As Syrian Deaths Mount, World's 'Responsibility to Protect' Takes a Hit - Reuters
As civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo are battered by air strikes, ground offensives and shelling, what has happened to the world's responsibility to protect populations under threat?
The Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Security Council were established after World War Two to maintain peace and protect people in conflict zones.
But a 21st-century U.N. doctrine called Responsibility To Protect (R2P), set up by the world body's member states to prevent mass killings, has only had limited success.
Although formalized in 2005, R2P came about largely in response to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which extremist Hutu militiamen slaughtered some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The doctrine also stemmed from a desire to prevent a recurrence of atrocities like the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys by Serb forces in the town of Srebrenica.
It placed the onus on the international community to "use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other means" to protect populations from crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
Past examples include NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999 as a means to protect the people of Kosovo and the U.N.'s administration of East Timor as Indonesian troops departed, experts say.
But now, R2P is a merely a "high moral aspiration" that has "floundered" on the complex realities of warfare today, according to Paddy Ashdown, a British lawmaker who served as high representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina 2002 to 2006…
Comments
Outlaw and re: your thoughts/comments below:
If one's goal is to transform outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic, social and value lines.
And if one is correct in one's assumption that:
a. The current ruler/regime stands directly in the way of the achievement of one's such objective. And that:
b. The population of the subject state and society -- as a whole -- have both (1) an overwhelming desire for your way of life, your way of governance, etc., and (2) the ability/capability to take on the present ruler/regime and to achieve the acquisition same,
Then -- if both "a" and "b" above are correct -- and, most importantly, if items (1) and (2) above are present, available and attainable -- then it may make sense, in these exact and uniquely favorable circumstances, to help these folks engage in "regime change" activities; such those associated with R2P.
If, however, either requirement (1) or (2) in item "b" above IS NOT PRESENT (as in the case of the Greater Middle East, N. Korea and elsewhere today?), then, it would appear to make no sense at all to engage in/help re: such "regime change" activities.
Why?
Because if either requirement (1) or (2) above is missing from the equation, then "regime change" -- undertaken as per R2P and/or as per some other scheme -- this is, more likely than not (and specifically re: our "transformational" political objective outlined in the first paragraph above) to result in both catastrophic and counterproductive results.
(Evidence in support of this thesis? See the Greater Middle East [etc.] today.)
Bottom Line:
If we intervene to help a small, isolated and/or non-representative (of the society as a whole) group -- to attempt to overthrow a ruler/regime minus the requirements outlined at (1) and (2) above -- and as per R2P or some other "regime change" scheme --
Then one must expect that, by such unwise action, one is, as likely as not, to have (a) undermined one's ability to achieve one's own "transformational" goals and objectives in these regions, (b) placed the states and societies of these regions, and the respective populations residing therein, directly into the hands of one's enemy and, thus, to have (c) gravely imperiled these populations' (and indeed one's own today?) security, prosperity and well-being.
It is in this exact light that we might see Responsibility to Protect -- and other such "regime change" initiatives -- "taking a hit"/actually being "shit canned" as an option today?
JUST an average day in the life of a Syrian civilian entitled to R2P.....but we also blew it in Rwanda and Bosnia didn't we...AND sworn it would never happen again..?????
Civil Defense looking for injured people after airstrikes hit jisr al-shughour, #Idlib today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhliT-QCbtI#…
Women mourn the death of a family member killed in an airstrike on their home in al-Bagharat, West #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10eJP5WueNk#…
Airstrikes hit residential neighborhoods in Maart Misreen, #idlib
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neUDtJwiC_o#…
Abu Omar shows the underground bomb shelter him and his neighbors made in #ghouta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qg1TPiLAQw#…
Civil Defense begins recruitment for new members in #Quneitra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-oEWrJbFS8#…
War planes bombs al-Lataminah, #hama near Mahmoud al-Hamwi as he's recording
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yA6ogCtyg4#…
Massive airstrike on Lataminah, #hama earlier today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMA0ml5Rpbs#…
Airstrike on Bouaida village, #Hama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0polda83Xg#…
Airstrike on Maarkaba, #Hama earlier today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nquKdQIwbwo#…
Huge airstrike on the village of Turmanin, #Idlib
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnRLu6p4zfY#…
Bill C...does this rate at least a discussion in front of the entire UNGA about R2P?????
Assad and Russian WAR CRIMES can now be never overlooked....this is a true war crime.....AND YET the West, Obama and the UNSC says absolutely nothing......
CHILREN deliberately targeted as they were walking home from school....
Geolocation of the #school in #Hass, the #Russian regime or its puppet #Assad bombed today.
20+ killed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwLDJhoE6RE#
MORE photos posted on the Syrian thread....GRAPHIC!!!!
MORE ON THIS HASS MASSACRE ...deliberate use of thermobaric bombs against civilians especially children...AND THIs does not rate as a war crime against humanity??????
BREAKINGNEWS
Heavy #AssadPutin air strikes on #Hass town in #Idlib province.
A #massacre! More than 15 killed.
Bill C...another typical day in Syria for civilians....AND there should be no R2P implemented in your view??
NGO claim #US lead Anti-#IS coalition killed 300+ civilians in #Syria the past 2 years.
