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Friday, August 05, 2005

Why I am a foreign policy interventionist

I recently polled a group of my friends regarding our political viewpoints on social issues, economic issues, and foreign policy. There was a surprising range of opinions, especially on foreign policy issues.

This was a good exercise for me because it made me think through the issues. Two things have really made me come down on the side of interventionism:

1. This past weekend I finally got around to watching Hotel Rwanda. Such a well made movie that avoided feeling preachy. I suppose it is the foreign policy equivalent of Traffic. I kept thinking to myself during the movie, as I'm sure most people thought who watched it, "How did we let this happen?" Looking back now, I feel very strongly that we should have put troops on the ground to intervene. I'm sure some will say that the cost is too much. I couldn't disagree more. The cost shouldn't matter. The real tragedy is that this is happening all over again in Darfur. Why do we not have troops on the ground, stopping the genocide? There is no excuse.


2. Heidi Metcalf with Geneva Global wrote an outstanding five part series on the problem of human trafficking at Common Grounds Online. How can people hear about such atrocities and not be moved to action? And I don't mean sanctions. When have sanctions against other countries really done anything?