The modern human rights movement began as a band of outsiders, fighting governments on behalf of the faceless and voiceless. Now, some human rights activists now regularly call for using force to resolve the world’s problems. At one time, “human rights” implied opposition to war. Now some of the most outspoken warmongers in Washington are self-proclaimed human rights advocates.

They were among the loudest promoters of war to depose the Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy, pushed for escalated intervention in Syria, and the dispatch of more troops to Afghanistan. Human rights activists have urged that American military power be used to capture a warlord in Uganda, impose order in the Ivory Coast, crush rebels in South Sudan, and locate kidnap victims in Nigeria.

Once it was generals, defense contractors, and chest-thumping politicians who saw war as the best solution to global problems. Now human rights activists play that role, promoting the steady militarization of American foreign policy, and producing biased reports exaggerating human rights abuses in countries the United States dislikes, like Venezuela, while being gentler to American allies like Honduras. They have also been accused of conducting a hostile campaign against Rwanda. (Edited from an article in the Boston Globe by Stephen Kinzer, visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, May 25, 2014).

Epicurus would comment that this is what happens to most human institutions as soon as they get power and copious money. By advocating force these groups forego what was always their most important weapon – a strong moral and humane message. The United States has tried to change Afghanistan and Iraq by force and has failed. The pen is mightier than the sword. What are these human rights people thinking?