Libya and the Just War Doctrine: Does ‘Humanitarian Democracy’ Justify ‘Wars of Unilateral Preemption’?

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

Many articles have been published recently on both the moral legitimacy and the practical consequences of humanitarian intervention.  Does support of human rights justify modern warfare.  In theory, the answer is “yes”, but, unfortunately, the answer must depend on facts, and facts are usually in short supply whenever anyone wants to justify preemptive war.   

    As far as I know, the only time the real motivation for launching an aggressive war was clearly stated in advance was Henry Kissinger’s op-ed piece in the August 12, 2002, issue of the Washington Post, in which he rejected humanitarian concerns, and oil, and weapons of mass destruction as adequate rationales for invading Iraq, and instead proclaimed that the United States must invade as soon as possible in order to develop a new international law that would legalize preemptive war as a necessity to maintain global security in a world of impending chaos.  In retrospect, one can argue that this was counter-productive, but the victors usually have the last word until history proves them wrong.

    Scholars on paradigm management, like myself, should refrain from writing on political topics as a distracting digression, but normative legal questions are above politics, like interpreting the maqasid al shari’ah and such normative principles of jurisprudence in the various legal systems of the world, such as haqq al nafs (respect for individual human dignity) and its subordinate hajja, haqq al haya (respect for human life basic to the limitations on war found in the Just War Doctrine).  In Islamic jurisprudence these, in turn, involve at least indirectly virtually all the other maqasid, especially haqq al mal (respect for universal access to ownership of productive private property in order to forestall extreme wealth gaps within and among nations) and haqq al hurriya (respect for self determination for both persons and nations, otherwise known as political freedom). 

    Diana Johnstone’s article, re-titled, “Libya and the Just War Doctrine: Does ‘Humanitarian Democracy’ Justify ‘Wars of Unilateral Preemption’?” raises issues inherent in the Just War Doctrine, originally posed by Saint Augustine 1,600 years ago and developed in detail by classical Islamic scholars more than a thousand years ago.  A distinctly modern question is whether support of human rights justifies modern warfare.  In theory, the answer is “yes”, but, unfortunately, the answer must depend on facts, and facts are usually in short supply whenever anyone wants to justify preemptive war.

    Johnstone’s article in the online Counterpunch of December 1, 2009, provides one perspective based on her clearly stated pacifist premise and therefore on her special pleading for her critique of the NATO operation.  Libya would be a good case study for a law school class on ethics, as well as on natural law.  Qaddafi supported economic justice but denied political justice, so he was definitely “damaged goods”, with no moral authority on anything.  The question is how much moral authority does the United States of America have in today’s world, when it denies economic justice but tries to support political justice and accordingly may be forced to deny the right to life.   

SEE: 
As the “Humanitarian Warriors” Gloat… : Here’s the Key Question in the Libyan War, Diana Johnstone http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/01/here%E2%80%99s-the-key-question-in-the-libyan-war/