Quote Originally Posted by RTK View Post
I see four questions of paramount importance prior to commitment and intervention:

What is our ability, with partner forces, to intervene?

What vital interests are contained within Ivory Coast?

What opportunity is there to increase the quality of life to the people of Ivory Coast given the current situation?

What is the best outcome of intervention?

If one or more of these questions cannot be answered to the satisfaction of intervening parties risks must be weighed with rewards. If the default answer is genocide prevention, than what elevates this to a status above genocide activites where we did not intervene? I do not see satisfactory answers yet to any of these questions.
Out of this exercise should come the level or degree of intervention needed to address the problem. Risk in terms of casualties may also be a factor.

Those debating against interventions tend to allude to a Iraq situation which is a exaggeration (and clearly intellectually dishonest) while those for such humanitarian interventions fail to peg what the limits should be.

My position has been to target the "problem" people as soon the politicians can get the stage set. If Gbagbo and his "loyal" military had been targeted early and effectively a lot of grief would have been avoided.

I would have thought the military part of targeting the bad guys was the easy part but I learn from Libya that even the most seemingly simple of tasks can get screwed up. We will no doubt find out how this happened in the fullness of time.