Apparently, he's not the only one who thinks this is a good idea:
I am not convinced that a mercenary option would be politically viable on multiple fronts -- including acceptance by the US, UN, China, Russia, and others who would have the power to stop a mercenary army from going in. I particularly think this would be a problem due to the oil and uranium supplies in Sudan. Additionally, I'm sure the precedent would scare many nations, raising additional objections. If this army was funded through private charity it might be difficult to raise funds. What would the advertising campaign be? "Donate a dollar to deter death with a gun?"
That's the central message of this opinion piece by Rebecca Ulam Weiner.
Three years of fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan have left an estimated 180,000 dead and nearly 2 million refugees. In recent weeks, both the UN and the US have turned up the volume of their demands to end the violence (which the Bush administration has publicly called genocide), but they've been hard pressed to turn their exhortations into action. The government in Khartoum has scuttled the UN's plans to take control of the troubled peacekeeping operations currently being led by the African Union, and NATO recently stated publicly that a force of its own in Darfur is "out of the question." Meanwhile, refugee camps and humanitarian aid workers continue to be attacked, and the 7,000 African Union troops remain overstretched and ineffective.This is the solution to some of Africa's many civil wars that I have favored for years, not because it is a good solution, but because it is the least bad solution available. UN forces have been — at best — ineffectual, in many of these conflicts, because the UN soldiers are too few, too poorly trained, too poorly equipped, and too undisciplined. Nations that do have effective military forces are unwilling to commit them to Africa. But the military tasks are often small enough so that they could be handled by mercenaries. (Sorry, private security firms.)
But according to J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of the private security firm Blackwater, there is another option that ought to be on the table: an organization that could commit significant resources and expertise to bolster the African Union peacekeepers and provide emergency support to their flagging mission.
Having said all of this, from a humanitarian and economic perspective, it is an intriguing notion. Is there any significant moral distinction between sending in a government vs. non-governmental army? Would the potential benefits outweigh the costs? I think this statement makes a particularly poignant point:
I didn't know there was consideration of using a private army in Rwanda? I wonder how much it might have helped? My guess is that they could have done quite a bit of good and prevented many deaths.
The "international community", specifically the UN, does prefer genocide to using mercenaries. I was not surprised to learn, for example, that Kofi Annan had specifically rejected using a private firm during what Weiner calls the "Rwandan refugee crisis". (I assume she is talking about the time after the genocide.)
As uncomfortable as many would be with the thought of raising a private army to intervene, is this truly a worse option than genocide? It certainly brings up many moral questions: When is it right to use force to stop force? What is the moral distinction between public and private armies? Why is one allowed and the other more restricted? If the resources and will was available to raise such an army, what are the probabilities there would be political maneuvers to block their entry into Darfur?
We discussed similar issues during Loren Lomasky's visit to GMU. His take was that there was a moral duty for the actors (i.e. governments) most able to take action to help in humanitarian crises such as this.
My guess is that many from the rally yesterday would be horrified to think about sending in a private force of mercenaries, but would have no problems whatsoever with the same actions being taken under the banner of the UN and/or US. Very interesting...
I'm still trying to figure out my thoughts on this. As an economist, I am intrigued by the thought of how well this might work and what political incentives might keep it from happening. As a Christian, I am a bit more reserved in endorsing the private use of force, but also can't get around the thought that it might prevent many deaths. Is it worth the sacrifice of many lives just to take a "moral highground"? Just how moral is that?
The thought of using "mercenaries" also makes me wonder if a security force could be used by developing nations to effectively "outsource" rule of law? Perhaps this could be a new form of foreign aid -- using money collected either publicly or privately to fund armed security forces to provide protection and law enforcement to people in those countries. If used in conjunction with some type of corresponding mechanism/process/organization to help design and run a court-system, it might be used as a temporary measure to help transition developing countries into more stable, growing economies.
Does anyone have any thoughts on these issues? Additionally, any thoughts on what action the US government and UN should or should not take in the Darfur situation?
1 comment:
Justin Raimondo has some thoughts, which I pretty much agree with in full.
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