The Observer | Despite past wrongs, U.S. ought to stick to ethical standards when providing aid

Zachary Kaye Columnist

In the aftermath of the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq, many Americans will be reluctant for their nation to exert its military power overseas for any purpose. The deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans, our apparent inability to successfully combat the insurgency, and a lack of visible progress are strong deterrents. Some good will come of this—our collective post-Sept. 11 hubris and self-righteousness will have been dealt a heavy blow. But for fear of being called a hopeless idealist, I lament the day, which may well have already come, when Americans hesitate to make sacrifices for others.

The United States has committed irrevocable and inexcusable wrongs in the last 50 years. If not consistently, we have sided with right-wing dictators with little or no respect for human rights. We have funded rebellions against democratically elected leaders, equipped military regimes with their deadly tools of oppression, and covertly undermined legitimate governments. And we have ignored awful events where we could have saved untold thousands of lives.

Yet with all of this in mind, I still believe Americans can do good in the world, and indeed, must. We, as do all humans, have an ethical responsibility to intervene in the face of murder, oppression, and genocide. For the United States, this responsibility is greater than for most countries because we have the ability to render real change.

Only a handful of other countries can project a meaningful military presence anywhere in the world. The United Nations lacks a significant standing armed force and is corpulent in endless diatribe. It has proven to be singularly ineffective at responding promptly to preventable acts of violence.

The United States has the potential to be a force for real good. With our awesome power we could save tens of thousands of lives. But we must be willing to sacrifice for others—for people from very different cultures, who look very different from us.

Interventions are, of course, extremely complicated affairs that raise many questions—how can we choose sides, or possibly appreciate the generations of animosity and tensions that lead to mass violence? What gives us the right to intercede in the affairs of a sovereign state? Is our conception of morality somehow universal?

I do not profess to know the answers. What I do know is this: I am pained when I see pictures of murdered children in Darfur. I am sickened by the inaction of the world in this one example of many instances of preventable horror. And I firmly believe that we can and must do something to stop terror.

There may never have been a time when the United States was actually as virtuous as our collective memory sometimes tries to paint it—an idyllic era when we always fought for justice. This, however, does not mean that we cannot try to act in that manner now. We have wronged millions of people in the last half-century, but we do not need to continue that trend. We have the power to fight effectively for what is right, and I believe we have a moral responsibility to do so. We must stop exclusively serving our own interests, and look instead to the betterment of humanity. America can be a great nation, one that fights for what is right. We will make mistakes, we will lose lives, and we will take lives, we will not see the fruits of our labors immediately. But at least we will know we are acting virtuously.