[Pak-Media] Libyan Intervention: For Human Rights War or For Resources

The recent attack on Libya by the US , UK and France surprised nearly
everyone with the speed with which it was authorized and executed. Although
hard data on what's actually going on is scarce, what is clear is that after
non-violent protests in Tripoli were met with the murder of a large number
of protesters, an armed rebellion began which includes some members of the
Libyan armed forces, who are primarily located in the eastern part of the
country. The Libyan army and air force responded fiercely, and within the
last week, began to rout the rebels in town after town, finally approaching
the city of Benghazi , which as of this writing, is still in rebel hands.

Although the UN authorization is based on the premise that civilians are
under attack, clearly, the rebels are armed and an armed conflict is
underway. The Libyan government has the right, as a sovereign nation, to
put down the armed rebellion, even if it did not have the right to kill the
innocent protesters.

It's actions should be guided by the principle of proportionality. That is,
efforts must be made to minimize the harm to innocent people, or collateral
damage, as it is known in the West. The Libyan opposition are classified as
rebels. They cannot be not considered insurgents, due to short length of
time they have been in conflict, their lack of control over significant
territory, and other factors, such as a lack of military structure,
uniforms, and so forth. As such – and whatever one may think of the justness
of their cause – they have no special legal status and may be treated by the
Libyan government as crimnals.

Unlike the invasion of Iraq, this military operation was approved by the UN
Security Council, which may, under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, authorize
the use of force when it finds, under Article 39 of the Charter, the
existence of a threat to peace, a breach of the peace or an act of
aggression that puts the lives of people at risk. The UN's enforcement
powers, under either Chapter 7, or Articles 42 et seq, were meant only as
"extrema ratio" – that is, as a last resort. The so-called "ethic of
responsibility," in other words, is that the remedy should be no worse than
the evil, as wars quite often are.

The new age we appear to be in, of liberal wars in pursuit of a
humanitarian agenda, has created wars of choice rather than wars of
necessity. The basis for such interventions has been, more often than not,
sheer power rather than law, and the results are often not good. They are a
return to the medieval concept of a bellum justum (morally justified war),
which was replaced by the concept of the bellum legale (legal war) long
ago. It is just the kind of thing the UN was designed to prevent. As
Vladimir Putin recently observed, the concept of a "just war" can easily
take on the aspect of a crusade, and in the case of Iraq , a rather
disingenuous one. It is almost beyond argument that the 2003 invasion of
Iraq was an illegal war of aggression, in that legal grounds for the attack,
such as self-defense or Security Council authorization, did not exist. The
"coalition," then, can at least be given credit for playing by the rules
this time in Libya . The actions taken by the US and its coalition have
been, at least up to this point, legal.

It's important to note, though, how limited the mandate of the UN Security
Council is. It is to ensure peace, not to pass judgments on governments or
to replace bad governments with better ones. The UN's mission is not to
spread democracy. According to the UN Charter, its role is "the maintenance
of international peace and security, and to that end, to take effective
collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace, and
for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of peace, and to
bring about, by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of
justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international
disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of peace …" Article 39
of the Charter states that its purpose is not to maintain or restore law,
but merely to maintain and restore peace.

So, when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that "the first and
overwhelmingly urgent action is to end the violence," but that "a final
result of any negotiations would have to be the decision by Colonel Gaddafi
to leave," it should be clear this exceeds the UN's authorization to end the
conflict, and is in pursuit America's own objective of eliminating an old
adversary.

This is, of course, to take America 's motives at face value. It must be
said that most of the Libyan population lives in the western part of the
country, and most of the oil is in the east. Oil and gas account for 97
percent of Libya 's export earnings and 90 percent of government revenue,
according to the International Monetary Fund. American and British media
are already referring to eastern Libya as "disputed territory." However,
there is no legal dispute over this territory, and no legal argument for the
partition of the Libyan people from their oil. The UN's mandate is to
prevent "violations of the territorial integrity of states," not to
facilitate them. The partition of Libya would create yet another place in
the world destined for permanent war.

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