brutal Roman
conquest of land and expropriation of resources. But the peace of
Jesus was not the peace of pacification; it was the peace of
self-sacrificial compassion and reconciliation.
Tertullian
, the theologian who most carefully articulated the doctrine of the
Trinity of God, called idolatry. This remains obvious in its
inversion in the Churches these days. The Archbishop of York, writingin 'The Sun' newspaper recently, called on the people of Britain to
“pay tribute” to armed forces – borrowing directly from Roman
Imperial language: a tribute is a tax exacted by a conquered and
humiliated people to show submission to the powers-that-be.
Recently the Syrian government has been killing Syrian people in unprecedented numbers. Russia and China vetoed any UN resolution that threatened 'humanitiarian intervention'. There reasons may be as immoral as US/UK reasons for firing up the drones of war but their case was solid - intervention is never moral, it is always political.
