To intervene, or not intervene that is the question

An opinion piece in yesterday’s New York Times written by former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright (found here) really touched my heart because it contained so many thoughts and questions that I have struggled with for a few years. It’s nice when someone famous and articulate voices your opinion to the masses.

Here’s the paragraph that really stirs me:

[...]the international community would recognize a responsibility to override sovereignty in emergency situations — to prevent ethnic cleansing or genocide, arrest war criminals, restore democracy or provide disaster relief when national governments were either unable or unwilling to do so.

Albright begins her essay by using Myanmar as an example, a wonderful example, of a 21st century dictatorship which is thriving. (This is the exact point that I made in my post here where I questioned the seemingly rising number of dictatorships.) For well over a year I have wondered when it is appropriate to intervene, with force, and bring change to a “sovereign” nation. I understand the isolationist theory, and it has merit, but in the 21st century can we really accept the fact that people die in such dire poverty, knowing nothing of the words “democracy,” “choice,” or “human rights?”

I cannot live with that.

Albright talks about how US President George Bush’s intervention in Iraq has lead to the present preference towards non-intervention, and even calls to move towards isolationism. As a result,

[...]Myanmar’s leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions. Sudan has been able to dictate the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur. The government of Zimbabwe may yet succeed in stealing a presidential election.

How long must people wait before an outside government or world body says we must intervene? What are the conditions that must be met for the average person to say “Okay, now we should do something”? How many people must die? Are the over 300,000 deaths in Darfur not enough? What is an adequate number of deaths that justifies an intervention? Is the fact that a government denies its citizens food, shelter and medical necessities after a natural disaster not enough?

To think that we, in the western world, with our abundance of technology- blogs, the Internet, TV, and radio–hear about the atrocities occurring around the world, see pictures and video of the conflicts, read news articles that describe brutal living conditions, and choose to pretend like we don’t really know what’s happening and there’s nothing we can do to help is utterly selfish and unacceptable.

People across the globe-from Myanmar to Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea to North Korea, and Darfur to Belarus-are thinking, “why are we invisible to the world?” and “when will change come?”