Mass Atrocity Response Operations

[redbullets]

I would recommend rounding up some of the old Kurdistan hands on this, like Peter Galbraith, as there are a few academics and humanitarians who responded or attempted to rally political will during the Anfal Campaigns in Iraqi Kurdistan during 1987-8. There are a few decent histories of Anfal out there, and a number of those who are authorities on the matter can be identified through those publications. Mike Amitay, formerly Executive Director of the Washington Kurdish Institute could probably guide you to the right folks. Galbraith was pulled in as Ambassador to Croatia in 1995 based on his advocacy against Anfal, but managed to tick someone off in the administration for being morally/philosophically consistent and was shown the door, if memory serves.

Speaking of Anfal, we had the RDJTF or QRDF or whatever we called the 82nd/101st/24th during that era. Dropping in light infantry rapid response folks to intervene would have been operationally feasible, no? What prevented it was national interst and lack of political will. That would seem to me to be a more important area to focus on - its a heck of a lot easier, IMO, to prepare military formations to respond in these situations than it is to convince our leadership that there is an imperative to do so, humanitarian or otherwise, in locations where compelling national interests are not easy to identify, if they exist at all. During Anfal it seems it was more important to have Saddam as a bulwark against Khomeni than it was to keep 100 grand or so folks out of mass graves.

If you'd like to get hold of some of the old Kurdistan crew, let me know, as I was part of that group of starry-eyed idealists.

Cheers,

[marct]

Hi Folks,

National interests outweigh international interests even at the Security Council. As a legislative body, the Council's inability to stop genocide points to the inherent challenges associated with competing national interests of Council members which in turn impacts on: the timeliness (or lack thereof) of decision making; issuing a mandate to protect via Security Council resolution; identifying member states to execute the mandate; and finally the actual execution by member states in support of a mandate.

What prevented it was national interst and lack of political will. That would seem to me to be a more important area to focus on - its a heck of a lot easier, IMO, to prepare military formations to respond in these situations than it is to convince our leadership that there is an imperative to do so, humanitarian or otherwise, in locations where compelling national interests are not easy to identify, if they exist at all.

I've got to agree with RB that they limiting factor is more political than pragmatic. It also strikes me that there is a rather thorny question that hasn't really been raised here, which is the question of what is the source of political legitimacy and authority for MARO?

Right now, there seem to be two, or possibly three, competing sources of legitimacy: UNSC resolution, alliance agreement, and/or individual national "authority". Under what political authority would MARO be operating?

[davidbfpo]

I've read this thread twice and checked the MARO website. My question is how is genocide identified and then communicated enough to persuade external actors (nation states, NGOs etc) to call for action?

Secondly who investigates the genocide - before and after intervention?

Sadly we have the example of Darfur now and Rwanda a few years ago.

If there is no or very limited external access to a nation state / area where genocide is in prospect or has happened very little will happen.

davidbfpo

[Harry Phillips]

Thank you all for the last set of questions and comments.

for RB: I think anyone with insights to the Anfal campaigns would be of very high value to the MARO project. I especially believe individuals such as Peter Galbraith and Mike Amitay would bring a lot of credibility to the project at large. I would very much like to see them in dialogue with Sarah Sewell, the MARO project's lead.

MARCT: regarding political legitimacy. There is much work to be done regarding this issue and will be addressed in 2008 and 2009 after completion our initial work during this phase of the project. At this stage, the MARO project's focus is U.S. national authority and the annotated planning framework is intended for use by planners at the combatant commander level. There is however an awareness of the international community on the part of the project. A meeting is planned for the November timeframe to engage and inform international partners. Ultimately, Security Council or alliance resolutions backing U.S. initatives vis a vis genocide intervention, using the MARO construct, could potentially serve to provide international political authority. Again, there is much work to be done in this arena.

davidbfpo: very tough question. As a retired Army MI officer I've already sounded the alarm with respect to this and even made a recommendation for indepent/autonomous research to support our efforts through avenues such as the intelligence analysis program at Mercyhurst College. Your second point regarding access...anyone who has ever been on a UN mission understands it is only done after agreement on the part of parties to a conflict indicating they accept such a force. It's not always permissive as we know from places like Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur. Your question requires much more study.

Harry

[marct]

Harry,

Thanks for the response on political authority. It is one of my bugaboos .

Let me toss out a (possibly) silly suggestion for monitoring and reporting. If I remember correctly, Stephen Marrin is at Mercyhurst and has been doing a lot of work on the issue of professionalization of "intelligence". You might want to talk with him and see if he would be interested in creating something like "Analysts Without Borders" (hey, I think I'm going to copyright that ) as an international, professional service group that monitors genocide and genocide in the making.

[Harry Phillips]

Mark,

I very much agree that such an effort is warranted. MARO's leadership has to determine if such an effort is possible...I think Stephen Marrin and Kris Wheaton would jump at the opportunity to explore this subject...Kris has already told me as much. It would greatly enhance the project in my professional opinion.

Harry

[Cavguy]

You may want to contact the Stimpson Center for International Peace on the subject, they're doing a study on genocide prevention you may be interested in. Ms. Victoria Holt is leading it, she gave an interesting interview session here at Leavenworth about two months ago. Several high-profile individuals are participating.

One of her points in discussion with me was that the UN has really cleaned up its peacekeeping act the last few years organizationally. The problem is overcoming the negative perceptions from the failed 1990's interventions.

[AdamG]

Wired picked up on this -

When the Pentagon released its master strategy document earlier this year, the document contained an interesting phrase: The military needed to focus on “preventing human suffering due to mass atrocities or large-scale natural disasters abroad.”

The insertion of that line into the Quadrennial Defense Review marked a paradigm shift: Previous versions of the strategic plan included no such references to stopping “mass atrocities” as a military imperative. It was a quiet victory for advocates of a new vision of U.S. national power that would make genocide prevention a military priority.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010...#ixzz0nHv2b84a

[JMA]

Did this project make any progress?