Newsletter 2013/02/27 – Western Morals
BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Own report) – Foreign policy experts in Berlin and
Washington are strongly criticizing using human rights to justify
military interventions. Wars waged in the name of human rights are
being considered almost “a moral obligation” in the public opinion of
some western countries, according to a recent study published by the
German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). The
“moralizing discourse of western public opinion” doubts the “morals”
of those criticizing interventions, for example, in the war on Libya,
and accuses them of lacking “compassion for the foreseeable victims of
a humanitarian catastrophe.” This discourse not only facilitates media
manipulations, which play a regular role in justifying interventions,
it also takes the consequences of military interventions
insufficiently into account. This, in fact, is clearly shown in the
case of the war on Libya, which not only caused numerous casualties,
but wrought wide-ranging social devastation throughout Libya. The war
in Mali, which threatens to plunge the entire Western Sahara into new
upheavals, can be seen as a direct consequence of the war on Libya. US
experts are pointing out that the idea of intervening militarily in
foreign countries to prevent violence, is also the basis for US drone
warfare.
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