Why Humanitarian Interventionism is a Dead End: Beware the Anti-Anti-War Left

[Selatius]

1. This issue is going to come to the fore if Assad does indeed gas his own people.

You should see the distinction on the left between the pro- and anti- intervention segment here at DU crystallize.

My feeling is that if the cause is worthy, I'd rather emulate the model left behind by people who joined the Lincoln Brigade and the George Washington Brigade in their fight against fascism in Spain pushed by Francisco Franco. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt saw fit to intervene militarily in a brutal civil war launched by the extreme right against Republican Spain. Those who did view the fight as worthy volunteered and traveled on their own volition to Europe and then into Spain to fight. They served just as honorably as any draftee during the Second World War.

The idea of the United States getting involved in another major conflict in the Middle East is--I find--unpalatable at best, destructive at worst.