Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

As NATO bombs continue to fall over Libya, some challenge the air campaign. A new concept in international relations, “the responsibility to protect,” was a key concern of the U.N. Security Council Resolution authorizing intervention. Gerard Powers, director of Catholic Peacebuilding Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, said that while the Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi’s threat to civilians forfeited his government’s right “to be protected by norms of sovereignty and nonintervention,” NATO’s dependence on military action poses a moral dilemma. “If the military objective is really regime change, that’s hard to justify in Catholic approaches to humanitarian intervention,” he said. Instead of military intervention, Powers called for nonmilitary steps, including sanctions, political pressure and diplomacy. “In Libya, we have a disconnect between ends and means,” Powers said. “Airstrikes seem to be a tactic impersonating strategy, and without a viable strategy, military might easily masquerades as humanitarianism.”

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Delegates hold "Mass deportation now!" signs on Day 3 of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee July 17, 2024. (OSV News photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
Kevin ClarkeNovember 21, 2024
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”
Gerard O’ConnellNovember 21, 2024
Many have questioned how so many Latinos could support a candidate like DonaldTrump, who promised restrictive immigration policies. “And the answer is that, of course, Latinos are complicated people.”
J.D. Long GarcíaNovember 21, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris delivers her concession speech for the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Catholic voters were a crucial part of Donald J. Trump’s re-election as president. But did misogyny and a resistance to women in power cause Catholic voters to disregard the common good?
Kathleen BonnetteNovember 21, 2024