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AT: Genocide – Intervention won’t happen – Empirics



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AT: Genocide – Intervention won’t happen – Empirics


No state is willing to intervene in genocides regardless of information


Barnet 3 (Michael, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Eyewitness to a genocide, OST p.x)

The United States used its considerable power in the Security Council to help muzzle the call for intervention and later obstructed those who wanted to intervene. While everyone else at the UN put on their best funereal faces, not the United States. It responded to the subsequent barrage of criticism by swerving from one justification to another. At the time of the genocide U.S. officials argued aggressively that there was no basis for intervention because there was no peace to keep in a country in the midst of a civil war. Later President Bill Clinton insisted that he was unaware of the genocide and would have acted had he known. It was quickly shown that the United States was not nearly as dull-witted as it pretended to be. At other times the United States objected to the insinuation that it should provide troops for every humanitarian emergency. And, it was frequently added, the United States was only behaving like other states: sure, it did not care enough to send troops, but no state did. American behavior was excusable because everyone behaved badly.
Lack of political will prevents intervention


Barnet 3 (Michael, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Eyewitness to a genocide, OST p.x)

A subsequent wave of investigations revealed a more complex story, shifting the drama away from the United States and toward the Security Council and the Secretariat.2 In the council, isolated voices had appealed for troops, but their words were drowned out by the clamor for withdrawal and they, too, eventually favored scaling back the UN's involvement. The council's reasons were many, including the simple fact that there were no troops available for intervention. Immediately after the council had voted to reduce the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) to a shadow of its former self, die genocide became clearly discernible. But the council's duplicitous reaction was to refuse to call the events by their proper name—genocide—for fear of being compelled to act. Once genocide became publicly undeniable in early May, the UN quickly jerry-built a proposal for intervention. One glaring problem, however: the requisite troops could not be located. The council was noisy with passionate speeches on behalf of dying Rwandans but fell quickly silent when the Secretariat asked for volunteers. This collective silence from the UN from start to finish can be attributed to a "lack of political will."3 Sometimes this platitude is code used to single out particular, powerful states. In this instance, however, practically the entire council can be credited for "failing" Rwanda.


The UN and member states won’t intervene


Barnet 3 (Michael, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Eyewitness to a genocide, OST p.x)

The inescapable conclusion from these accounts is that the UN responded to the genocide with willful ignorance and indifference. States allowed an almighty realpolitik to smother their faint humanitarianism—a depressingly familiar story that reinforces the time-worn view that cold-hearted strategic calculations always trump noble ideals. Member states did not have a monopoly on duplicity and moral shallowness, for UN staff also knew what was transpiring on the ground yet still favored detachment until it was too late. Confronted by the greatest of all moral imperatives, the UN had delivered a whimper of a response. Inquiries into this international indifference have seemingly exhumed an entire system that is rotten and, to paraphrase the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, run by "men without chests."7
Governments and international organizations will avoid intervention


Barnet 3 (Michael, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Eyewitness to a genocide, OST p.x)

My decision to give prominence to the UN's culture crystallized after I reflected on my personal experiences and listened carefully to the accounts and testimonies of various participants. The UN was not a totalizing institution that transformed fairly independent-minded diplomats and international civil servants into bloodless bureaucrats, but it did profoundly influence how they looked at and acted upon the world. Government officials and UN staff came to know Rwanda as members of bureaucracies; the bureaucratic culture situated and defined their knowledge, informed their goals and desires, shaped what constituted appropriate and inappropriate behavior, distinguished acceptable from unacceptable consequences, and helped to determine right from wrong. Bureaucracy is not only a structure; it is also a process. Bureaucracies arc orienting machines. They have the capacity to channel action and to transform individual into collective conscience. The existing stock of knowledge, the understanding of what constitutes proper means and ends, and the symbolic significance of events were organizationally situated.9


AT: Genocide – Intervention won’t happen – Empirics


No intervention- structure of the international community


Barnet 3 (Michael, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Eyewitness to a genocide, OST p.x)

Finally, some states and UN staff judge their primordial interests as far more compelling than transnational commitments or obligations to others, in this case the Rwandans. Not everyone at the UN desperately sought a way to balance their desire to help the Rwandans with their other obligations and responsibilities. This was not "Sophie's choice" played on an international stage. In some cases, the lack of concern for Rwandans was arrestingly callous, with an easy willingness to sacrifice the victims when they became inconvenient. The French have the distinction of calling the killers their friends and allies. The American role was less intimate but clearly insensitive. During this period the United States was ready to make examples of delinquent operations, notwithstanding the severe consequences for those on the ground. It publicly held that this position was justified given the UN's scarce resources, and privately confessed it was motivated by a desire to avoid a domestic headache. Also on the roll call of shame should be the vast majority of governments that held perfunctory conversations before politely declining to contribute troops to an intervention. UN staff also acted in ways that suggest that they believed the organization's interests (and perhaps their own careers) would be better served by remaining distant. Any account of the genocide must preserve the abundance of politically expedient and strategically calculated indiscretions.


Genocides can’t be prevented and intervention won’t happen
Guarino 8 (Kia, Media relations @ Amnesty international, bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/communication/pdf/thesis09.guarino.pdf, DA 7/8/11, OST)

In an analysis of public statements delivered by American Presidents on the genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, and Rwanda, a few significant similarities and differences were apparent. To begin with, in each of the three genocides the violence arguably emerged from deep-seated ethno-political divisions. Secondly, the aggression was characterized by large-scale execution and extensive human rights abuses. The final similarity is the United States’ repeated inability or unwillingness to take action against the suffering in spite of numerous promises. Beyond these circumstantial similarities, there are also significant parallels in the rhetoric surrounding each of the genocides. From these parallels, a new method of generic criticism was developed.
Public won’t force intervention
Guarino 8 (Kia, Media relations @ Amnesty international, bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/communication/pdf/thesis09.guarino.pdf, DA 7/8/11, OST)

By using diffusing language, the public becomes more willing to forgive a lack of military intervention in humanitarian crises, and the President does not appear immoral. His rhetoric essentially removes the crisis from that categorization and urgency. It is an important and powerful tactic that, based on the analyses of the three genocides, has been used throughout the 20 th Century to avoid engaging in undesired military interventions.


The government won’t intervene and the populace will be placated
Guarino 8 (Kia, Media relations @ Amnesty international, bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/cas_sites/communication/pdf/thesis09.guarino.pdf, DA 7/8/11, OST)

The establishment of a smaller, more manageable crisis that the United States is able to ‘solve’ characterizes the second primary line of argument. However, this rhetorical strategy generally discounts the continuation of the genocide. Each small crisis varies depending on the specific genocide, but the basic concept remains the same. In some cases, this is characterized by the emphasis of more pressing issues and the redirection of blame, such as the prevention of expanding Communist influence. By quickly and efficiently resolving this new issue, the American public is placated for the time being, having been satisfied by a small but tangible solution, even if the problem is not the most significant one. It is generally quite effective because it allows the American public the opportunity to feel relief from guilt while absolving the President from engaging in potentially undesirable military interventions.




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