Baptist ethicist says US role in Libya fails ‘just war’ test

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) – A Baptist ethicist said March 25 that President Obama's stated intent for U.S. military intervention in Libya lies outside parameters used for centuries to determine whether a war is morally just.

Speaking March 19 in Brazil, Obama described the cause of the U.S.-led military coalition with the declaration: "The writ of the international community must be enforced."

Robert Parham

Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, wrote on the BCE website EthicsDaily.com that "the writ of the international community" is not a rule of "just war," a theoretical framework developed by early Christian thinkers recognizing that war is a necessary evil but must be waged in ways that ensure it is the lesser of evils in play.

"The rules of just war are useful tools for moral discernment," Parham wrote, that are "too often neglected by presidents itching for military conflict."

Parham summarized just-war principles as "just cause (such as stopping genocide), just authority (congressional approval in the U.S. case), last resort (try to resolve conflict without military force), just intent (restoring peace, not revenge and economic gain), proportionality of cost (war accomplishes more good than harm), clear announcement (warning statements about the likely use of military force) and just means (such as no targeting of civilians)."

Parham conceded that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is" a bad guy," but he argued that "being a bad guy with a long history of brutality and terrorism is not a moral justification for the United States to go to war."

Parham previously criticized Obama's defense of the war in Afghanistan, saying it falls outside a final just-war principle requiring "the probability of success."

"A just war must have a reasonable chance to succeed," he observed.

Parham said success in Afghanistan "appears as unlikely now" as when Obama called for sending more troops in November 2009 for the purpose of "building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."

"One wishes that the White House would have run its decision making about both Afghanistan and Libya through the filters of just war," Parham said. "Maybe then we would not be a warfare state."

President Obama has insisted that action in Libya is a humanitarian mission aimed at saving civilian lives and that the U.S. role will be quickly reduced and handed over to the international community. With news March 24 that NATO had agreed to command the no-fly zone, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was already cutting back its role.

"Our mission has been to use America's unique capabilities to create the conditions for the no-fly zone and to assist in meeting urgent humanitarian needs," she said . "And as expected, we're already seeing a significant reduction in the number of U.S. planes involved in operations."

Critics including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have likened a UN Security Council resolution supporting military action against Libya to the medieval crusades.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.