Thank You, Mr. President

In the middle of financial turmoil, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a prevention and deterrence plan to prevent genocide worldwide.

That was last week. Didn’t you hear? Not surprising, because this information was not widely broadcasted. It went unnoticed in Canada, Europe and even the U.S.

The media neglected it not only because of the disturbing reality of U.S. debt. The media, without a doubt, doesn’t see the relevance. Broadly speaking, it showed the general opinion, which would probably question the actual efficacy of such a plan in real life if the public had been informed of it.

While he was at it, Obama created an Atrocities Prevention Board. He ordered the examination of economic, diplomatic and political tools that can be mobilized to prevent mass atrocities. Certainly, the more cynical among us would call it an unnecessary and unrealistic initiative. Some left-wingers would hammer home that it is a passport to impose U.S. views. Observers loyal to the idea of the international community would ask why Washington and not the United Nations?

Let’s answer this question. First of all, in order to make this latter argument meaningful, the aforementioned community would need to agree on at least this issue — which, sadly, it never managed to do. The other possible accusation, the one wanting the Obama administration to entertain hegemonic designs, is not serious. It comes from argumentative reflex, the one used without judgment. More so as this concerns finding ways other than the two traditional options: inaction or military intervention. It is about establishing preventive action.

The real utility of such a genocide deterrence plan is debatable, but let’s not forget recent history: the U.S. and the rest of the world came under justified criticism for failing to immediately react to events that ended up degenerating into genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

There are duties in life. Attempting to prevent the recurrence of atrocities is one of them.

It could be said that Obama’s project is just hot air. But that would be forgetting the meaning of Politics with a capital P. It would be to confuse it with political posturing, which dominates everything. Politics is the art of setting ambitious targets; it is attempting to change things even when you know you will never completely succeed.

Thank you to this president for trying to restore that policy to its former glory.