Letter: History also says military intervention can work
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.BRIAN CATHCART is without doubt right when he tells us that armed intervention is 'never a tidy business'. War by its very nature is not a tidy business. The emotions it stirs up and the confusion it creates see to this. Messier still is any war justified as humanitarian intervention: the seeming contradiction of advocating extreme violence as a means of preserving human life and dignity throws up enormously complex moral and practical dilemmas.
What is not quite so clear is the value that we are to place on such a statement. Arguments that humanitarian intervention has in the past not been successful or that it possesses potential for abuse lend nothing to this debate. We should be aware of its past misuse but there is nothing inherently wrong in the practice of such intervention. Its success or failure is simply a question of political will. I tend to agree with Professor Lauterpacht, the international legal scholar, who said that 'ultimately peace is more endangered by tyrannical contempt for human rights than by attempts to assert, through intervention, the sanctity of human personality'.
Jonathan Prentice
Cambridge
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments