Military action is costly, but not as much as apathy

[alp227]

Richard Cohen, Washington Post

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed an international conference at Evian-les-Bains, France, to deal with the urgent problem of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Representatives from 32 countries met for 10 days, trying to come to grips with a humanitarian calamity. At the end, only the Dominican Republic agreed to admit additional Jewish refugees, and Hitler, observing matters from Berlin, concluded that the world would permit him to do with the Jews as he wished. He murdered 6 million of them.

The Evian conference is not much mentioned anymore — although it should never be forgotten. It was a monument to international apathy and indifference, not to mention appalling selfishness — “as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one,” said the Australian delegate. Participants convened at the Hotel Royal, a fine resort on Lake Geneva, and resolved only to wring their hands. They had their reasons.

We heard some of those same sentiments expressed by opponents of U.S. intervention in Libya. I do not liken the situation there to the imminence of the Holocaust, only the startling willingness of good people to mask their cold indifference with appeals to fiscal prudence or something similar.

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/military_action_is_costly_but_not_as_much_as_apathy/2011/03/28/AFRI7mqB_story.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. It's not as if the US has been standing on the sidelines for the last 10 years.

[jwirr]

2. No for the last 10+ years we have been propping some of those

ME dictators up so we could get their oil and we did not much care what they did to their people.

Thanks for the OP - again I have learned something about history I did not know.

[daa]

3. Total BS

The same thing happens everyday and who appointed up world military spender of last resort? Look, Syria is doing it. Yemen. Chinese do it in Tibet. Russia in Chechnya. Where do yo want to drop your bombs next?

You an always tell the hypocrites. None of you agreed wi9th Bush but Obama does the same thing and you are on board.

I'll bet one thing. You are probably like the chicken hawk republicans that never got drafted and never served in war or you wouldn't be so anxious to intervene in tribal warfare that has NOTHING to do with the security of the US or our strategic interests.

[bemildred]

4. This is babble.

You don't start wars out of compassion.

[Zoeisright]

5. Exactly. Thank you.

And shame on all of you people who think it would have been fine to do nothing.

[The Blue Flower]

6. Damn us for propping up dictators!

So now, when we know there will be a massacre of civilians, and we go in with a real coalition to prevent it, to stop propping up a madman, it's wrong, wrong, wrong?

There hasn't been a veil of lies and propaganda, this is not a post-August new-product rollout. I believe that bush/cheney has so poisoned the well for any use of our military that no action will ever be justified again.