when is it right to intervene?

COMMENT

If it were discovered that a country had built gas chambers and was systematically exterminating its own people by the thousand or tens of thousands, would anyone object to the rest of the world rearing up in outrage? There wouldn't just be a no-fly zone, there would be a full scale ground invasion, anything in fact to prevent the mass slaughter. Unfortunately the world community is rarely faced with such clear-cut scenarios for its consideration.

When Gaddafi threatened to enter Benghazi and drag people out of their homes and shoot them, the whole world reacted with horror. Even the usually reticent Russia and China did not stand in the way of setting up a no-fly zone to prevent this terrible act taking place. Now, of course, "the West" has got itself in a bit of a pickle, as it has become clear that this tactic will not in itself remove the crazy one from power. At best it is preventing the Libyan "loyalists" from completely crushing the "opposition". But what to do next?

Without an invasion (and I for one do not believe that would be wise) Gaddafi will stay where he is. And what of other countries where the cry for freedom is currently being crushed? Here I am thinking particularly of Syria, though there are many other places where citizens live under a brutal and repressive regime: North Korea, Saudi Arabia (the women at least) and of course China, where Ai Wei Wei is still in prison for criticising the government. Then there's Sri Lanka, where the government, and also the Tamil Tigers to a lesser extent, participated in mass murder to further their aims. At one point in the conflict apparently, the Tamils forced huge numbers of people to act as human shields, only for the government forces to shell them anyway. What do we do about that, and more importantly, shouldn't we have done something a long time ago?

One of these days we will see a truly effective "World Police Force" which will nip these problems in the bud before mass murder gets under way. Until then we will continue to live in a very dangerous and unjust world.