Dan O'Huiginn

"Humanitarian intervention - the nonconsensual use of force - is dead. It had a very short life - September 1995 to the summer of 2003 - and it's been killed for the next decade. America is the only power than can do it and, after Iraq, we would just be recruiting fodder for this apocalyptic nihilism."

Samantha Power, quoted in the NYT

I'm sure there are hundreds of articles elsewhere, making the same point in more depth. It is sad in a way, but I've never been all that convinced by military intervention. Not only is it always twisted by the political ambitions of the great powers, but it is almost never economically worthwhile. If we could channel all the enthusiasm for military intervention into education and healthcare, we might actually improve the world.

Posted by Dan at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That sums up Blair nicely. Just watched his last Prime Ministers questions, where he praised everyone but the Labour party, and did nothing to transfer goodwill from himself onto Brown and the party.

Edit: Also, the Labour party line seems to be that sentencing Chemical Ali to death is an unequivocally Good Thing. Including Ann Clwyd. So much for a moral stance against the death penalty.

[that's right. I'm not dead. I've just not been paying enough attention to the world around me to say anything coherent about anything. This may - or may not - change in the future]

Posted by Dan at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)