On being involved with mankind.

NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 22

The question was asked last week of someone who had once served as a critical advisor to an American President in all matters related to defense. The question was, What role should we play in the Zaire/Rwanda situation? And his answer was: "What we have there is two tribes that simply don't like each other." He thought this a sufficient answer. Two tribes in eastern Africa that don't like each other equals no particular responsibility that devolves on the United States of America.

And yet there is moral uneasiness. What is the infrastructure of moral concern?

1. "Every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind." That is the generic formulation, by John Donne. It's true, isn't it? We do in fact care what happens in other parts of the globe, even if we are by no means committing ourselves to going out and fixing the situation. So -- plant that axiom: We care if hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, stand to be killed in a tribal war in eastern Africa.

2. We are more or less committed to the proposition that a country recognized as sovereign is outside the interventionist reach of other countries except when the country in question is preparing to engage in aggressive action against a neighboring country. In the international understanding, Rwanda and Burundi are independent states, and tribal strife within their boundaries is an internal political problem.

3. The feelgood cliche of the century is that wars, extraterritorial or civil, never settle anything. This is not, however, in fact true. They do not necessarily settle anything, but often they do. In the United States the Civil War most definitely settled the question of secession. The Boer War settled the question of who ruled in South Africa. Successive wars in Europe in this century reaffirmed earlier centuries' national consolidations. Italy, France, and Germany remained in place.

4. Moving forward in perspective, the question has subtly arisen, Is there anything of an internal nature a country can do which might result in forfeiting sovereignty? Suppose, simply to reach for a blackboard illustration, that a country surrounded by orderly democratic countries decided it would solve its population problem by killing (by whatever means) every person who reached his 70th birthday. The Central Planner might even modify its death programs by an annual census. For every 0.5-percentage-point rise in the birth rate, the required death age would descend by one year. Last year the birth rate rose to 3.5, so beginning in January, everyone age 69 would be executed.

What would we say about a move initiated in the United Nations to strip this country of its sovereignty, placing it on probation (after repealing the superannuation death code) for five or ten years?

5. And what role might the world's superpower play in such circumstances? We have, within the past five years, felt the special tug of Somalia, where people were starving to death at the rate of two thousand per day. We landed the troops and effectively mitigated starvation. A mistake in statecraft then happened: the American Administration decided to go further than merely to superintend the distribution of food. The decision was to extend the franchise and diddle with the government, which meant attempting to apprehend a strongman whom we simply failed to find. American soldiers were killed, and before long we pulled out.

In Zaire/Burundi/Rwanda we see gestating in direct view of CNN's cameras the threat of a return to butchery on a scale that should appall. Over one million Tutsis and Hutus have slaughtered each other in the last two years.

From which, conclusions surely cry out to be drawn. a) Rwanda and Burundi have forfeited the authority inherent in sovereign states. b) The world needs an organization modeled on the French Foreign Legion, organized and (substantially) financed by the superpower, with contributions expected from other civilized nations. The Foreign Legion would attract predominantly mercenaries. In the tradition of the French Foreign Legion, we might, after five years' faithful service, grant citizenship to applicants. It is this Legion, not U.S. army troops, which would now be headed for Rwanda.o