“Humanitarian intervention – the nonconsensual use of force – is dead. It had a very short life – September 1995 to the summer of 2003 – and it’s been killed for the next decade. America is the only power than can do it and, after Iraq, we would just be recruiting fodder for this apocalyptic nihilism.”
[Samantha Power](http://www.librarything.com/author/powersamantha&norefer=1), quoted in the [NYT](http://select.nytimes.com/iht/2007/06/24/opinion/25cohen.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
I’m sure there are hundreds of articles elsewhere, making the same point in more depth. It _is_ sad in a way, but I’ve never been all that convinced by military intervention. Not only is it always twisted by the political ambitions of the great powers, but it is almost never economically worthwhile. If we could channel all the enthusiasm for military intervention into education and healthcare, we might actually improve the world.