Doug Brooks' Ruthless Logic | Human Security Review

Human Security Review blogs an article by Doug Brooks that they describe as 'short and idiotic'- a perspective that we have to echo.

The idea of commercializing human security or military intervention is in itself not new- look at the grand successes in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take the most evident examples. That said, labelling humanitarian organizations and advocacy groups as ruthless is an odd comment, and one that is written from the uniquely integrationist approach to how the international community operates. This school of thought imagines that all actors, whatever their origin, raison d'etre, politics or principles, should join the 'one team, one mission' concept, and wear the same t-shirts. This school has some merits, while it is also terribly naive- the range of stakeholders, politics, means, resources, donors, politicians, regional groups, local dynamics, national politics, ethnic divisions, etc., etc. all overwhelm such simplistic concepts.

Perhaps Brooks' speculations would seem more credible if the private security sector had a real success story to trumpet their claims of being the 'all singing, all dancing' solution to the world's problems.