Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Why it's a good time to be a dictator like Kim Jong-un | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Why it's a good time to be a dictator like Kim Jong-un | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | theguardian.com: "Maybe this is what it means to live in the post-intervention era. Few even call for action – in North Korea or Syria – because we know it's not going to happen. In the 1990s, those outraged by the Balkan war could believe that, if they only shouted loud enough, they would eventually get the international powers to act – which, eventually, they did. Now, after Iraq and Afghanistan, that belief has vanished. In Britain, military planners have reportedly concluded that the nation is too war-weary to countenance yet more action. In the US, Barack Obama's foreign policy seems predicated on a similar assumption. Few speak now of the notion that once seemed set to reshape international relations, the "responsibility to protect".

It makes today a good time to be a dictator, a butcher or the torturing head of a brutal regime. The world will let you carry on killing – even when it knows exactly what is happening."



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