By John Rensenbrink, Senior Advisor to the Maine Green Party
The continuous NATO bombing of Tripoli must stop. It’s wrong. It’s criminal. It’s self-defeating. It’s unutterably stupid. Bombing has never won a war. The bombing is a major departure from the United Nations R2P (Responsibility to Protect) resolution. The R2P gave no authorization of any kind to bomb and bomb in order to bludgeon the Gadaffi regime into submission and elimination and thus achieve a regime change. The R2P resolution by the UN Security Council was to protect civilians in imminent danger.
If NATO, and the Obama-led hawks in Washington, had really wanted to protect civilians, and if they had really wanted to stave off the suppression of the rebellion by Gadaffi (as they say they did), why wouldn’t they have taken action to prevent the flow of all arms to Gadaffi; and, in order to do that, worked diligently through persistent diplomacy to persuade all nations to desist allowing arms to find their way to Gadaffi. That could be effective and in keeping with R2P.
Green Parties in many places are in internal turmoil about this. Tempers are flying. Accusations abound. Some more reasonable voices say don’t get involved since both sides stink; and besides, we don’t really know enough about what is actually going on. Others say it’s a a clear instance of intervention and Greens should condemn all interventions.
This seems plausible. But I’d like to know more. Does being against intervention include being against non-military intervention, too? Is supporting the people of Gaza, and thereby supporting Hamas, with shiploads of goods and medicines something that should not be done since it’s an intervention? If nations were to take critical non-military sanctions against the Syrian government, should that be opposed as intervention? The action by the World Court to bring leaders of governments to the bar of justice – should that be opposed as intervention?
My answer to these questions is the need to distinguish carefully and sharply between military and non-military interventions, opposing the former and learning to judge each case of the latter with the following principle in mind: does the non-military intervention protect and help people in their struggle for freedom and justice with governments who use violence against them. If so, then such intervention should not be opposed and can be actively promoted.
When U.S. Greens, and other Greens in the world, declare strong opposition to military intervention (meaning physically violent actions) by the U.S. government, do they also mean that we should oppose military intervention and violent means of any kind by any nation or insurgent group? I hope so. Or is only the United States doing it that’s bad? I favor a clear stand of being opposed to military and any form of violent coercion by physical means by any government or insurgent group in the world. U.S Greens can get so mad at their government that they get mesmerized by their own anger and say or do what seems to be, and is often taken to be, unvarnished anti-Americanism. We can do better than that.
