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The Myth of "Humanitarian" Intervention
By Ivan Eland

Refusing to learn his lesson from the nascent quagmire in Iraq, President Bush is likely to risk the lives of U.S. armed forces again in Liberia in a Clintonesque "humanitarian" intervention, which he heaped scorn upon in the 2000 election campaign. Such idealistic justifications for war have been used over the centuries and have been particularly successful in the United States. In modern history, remember Woodrow Wilson, with the "war to end all wars," and Clinton, who used the "humanitarian" facade to become the most interventionist president in the last twenty years (of course, the jury's still out on whether George W. Bush will surpass him). But what is so wrong with deposing petty despots and bringing democracy and free markets to the world at the point of the bayonet?

First, we may liberate others, but enslave ourselves. ...