...So, in reality, judging on this confused article, it is a truism to state that the “Law is an ass”, and lags in total confusion behind realistic objectives of dealing with life’s emergencies, (still and again)...

the author says ..
""Humanitarian intervention" refers to the threat or use of force by a State or States against another State for the purposes of preventing or stopping the latter State from committing extensive and grave violations of humanitarian law and human rights law."

But when you go to the link, you find the author has changed the wording, ever so casually from the original
"Humanitarian intervention refers to the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens"

So we get "humanitarian law and human rights law" inserted .. with no reference to what these actually are or whether in fact they exist .. I suspect the author is so internalized in her own mind that this is the case and it is true and just, that no further explanation is necessary.

Justifying attacking Col. Gaddafi is one thing, but if you are trying to make the case that this is "special" therefore OK, then what of Iran attacking its own citizens or China?

President GW Bush was honest in his attack on Iraq, because they were dangerous, attacked their own citizens and were a threat to the world, should have been just based on "humanitarian law and human rights law" and I'm sure no one in the west would have batted an eye .. surely?

So clearly the little bit'a spin imposed would have done the trick .. I see bugger all difference in the way Saddam and Gaddafi interacted with their people and the world .. it's interesting that now it's worthy of liberal spin though.

BTW .. what's the exit plan? That was SUCH a big deal in the Iraq, and is in Afghanistan, why is it not here? To me there's no plan at all beyond a few tactical targets.

The USA has slaughtered millions and Australia hundreds of thousands under the euphemism abortion.

Would Arab nations, in coalition with, say, Brazil, Indonesia, Argentina and the Philippines, where abortion is an illegal crime against humanity, be justified in taking military action to stop the slaughter, to protect the innocent?

Given the "there's this, but then again, there's that" approach of the article, it is not surprising that no clear opinion shines through.

But that is the stark reality: we have yet to work out a framework in which the conflicting objectives of non-interference and humanitarian assistance can be properly and consistently weighed.

The UN should of course be the forum for these debates, and the source of their resolution. This is only a pious hope at this point in history, given the massive political and economic divisions that are represented in its chamber. But at least we appear to be making baby-steps in the general direction of kinda-sorta consensus, before leaping into the fray.

One - surprising to me - omission from Ms Joseph's list of precedents was Rwanda. The UN mandate on that occasion allowed the creation of a "safe zone" for Hutu refugees, but prohibited intervention in the genocide itself. The result of such dithering caused the project to fail, spectacularly...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/714025.stm

...and force Kofi Annan to admit, ten years later, that "the international community failed Rwanda and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3573229.stm

So we all await the results of this latest intervention with interest. Will it be viewed in history as a humanitarian exercise that prevented massive bloodshed, or simply as the adventures of outsiders, being complicit in an internal political revolution? Will the conclusion be to go in early, boots and all, or to hang back and hope?

That this dilemma in the Middle East comes so soon after the Iraq adventure, where lessons are still being learned, and Afghanistan, where it appears they never will be, is unfortunate. Thus, determining a more consistent global approach that simultaneously discourages tyranny, while practising non-intervention, will be a work-in-progress for several more decades, I suspect.

This article is regrettably wrong on so many points it would take another article to point out its manifest errors. Resolution 1973 authorized Member States to take "all necessary measures" to protect the Libyan civilian population. Under international law all measures includes a requirement that peaceful means be tried first. The team appointed by the UN Secretary General for that purpose was not even allowed to report before the attack began.
The UN Charter allows an armed attack in only two circumstances: self defence (which manifestly does not apply) and in accordance with a Security council resolution that is itself in accordance with the Charter. Resolution 1973 does not meet that requirement.
Both Chapter VI and Chapter VIII of the Charter mandate resolution by peaceful means. Only when that has failed can resort be made to Chapter VIII. That Chapter however does not authorise humanitarian interventions of the type purportedly invoked with Libya.
The whole exercise is rampant with hypocrisy and Australia is not exempt from that charge. There was no "intervention" when Israel was massacring Palestinian civilians in 2008; there is a conspicuous silence on the government killing of its citizens in Yeman and Bahrain. Regime change is not authorised by Resolution 1973 yet that has been clearly stated by Obama among others as a prime objective of the attacks. Even the Arab League whose membership largely consists of sundry despots, dictators and corrupt monarchies has had second thoughts as the motives of the imperial powers in attacking an oil rich Muslim nation for the umpteenth time in the past decade become clearer.
The blunt fact is that the law is regarded as an occasional inconvenience for the US and its allies which they ignore because the experience of the post Nurenburg era is that they can do so with impunity.

