The Humanitarian case and Non-Interventionism

Many people tend to have a hard time recognizing the differences between Non-Intervention and Isolationism; rather using the terms interchangeably and erroneously. The classical argument of refraining from intervention into foreign affairs, entanglements and conflicts comes from the belief that national interests should remain in the nation and that no matter the action, internationally, eyes and opinions would be cast towards whatever nation becomes involved in a situation amongst other nations. Many of the founding members of the government of the United States held beliefs in this idea.

Genocide, Holocaust, War, Invasions, Operations, Missions, and Conflicts all involve at the very base people, human beings, that for whatever their own reasons seek to extend the wishes of the governing body they submit to. Governments, and by extension entire countries and the majority of people who make up the society or population of, commit to end conflicts between themselves by the brutality of War. Sometimes they use this when all other means to peace have been exhausted, sometimes as an initiation of violence and others as a defense. These governments recruit, draft and conscript those citizens of value to them, the young, stronger and the productive, to the ranks of their militaries. For this we will only be addressing military intervention; though economic intervention through blockades, embargoes and sanctions should be addressed the same way.

Non-Interventionism seems a pretty simple and straight forward principle. “Do not intervene in affairs of other countries that do not directly affect the US”. But in this very simple statement lies questions.  And serious questions. These questions have been answered repeatedly by many authors, and their acceptance is up to each individual to decide.

Is there a Humanitarian Case FOR intervention?

Of course this question begs the individual to place a subjective value on a human life and pit that against the value of another life. Because the intention and action to do harm to others is a factor to the value of a life for most, it stands that those persons doing harm or threatening to do harm would be subjected to a lesser value than the so called victims of events. Saving a life by taking a life can be seen as justifiable by some and somewhat undebatable to others. The judgment of those who will do harm or violence to others is a constant in the political world, hence a presidential kill list, drone bombings and secretive missions by highly trained military members in government sanctioned assassinations and murders. Even in everyday life, the citizens of every country place value on the lives of every other nation’s people.

Can there be a Humanitarian cause for military intervention. In this question lies an impasse of logic. Can the killing of some be considered “humanitarian” if it is the case to help others to live? If a country’s government were to threaten another with nuclear annihilation, would it not be in the humanitarian sense a point for justifiable intervention?  To ensure the loss of life is kept at a minimum and the worldwide effects of such an act be avoided? One could argue in the defense of the intervener as the wholly humanitarian effort and against the aggressor as the initiator of force. But the end result of to take a life to save a life contradicts the compassionate excuse it seeks to eradicate.  In the purely libertarian sense, one can urge intervention so long as those whose mind is made up against said intervention are not forced or coerced into facilitating the action, whether that be through taxation to afford the intervention, conscription to the cause of the intervention or whatever other means to force a person to act against their own belief of non-intervention.

What is the Humanitarian case AGAINST intervention?

Military intervention comes in many forms. From the small arms trades and sales, troop training, asset maintenance and facilitator of large weapons and munitions, and of course the act of entering into a military conflict with supplies of troops and mechanized weaponry. In the present, all of these actions are ultimately coerced from those who may or may not hold value to them, as stated before, increased taxation and conscription are all part of the norm for these types of affairs.

The Humanitarian case comes into effect at the soldier level and at the economic impact level it has on the citizenry of the intervening nation or state.  Each soldier’s life and those that they may take in combat or those that die from indirect conflict related economic hardships are not necessarily counted as such in current times. But each one of these should be considered when trying to make a humanitarian case either for or against intervention of any kind. As stated before the taking of one life by any means declares the end result of any intervention wholly inhumane and against the stated goal of saving humanity from death or harm.

What are the effects of Intervention?

There is a persistent fallacy associated with those that claim Non-Interventionism is Isolationism. Calling someone an isolationist has become the favored insult to Neo-Conservatives and the Neo-Liberals to cast towards libertarians. While not every Libertarian completely agrees with the idea of Non-Intervention, the same can be said of the idea of Intervention by Conservatives and Liberals.

The term Isolationist is one that for the most part is used erroneously and in a kind of inaccurate, hypocritical way. If the refraining from foreign affairs isolates any nation or state from any others it is in a belief that the non-intervening state or nation has some Responsibility to Protect (R2P) any others. In this theory any nation’s citizens should come to expect to be saved by all other nations or states if their respected nation or state fails to provide adequate protections. In that aim any nation’s citizens can expect to oblige to pay for any such intervention by their government. But this obligation often comes begrudgingly or not at all voluntarily. Should any state or nation, in their attempt to save another, put their own citizens at risk? Or to force them to give up their wealth on a choice not made by them that they may not find the least bit worthy of their contribution?

Sometimes intervention has other effects; creating enemies and leading to an inclusive war or attack by an offended nation or state. It has the effect of reduced production in consumer markets; due to enlistment, conscription or mandatory transfer of market production to production of intervention bound supplies.

However you view intervention it is imperative to comprehend that no matter what type of intervention is being touted, it ultimately is not in the name of humanitarian efforts. It is, as it is now, a monumental shift of wealth and lives into the domain of public welfare, domestic theft of wealth, imperialism and will have further effects that will affect those who have had no choice to submit their own voice against the will and actions of the government they live under. 

How Conservative can you be?

The typical conservative claims to believe in smaller government, reduced spending and reduced taxation, but their actions go against this supposed belief. Recently I have been hearing Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives railing against these very stances in opposition to political opponents.

In Florida the governor’s race is seemingly between Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott and former Governor Charlie Crist, who while governor was in the Republican party but later switched to an Independent and finally settling with his current party affiliation in the Democrat Party. The campaign ads against Charlie Crist are easy fallacies and half-truths; they are simply hit and run ads trying to come across as something meaningful and worthwhile. The first issue the Republican Party and conservatives are harping on is that under the current Governor the State is spending MORE on education than ever before and calling the Charlie Crist era the worst decrease in educational spending.

