. 6 Realists of course discard ethics in foreign affairs (with exceptions, such as those realists who take seriously the ‘morality of states’ 7 ) and regard only threats to vital interests worthy of intervention, and intervention for humanitarian reasons a delusion, or as bogus. Most leftist thinkers, such as Noam Chomsky, 8 Edward Said, Tariq Ali, 9 Jacques Derrida or Jean Baudrillard denounced the 1999 intervention in Kosovo and the whole idea of ‘humanitarian
to offend brutally the opinion of moral people in their own or other countries’. 2 The four interventions were successful in stopping the ‘effusion of blood’. They were not merely better than nothing (as in the case of Somalia today), too late (Rwanda) or leading to inordinate destruction, refugees and civilian deaths (Kosovo/Serbia). The insurgents themselves sought foreign armed intervention to save them. With the exception of the Cubans
progress has always been distant and difficult and faith in progress has not become any easier. Signs of barbarism were acutely visible in the 1990s in the mass murder of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo and the simultaneous genocide in Rwanda, and more indirectly indicated by the silence, if not effective collusion, with which these catastrophes were largely met in the ‘international community’. In addition, the scepticism with which many leftist groups and
and mass violence in Argentina, the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Iraq in particular have seen the development of sophisticated search and recovery methodologies.6 The evidence collected and examined by forensic archaeologists and anthropologists has been used in court to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable and in a humanitarian context in order to satisfy the needs of families and friends of victims wishing to know the fate of their loved ones. Likewise, in some countries (such as the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States