Word: humanitarianism
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...long experience of emergencies and I've never seen anything like this," says Julio Sosa Calo, head of mission in Laputta for the German relief group Malteser International. "We need a huge humanitarian response. What we're doing now is too little compared to the need." There are now 58 camps in town, most of them set up in temples, monasteries and schools. More survivors arrive every day. "To be honest, we're all a bit lost when it comes to numbers," confesses Sosa Calo. "People know that this is the place where they can get assistance, so they...
...disaster in Burma presents the world with perhaps its most serious humanitarian crisis since the 2004 Asian tsunami. By most reliable estimates, close to 100,000 people are dead. Delays in delivering relief to the victims, the inaccessibility of the stricken areas and the poor state of Burma's infrastructure and health systems mean that number is sure to rise. With as many as 1 million people still at risk, it is conceivable that the death toll will, within days, approach that of the entire number of civilians killed in the genocide in Darfur...
...Administration has so far rejected the idea - "I can't imagine us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday - but it's not without precedent: as Natsios pointed out to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid without the host government's consent in places like Bosnia and Sudan...
...coercive humanitarian intervention would be complicated and costly. During the 2004 tsunami, some 24 U.S. ships and 16,000 troops were deployed in countries across the region; the mission cost the U.S. $5 million a day. Ultimately, the U.S. pledged nearly $900 million to tsunami relief. (By contrast, it has offered just $3.25 million to Burma.) But the risks would be greater this time: the Burmese government's xenophobia and insecurity make them prone to view U.S. troops - or worse, foreign relief workers - as hostile forces. (Remember Black Hawk Down?) Even if the U.S. and its allies made clear that...
...intervene unilaterally." But by then, it could be too late. The cold truth is that states rarely undertake military action unless their national interests are at stake; and the world has yet to reach a consensus about when, and under what circumstances, coercive interventions in the name of averting humanitarian disasters are permissible. As the response to the 2004 tsunami proved, the world's capacity for mercy is limitless. But we still haven't figured out when to give war a chance...