Apr
19
How Far Can We Go?
April 19, 2008 |
This morning, I am pondering two great questions.
The first great question is - how could I have totally missed any sensation from the “Great Midwest Earthquake of 2008?” I was awake and felt nothing. Others in Cincinnati at least felt something.
The second great question I have this morning is - how far can a nation go to defend itself and others from homicidal idiots? It’s this question I’m left with after reviewing the Holy Father’s U.N. Address.
I get that the best recource is that nations should act together, as discussed by the Holy Father in this passage -
“The United Nations embodies the aspiration for a “greater degree of international ordering” (John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 43), inspired and governed by the principle of subsidiarity, and therefore capable of responding to the demands of the human family through binding international rules and through structures capable of harmonizing the day-to-day unfolding of the lives of peoples. This is all the more necessary at a time when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world’s problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community.”
And I get that the international community must intervene in some circumstances as discussed in this passage -
“Every State has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether natural or man-made. If States are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter and in other international instruments.”
But the great unanswered question is what happens if the international community doesn’t intervene when it is supposed to? The list is long of the crises where the international community failed to intervene or did so only belately - including Eastern Europe, the “Killing Fields” of Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa (e.g. Ethiopia and Somalia), West Africa (e.g. Liberia), East Africa (e.g. Uganda and Rwanda), Bosnia, Darfur, Afghanistan, and, yes, even Iraq.
So I have to ask - is the logical extension of the Holy Father’s teachings that it is incumbent upon the nations who are most impacted, care the most, and are most at risk, to do something on their own when the international community won’t or can’t get it done?
To what extent under natural and moral law are nations permitted to defend themselves and help other peoples acheive the human aspirations of freedom, liberty and basic human dignity - especially when the international community refuses to act?
Points to ponder for this weekend.
