Are “humanitarian” interventions actually effective and helpful?

Question from the Internet:

“Why is selective humanitarian intervention often considered problematic? In your opinion, which would be preferable: selective humanitarian intervention or consistent nonintervention? Can you defend your answer?”

With your permission, I would not choose any of the options you provided.

First of all, “consistent nonintervention” is not good since we cannot simply leave people to their plight when we could help them escape their suffering.

But when we do all our highly praised and celebrated “humanitarian” interventions, are we actually doing it right?

By default, we are all 100% egocentric, self-serving, self-justifying and subjective. We cannot actually assess and understand the problems of others. And when we set out to “help” others, we actually do what seems right to us, what gives us a good feeling, some kind of reward and recognition.

If we examine all the “humanitarian” actions and attempts, at the end of the action, we usually see negative long-term results. We might have spent a lot of money (which most of the time ends up in the pocket of the wrong people), and we might have transferred a lot of resources (which again end up in the wrong places serving the wrong people).

Of course, this is very difficult to see and accept since we would justify our actions and the result of our actions in any given circumstances. And as a result, we keep repeating the same futile, destructive actions so we could say that we did something, we did our part, even if we did not help those we supposedly wanted to help.

The truth is unless we willingly and consciously change our original worldview and attitude toward others and the world, all our calculations, intentions and actions are only about ourselves. Thus by default, we cannot plan and execute the right actions.

Thus before we decide to do anything, we would need to go through a unique, purposeful and gradual self-development and self-change, at the end of which we become able to truly see and feel others and act truly for the sake of others above and against our instinctive attitude and intentions.