Towards the end of his lecture on human values, Michael Ignatieff discusses the issues surrounding military intervention and human rights. He states, “Intervention, instead of reinforcing respect for human rights, is consuming their legitimacy, both because our interventions are unsuccessful and because they are inconsistent. And we cannot solve our problem by not intervening at all.” Ignatieff argues that the United States has failed in its past military interventions in Rwanda, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. Today, the United States faces the dilemma of whether to use military force as a means to intervene in Syria’s civil war. In their attempt to overthrow their authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad, as many as 7,000 Syrian citizens have died. With the United States feeling morally obligated to help the Syrian people, military force has been debated as the correct means to do so. But many argue, like Igatieff, that using violence to stop violence will only lead to further suffering and violations on human rights. If military intervention must be used, there needs to be clear basis to justify that decision. It’s clear that there needs to be an intervention in Syria, but whether or not military use should be used is unclear.
Hoping For Humanity 