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There is a new and highly regarded literary genre inquiring into the cultural defects that keep us from responding properly to the crimes of others. An interesting question no doubt, though by any reasonably standard it ranks well below a different one: Why do we persist in or crimes, either directly or through crucial support for murderous clients? It is constructive to ask how often, or how accurately, one finds reference to Turkey, Colombia, East Timor, and many contemporary literature on the flaws in our character. There is much self-congratulation about the new "ruling ideology" in the moral universe of the enlightened states, grounded in the principal that "all states have a responsibility, to protect their citizens' if their leaders are unable or unwilling to do so, they render their countries liable to military intervention = authorized by the Security Council or, failing that , by individual countries in 'conscience-shocking situations'" Atrocities comparable to or much worse than anything charged to Milosevic in Kosovo before the NATO bombing were not "conscience-shocking" when responsibility traced back home, as it often did - and even when the crimes took place within, not just near, the borders of NATO. (en) |
