Walzer Vs Luban

Michael Walzer is right to set a higher standard for intervention than David Luban, and there are three main reasons for this. The first is practical, namely that intervention to prevent “ordinary” oppression usually results in more instability and violence since it denies self-determination for the country’s citizens. The second is moral: Luban’s conception of “cosmopolitan” human rights is dangerously ethnocentric towards the West and can result in cultural imperialism. The third is theoretical, meaning that while interventions are ideally carried out by perfect national leaders, government officials will always be coopted or influenced by neoliberalism, racism, and selfishness. Luban charges that Walzer’s restrictiveness in respect to intervention
He argues that even if a repressive government without civil and political liberties or rights for women exists, it would be immoral to use a wondrous Swedish chemical that would turn all Algerians into Swedish-style democrats. It is simply the case that “the Algerian people have a right to a state within which their rights are violated” (Walzer MSS 226). One might respond that preventing violence is more important than the right to choose a government, such as when Luban says that human rights set a moral limit to pluralism. He argues that “making pluralism the overriding value is incompatible from the outset with a theory that grants universal human rights,” but the clear answer here is that we shouldn’t use a theory that grants universal human rights. In practice, rights are never universal, and to suppose that they should be the basis for intervention sets up a system where the West picks and chooses certain groups that are “granted” rights. Valorizing human rights supports the idea that the rights-recipient is a helpless subject, while preventing an analysis of the circumstances that led to the appearance of the original violence. For example, to call for the US to intervene in Afghanistan on behalf of human rights denies the fact that the US created this violence in the first place when it supported the Taliban in the 1980s. Similarly, to support universal human rights like Luban would justify criticizing Cuba for its human rights record while ignoring that the US’ embargo has contributed to starvation, disease, and lack of education to a far greater extent than the policies of the Castro regime. Obviously human rights should not be discarded in all circumstances, but I am suggesting that countries should not intervene to protect basic human rights and stop “ordinary” oppression. If this means letting several violent regimes survive to prevent the self-interested West (especially the United