“America should side with the rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” says Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a beltway conservative think tank.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly known as the Congo Free State, the Belgian Congo, and Zaire, is the second largest country in Africa. It should not be confused with the smaller Republic of the Congo. According to the CIA’s World Factbook: “The territory that is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo has more than 200 ethnic groups that trace their histories to many communal organizations and kingdoms.” The country has suffered from poverty, civil wars, armed conflicts, and economic and political instability for decades.
Rubin, a former Pentagon official who defended Bush’s Iraq War, laments that European and American policymakers often “automatically or arbitrarily castigate rebellions and insurgencies as counter to freedom and U.S. interests.” He concludes that the United States should not “side with a corrupt Congolese government that cultivates China and whose dictator seeks an illicit third term,” but should “recognize that what the rebels in eastern Congo face are the same groupings that perpetrated genocide or now cheer it on” and work with the rebels “to build their capacity and help them govern freely and fairly.”
So, whom should America side with: the government of the DRC or the rebels?
America should side with no one.
It doesn’t matter what violations of rights that either side has committed. It doesn’t matter how many murders either side has committed. It doesn’t matter how many rapes either side has committed. It doesn’t matter what atrocities that either side has committed. It doesn’t matter what war crimes either side has committed. It doesn’t matter how many innocent civilians either side has killed.
It is terrible that any other these things have happened. The world can at times be a terrible place. But not only can the United States not right every wrong, stop terrible things from happening, or correct every injustice in the world, it should not even attempt to do so. What is happening in the DRC is simply not the concern of the U.S. government. A foreign policy of neutrality and nonintervention is not only the policy of the Founders, it is a sane, moral, and common-sense policy as well. It is not the job of the United States to be the policeman, fireman, mediator, or social worker of the world.
If someone in the United States is concerned about anything that is happening in the DRC, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Sudan, Gaza, Myanmar, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, or any other place where there are armed conflicts, human rights abuses, or terrible things, then he is perfectly free to use his own resources and enlist others to help him undertake regime change, support one side in a civil war, protect civilians, rescue children, right wrongs, remedy injustice, or kill the bad guys. What he should not do is expect the U.S. government to pick his favored side.
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