#Russia'n airstrikes do this in only some weeks
Russia'n diplomats nervous because possible #UN "Special Emergency Session" about #Syria
ESPECIALLY after they were highly unsuccessful in blocking a UNHRC Resolution calling out the Assad war crimes officially...they attempted SIX times to block and were overruled all six times by the majority of the UNHRC members.
UNHRC decisions carry weight inside the UNSC and UNGA.....
40 ppl. were killed by #AssadPutin & #ISIS on Tuesday in #Syria, incl. 5 children.
12 of the victims died in & around #Aleppo.
- LCC
Another perspective on the same #Assad regime GAS attack yesterday WHICH western MSM took no notice of....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD8or81BCaA#…
Red lines, drawn in sand ...
UNSC Resolutions quickly forgotten....
Children are screaming as an #Assad air force helicopter drops GAS on them in #Lataminah yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycDXxpbwn2I#…
So Bill C.....I hear you saying the following......
QUOTE:
This such understanding allowing us to comprehend why "Responsibility to Protect" -- and other initiatives of this such "the regime is the problem/the population is the cure" ilk -- have taken such a hit?
UNQUOTE:
So a dictator who when his own civil society 73% at least rises up first peacefully and demands on their own not pushed by the West ...demands on their own....rule of law, and good governance....that they themselves define AND then are gassed with CWs still today BTW.....arrested/tortured/disappeared to the tune of over 175,000 AND rising.....over 500,000 are killed and still being killed....starvation literally of thousands....forced ethnic cleansing.....IDPs numbering over 11M, and refugees over 6M...where even the UNHRC states there are ongoing war crimes being committed against that 73%...
Your saying we the US and the world in general is to look away...because that is exactly what you are saying....
Your solution then is to what...look the other way and hope...that has been practiced already by the Obama WH and that is not working I am afraid...
Major problem within the UNSC is that when one of the main 5 members actually supports active genocide, war crimes, starvation they simply have the veto rights and nothing every gets done when it is not in the interest of that members FP to support a UNSC R2P decision for action.
The current UNSC never foresaw a one of the five veto members actively ignoring R2P in such a blatant way....not only ignoring but actively participating in genocide, war crimes and starvation.
BTW...an interesting legal question for you....the former UdSSR was composed of exactly how many so called independent Republics?
HOW was it and or WHO designated that the Russian Republic was to be in fact the legal UNSC successor to the UdSSR voting seat when inside the Russian Federation this was never legally addressed via their own now existing so called Constitution??
I: Rationale for Responsibility to Protect:
The central reason for the U.S./the West's promotion of R2P was to use same as an opportunity to -- and as a means for -- breaching "sovereignty;" this, given that "sovereignty," post-the Old Cold War, was seen as one of the primary things standing in the way of the U.S./the West's desire to transform outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic, social and value lines.
Herein the U.S./the West believing (and herein being correct?) that the "root cause" of most of the world's problems (not just genocide but also insurgencies, terrorism, civil wars, crime, the spread of deadly disease, the inability to prepare for and react to natural disasters, etc., etc., etc.,) stem from the fact that certain states and societies (where virtually ALL of these such problems emanate) still had not been adequately organized, ordered and oriented more along modern western lines.
Thus, the U.S./the West saw Responsibility to Protect more in terms of Responsibility to Transform -- one's state and society more along modern western lines. Herein, the presence of "genocide" (etc.) confirming that the leaders of such states were not governing properly. ("Governing properly" being defined, exactly, as moving out smartly so as to transform one's state and societies more along modern western lines.)
This such "governing breach" (as evidenced by the potential and/or on-going genocide, etc.) providing that the U.S./the West/the International Community might now breach sovereign (which stood in the way of necessary "progress"); this, so as to enact/initiate/ramp-up the necessary "governing" requirements (transformation of the state and its societies more along modern western lines) which would eliminate these such ills -- not only for these individual states and their societies themselves but, more importantly, for the rest of the more-modern world -- and for the world at-large.
II: Problems Re: Responsibility to Protect:
The entire "suite" of intervention initiatives -- from such things as R2P outlined above to such things as other invasion and regime change initiatives addressed elsewhere -- these were all based on a false premise. This such false premise being that:
a. The rulers/the regimes were the problem. (For various reasons, they stood in the way of "progress"/of transformation of the subject state and its societies more along modern western political, economic, social and value lines). And that:
b. The populations (who, due to "universal Western values, had an overwhelming desire for our way of life, our way of governance, etc) were the "cure." This, suggesting that:
c. "Sovereignty breaching" (for example as per R2P and/or as per other invasion and regime change initiatives) was the way to go.
When these such activities/measures were undertaken, however, we soon learned that the populations -- to our great shock -- did not, in fact, have any great and/or overwhelming desire for our way of life, our way of governance, our values, attitudes and beliefs.
This, rendering such concepts as R2P -- and other invasion and regime change activities -- not only useless but, indeed, counterproductive in the extreme.
III: Bottom Line:
If intervention -- to take out a standing governor/government, etc., -- makes no sense/makes things markedly worse (re: genocide, terrorism, etc., etc., etc.), then it -- obviously -- was/is a horrendous mistake to, thus, have intervened.
This such understanding allowing us to comprehend why "Responsibility to Protect" -- and other initiatives of this such "the regime is the problem/the population is the cure" ilk -- have taken such a hit?