Yes you read that correctly, they are saying that reduced spending is bad and increased spending is good.

To Charlie Crist’s benefit I can say this, his time is office was during the greatest recession (some calling it a depression) in our lifetime, so far anyways...

So why does this matter? The Republican Party would like you to believe that what transpired under Crist was solely on his hands, reduced spending on education, high unemployment, record numbers of foreclosures in the state and the number of businesses dropping was not an isolated incident only in the State of Florida, but a result of a National Recession, Housing Market Crash and Wall Street Problems. Another thing to remember in this is that everything the Republican Party of Florida is using for cannon fodder in these ads was passed under a Republican led state legislature. Now that those conditions have cleared up, or have been covered over, whichever you believe, the current Governor, Scott can seem a better alternative to Crist. But anyone who looks at the issue from the stance of the conservatives should clearly see the hypocrisy in the campaign against Crist.

Though not endorsing anyone for this race, if you live in Florida please be aware there are other options, and also consider abstaining from voting at all.

This trend of saying you believe in one thing and acting another way isn't confined to the State of Florida. This mentality is nationwide. It seems to be just the nature of politics and the want for power and control. Republicans and Conservatives will champion a policy of reduced spending, except in key areas mainly Military and National Security. These two areas in particular are the holiest of holies in terms of non-negotiable items to be reformed or reduced. The annual spending in these two areas have been increased in the last few years with many Republicans voting in favor of the increases. Adding to these costs is the added departments and bureaus being introduced and bolstered by increased funding. All of this flies in the face of the stated stance of Conservatives and yet they see no problem with it. Florida isn't the only state where this is happening either, it is a widespread issue.

Now the call for the Border Fence comes in. 

In the past few weeks an increase of people coming to the American-Mexican border has increased. This increase has rekindled the debate for immigration reform and adding more funding to building a border security fence, adding border patrol agents, buildings and in the most extreme cases using military troops to repel immigrants by force if necessary. But all of this costs. It costs money and the only way the government sees to gain this money is to increase taxes to the citizens. This again goes against their stance on reducing spending and lowering taxes.

According to the US Immigration office "It is estimated that between 2000 and 2010, U.S. taxpayers spent $90 billion on securing the U.S.-Mexico border. This includes various expenses such as the cost of deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the border, which is $110 million per year, the average salary of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent, which is $75,000—in 2010, there were 20,000 CBP agents deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, the cost of an X-ray machine to peer into cargo trains and trucks, each costs $1.75 million—of which the U.S. uses 165. There is also the cost of building fences, employing drug-sniffing dogs, the use of predator drones, and various other incendiaries." 

Foreign Aid 

Foreign Aid costs the American Taxpayers around $23 billion in 2013, or a total of $37 billion if you include assistance to foreign militaries. This is approximately 1% of the total US Budget. Even this being only 1% of total budget  it is still such a large portion of money coming out of the paychecks and purses of every American Citizen. This is another one of those areas where so called conservatives are anything but. The issue facing Foreign aid is the idea of taking money from the people of one country and handing it over to another. 

Intervention costs money

The Neoconservative War Hawks and Pro Interventionists will fail to grasp that their intervention into affairs of other countries and governments will have an economic impact. Any intervention that is proposed costs money to implement. Whether they wish to send humanitarian aid, food, training, military weapons, to impose sanctions or even blockades, this will always costs taxpayers in the end. Just the intervention in Crimea cost the American people $896 Million.

The War on Drugs and the War on Terror are two more examples of a reluctance to curb spending and instead cast themselves headlong into hypocritical action over their beliefs. These two programs have been dismal failures and have cost not only billions of dollars annually but have also cost the lives of countless people.
The War on Drugs has created a situation that the US is facing now in Mexico where the drug cartels are pushing people towards the borders and have taken over as warring monopolies. 

The War on Terror is the Combination of wasteful spending, increasing budgets and the creation of new and expanding departments. Spending billions in an attempt to "Make Peace by War", it is something that never was, and never will be. 

How Conservative can you be when you support these programs and ideas? How conservative can you really call yourself if you tend to spend more money year after year, raise taxes, build a bigger and more intrusive government? These are just a few of the many ways that conservatives have lost their definition and have went full steam in the opposite direction. 

What do you call a man fighting for his home?

A person who fights against an invading force in their home country is called what?

A. Hero
B. Patriot
C. Terrorist
D. It depends on what the US Government calls them

As you answer this question take a minute to think about what is asked here.

If a person, any person, from anywhere in the world, from any religion, from any creed or color, any nationality, backed by any government or a free person fights against any invading force in their home country what do you call them?

It gets a bit more complicated when you stop to think of how what people think and how people act are two entirely opposite things, polar opposites in fact. 

In one breath I bet most would say this person would be a hero or a patriot, but think about it another way. What do you call those Afghanistanis and Iraqis fighting for their home? What do you call the Syrians and Saudis, the Pakistanis and Yemenis that are taking up arms against the invading American Government's military? 

Are they still considered Heroes and Patriots?  

Or did they Magically become Terrorists, Radicals, Murderers? Did the American Government labeling them terrorists change what they were fighting for or against? Did the final root situation change? Or was it all the mindset and perception of the individual being manipulated by an outside entity?

A member of a military, any military is no more a hero or patriot for attacking someone else's home than the other for protecting his home. The Invading force is no less a terrorist than the other for doing what he does.

This is a test of the idea of Nationalism. A test of mindful hypocrisy. A test to the idea of what is called "American Exceptionalism"

Did your answer stay the same from beginning to end?

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