After Rwanda and the million or so that died in the "internal conflict" it has become clear that in order to save people one can no longer afford the luxury of not being involved, even if that means military action.

The fact that the Libyan people have armed themselves simply muddies the water, but does not mean that they do no deserve protection from the genocide that Gadaffi would almost certainly inflict.

If one is going to look for clear cut moral guidelines there won't be any. The easy solution is to sit back and watch the slaughter from afar as someone else's problem.

Lets face it - there's gonna be a lot of blood shed in Libya. Does anyone honestly believe that this intervention will prevent civil war and the deaths of civilians in fighting and acts of revenge by either side of the conflict? All this is doing is evening up the competition so the whole thing can drag on and the rebels may have a chance of winning.

And then what? Another Afghanistan? Has the Western world not yet noticed that these Arab types don't do Democracy well? Another Dictator will clamber to the top of the dung heap and the cycle will begin again.

Just let them get on with it - as long as they're only killing each other and the oil keeps coming, who cares!

It is not about humanitarian intervention. Gaddafi has lots of oil. It has to be secured for the West, especially France needs it desperately.

If Libya had no oil, the west would not care any more than with all the other African countries where all those massacres are taking place.

And if it was not about getting control over Libya's oil it would have been sufficient to destroy the 15 runways that Gaddafi has for his air force. That would have taken around 50 bombs and around 5 hours, and the no fly zone would have been installed.

To Sarah Joseph:

From your author description you are a lawyer...so a trained mind in removing all extraneous material to situation at hand and focusing on the relevant facts to extract, to come to a deduced conclusion...right...

so for starters: how did you_
1. Exclude UN as a tool of aggression, despite how it sell itself today...
2. exclude 'US government' as the most powerful force on earth today, disconnected from its 'people' it supposedly represent, so acting on its own interests, while using its power to give a face of respectability...look up the definition of 'facisim'...
3. and oil is not at the root of this...yeah oil to keep the US governments massive armed forces mobilized for one...
4. and when US government while allowing/keeping Iraq destabilized and so 'world common people' attention is distracted while its quietly training iraqi women and giving them jobs at all levels of Iraqi government and actively excluding men except selecting few as the 'face', exclude that Libya is not another social re-engineering of theirs(aka puppet regime)...
And on...
So lets hear how you excluded this, to decide if you are part of the problem or solution...

regards

sam

L.B. Loveday raises a mighty fine point: what reasonable purpose does abortion serve, other than the wanton slaughter of human beings, albeit yet to be born? They may be foetuses, but they are most definitely human, and as such ought to have their rights respected, no?

We in the 'civilized' west may one day rue the day abortion was ever allowed for it may well make us hostages to our own folly, irrationality, stupidity and inhumanity. Some western leaders may conceivably wind up having to defend their actions at the International Court of Justice in the Hague for crimes against humanity on a scale so monstrous as to dwarf anything ever before seen - or imagined.

I'd like to make a few points.

1) Gadafi is a tyrant who has no conpunction about committing acts of terrorism abroad - think Lockerbie 1988 for example. He warned the west that such attacks would be the result if the west interefered to protect the citizens of Libya.

He also has no qualms about cleansing those parts of his population who have defied him see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi#Political_repression and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi#Assassinations_abroad.

