April 10, 2011

The current incidents in Libya are hard to believe. A country rich of oil but nearly defenceless was first being strafed by massive bombing raids of three nations.

The major attacker is lead by a Nobel Peace Price laureate who goes to war in disregard of the constitution of his country (Article I, Section 8, Powers of Congress).

The "international coalition", in reality a small fraction of the international community assaulted a sovereign country that hadn't attacked it. Now, passing the reins to NATO forces apparently broadens the basis of approval but doesn't provide legitimacy. NATO neither helps to prevent a genocide, nor does it support "democratic freedom fighters". Instead, it sides with one party in a civil war and imposes a selective arms embargo.

Libya continues to serve as a hotbed for U.S.-sponsored armed militias and mujahideen veterans. The former are trying to overthrow Gaddafi whereas the latter had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

According to a West-Point study by Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman in 2007, the area from Benghazi to Tobruk represents one of the greatest concentrations of jihadi terrorists in the world. Based on the records of 700 fighters which entered Iraq, the authors reveal that nearly one fifth of the fighters came from Lybia. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the Lybian ally of the West and leader of the National Transitional Council of the Libyan Republic, has to cooperate with warlords.

Various reasons are brought forward to justify this new war, less to criticize it, ranging from human rights violations over the misdeeds of a dictator to unoffordable expenses for a new military adventure.

Let's concentrate on the core of the issue. What determines wether this war was legitimate or even necessary?

According to The U.N. charter, chapter VII, military interventions may be justified, if a country poses a threat to international peace and security. Does Libya threatens international peace or security? No, at least not more than the attacking imperial powers leading decade long wars that destabilize the international system.

One mustn't jump to the conclusion, "Every decision made by the Security Council enforces the Law of Nations, and so does resolution 1973 and the ensuing intervention". Security Council decisions and their ramifications run counter to the Law of Nations if they are not in accordance with various sources of International Law. Among these sources, we find stabilized patterns of interaction between states, prior juridical judgements, the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Convention, legal principles and the results of more than two thousand years of public discourse. Institutions which represent the international society can fail. Otherwise questions regarding the powers of the Security Council wouldn't have been raised before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Amnesty International frequently discloses the poor human rights record of Libya. But if human rights violations were a sufficient reason for military interventions, nearly every country would be on the intervention list. Therefore the U.N. General Assembly stresses the obligation to protect a population from "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" (resolution 60/1). Those grave crimes were carried out in Rwanda, Dafur or in Srebenica. There is no evidence that the government in Tripoli is committing them in the ongoing civil war. Major imperial powers claim their right to act against "insurgents". They cannot deny the Lybian government to fight in self defence against those who want to topple it.

Marc Herbermann, full-time instructor at Dongduk Women's University, lectured on methods of political science at the University of Trier.

Republished with author's permission from:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/04/137_8445
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