TIMBUKTU, Mali—The ancient desert town of Timbuktu, like much of northern Mali, is struggling to recover from the effects of a yearlong rebel occupation. Banks, schools, gas stations and other public services in the “city of 333 saints” are still inoperative but are expected to resume full operation as soon as Mali’s new head of state is sworn in on Sept. 4. The inauguration will nominally end the political drama of the past year and a half, but the deep-rooted crisis that gave birth to a self-declared independent state in Mali’s north will remain. Timbuktu fell into rebel hands on [...]
Secretary of State John Kerry’s powerful speech this afternoon makes it all too clear that the U.S. is progressing toward military strikes on Syria. There is dire humanitarian need, with the gassing of civilians being only the latest atrocity. Yet the Obama administration’s choice of tactics to meet that need are too limited; intervention by cruise missile will not sufficiently protect civilians and is therefore not ethically defensible. Writing for the Huffington Post today, Jeff McMahan lays out the ethical framework for assessing the potential U.S. strikes on Syria. Given the Syrian government’s attacks on its civilians, strikes intended “to [...]
Prepping the international community for U.S. military strikes on Syria, the Obama administration, through Secretary of State John Kerry, invoked moral terms: “The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity.” The British government raised the argument a level further today, claiming that “the legal basis for military action would be humanitarian intervention.” And yet all signs point to an intervention narrowly focused on the Syrian military’s ability to deliver chemical weapons attacks. Nicholas Kristof sums up the rationale succinctly: “It would reinforce the international norm against weapons [...]