He warned the rebels in plain terms of the fates that awaited them"

"...Muammar Gaddafi told Libyan rebels on Thursday his armed forces were coming to their capital Benghazi tonight and would not show any mercy to fighters who resisted them. In a radio address, he told Benghazi residents that soldiers would search every house in the city and people who had no arms had no reason to fear. "It's over ... We are coming tonight," he said. "You will come out from inside. Prepare yourselves from tonight. We will find you in your closets." The speech was broadcast on radio and television shortly after a defence ministry statement warned that any foreign military action would trigger counter-attacks and endanger all air and sea traffic in the Mediterranean region ..."

So what we know is that he was poised on the edge of benghazi after driving the rebels from all the way from the outskirts of Tripoli. Battalions of tanks and artillery were ready to begin pounding the city of 1 million. Casualties would have been massive.

Had we waited just one more day, gaddafi's troops would have been able to enter Benghazi - ending any posibility of preventing a massacre in the city. The allies could not engage in military intervention (without overwhelming civillian causlaties) once gaddafi's troops had entered Benghazi. Gaddafi himself recognized this which is why he called for the ceasfire, and then deliberately broke it.It was a last grasp for victory and to present a fait accompli to the global community.

It is also worth noting the Arab Leagues critical support for the intervention as well as the UN's decisive role in the outcome.

cont'

con't

Yes - there are other tyrants who are in Gaddafi's league. Although none are currently in the process of killing as many of their civillians as Gadafi. The 30 killed in Yemen do not compare to the 1000 deaths Gaddafi had already caused. And he was within 24 hours of attacking, with tanks, artillery, naval gunnery and fast jets, a city of 1 million people.

Yes - the world (including the west) has an interest in the free flow of oil in the gulf. Cheap energy is fundamental to our economies and we should not be asahmed (when comparing when, and when not to intervene in situations) to take note of our national interest. This is not to say that it should be the determining factor. It should not, but when allocating scarce resources, it is only right to also consider our own capacities and interest.

But neither of these points are reasons why we should not protect the civillians of Benghazi (who were adamant in their requests for protection from the international community). Rather than are cause to criticize our failures to protect in the past.

We did intervene in Yugolsalvia, unfortunately at a time when the left had so captured the debate on intervention, that a protection order from the UN was not enough to prevent the massacre of hundreds of thousands. It was the same situation in Rawanda. UN troops watched as the Hutus attempted to wipe out the Tutsi. 800,000 killed in 100 days. As Kofi Anan put it"...The genocide in Rwanda should never, ever have happened. But it did. The international community failed Rwanda, and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret and abiding sorrow... " I would add shame to that collection.

A last point. Gaddafi was on the cusp of demonstrating to the dicators of the region that discussion and negotiation would lose you your rule, whereas violently suspressing your people was a certain method for clinging to power. This is not a result the global community could afford to allow.

When morality is against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue morality.

If getting rid of people like Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and Emporor Bokassa 111 are "against international law", then "international law" is a joke.

It really is funny watching left wing, limp wristed Euros struggling to come to terms with the idea of waging an "illegal war" for "humanitarian reasons". These were the same sods who never tire of hurling brickbats at the USA when it did exactly the same thing in Iraq.

Best of all, I heard on today's news that Obama was telling the Euros that the USA was not going to do anything more than drop a few bombs. This time the Euros can show some balls and do the job themselves. I never liked this Obama bloke, but if he has told the Euros to grow up and fight their own wars, then my opinion of him has now changed.

Nothing short of an infantryman in Gaddafis office pointing his rifle at him is going to make any impression on Ghaddafi, and the Euros must now be figuring this out. Could you imagine Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Britain, Luxembourg and Turkey putting in a joint Army invasion force without the yanks leading the way and taking most of the casualties? The only thing that these guys can agree on is that everything the yanks do is wrong.

A NATO invasion sans the USA would be highly amusing too. Because the NATO troops fighting an "illegal war" would be fighting for a bunch of Muslim Arabs who hate the Euros guts, and who only six months ago were cheering Ghaddafi and his airplane bomber who murdered 270 People at Lockerbie.