Military Intervention for Libya

There was a very interesting line up of events for this year's Communication Week and I was more than excited to attend the debate on military intervention in humanitarian causes on March 8, 2011. Both sides made excellent cases, considering the economics and politics of the issue as much as the psychology and humanity. I tend to be able to view both sides of any argument fairly equally, but in this case I believe the positive case for the issue won the debate.

When many people hear the term mass murder they tend to think about serial killers or bombings, but not often is that term associated with genocide. In many cases, genocide becomes synonymous with murder but it is difficult to differentiate the distinction when it comes to international issues. With the case of Libya, the people are begging and pleading America to help them but President Obama is hesitant to become involved. In an article from the Wall Street Journal, President Obama said he did not want to send in troops until Col. Gadhafi had left power. The only problem is that Gadhafi had formerly said he would not stop until he suppressed the uprisings using any means necessary. How can we as human beings ignore such a plea? Here are the three arguments the opposition made to explain why sometimes it's better not to become involved:

Negative

1. Interventions increase violence and problems, leading America to become viewed as a horrible "policeman".
2. Nonintervention can solve a crisis using diplomatic resolutions and other means such as jamming aircraft signals.
3. American intervention polarizes the world and can lead to political fallouts especially within the Muslim world.

As true as some of these statements might be in a few cases, I believe the following arguments for the positive side were much stronger:

Positive

1. Lives will be saved and it doesn't necessarily mean the situation will escalate to a full scale war.
2. Intervention increases U.S. credibility and trust.
3. It helps the economy and decreases oil prices and other inflated costs.
4. There is a great history of successful interventions where war does not occur, such as the case with Liberia.

America is strong enough to face criticism for failed attempts, but we are not strong enough to face criticism for letting people die when we had the ability to take action. Whether it increases or decreases anti-Americanism, we at least bring a high level of threat to other countries and our allies would not look poorly upon us for intervening. In fact, countries such as France are ready to take action, but they wait to follow the instruction of America as many other countries do. We therefore cannot just sit around having such power in our hands and refuse to do anything for a country that is begging for our help.

Yes interventions don't always go as planned, but sitting by and doing nothing is almost worse than doing something and messing up. If we intervene with some form of military action or aid then it does not mean we will have to stay there until a new government is set up, as we did in Iraq. Instead of viewing Libya as another Iraq we should view it as a humanitarian cause that is on the verge of becoming an issue of genocide. With hundreds more dying every day it becomes more of an issue of humanity instead of politics. We need to waste less time negotiating with a dictator and focus more on mobilizing an effort of intervention.