Whatever one might think of Michael Walzer, a co-editor of Dissent, it would even be acknowledged by his political opponents that his 1977 book, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, is important. Earlier this month I attended two lectures at LSE given by the acclaimed Harvard philosophy professor, Frances Kamm, on the ethics of war. At the drinks reception after the first lecture I was in a discussion with some of the attendees and it was felt that most of the academic material published on the ethics of war in the last thirty years has, in some ways, been a response to, or a commentary on, Just and Unjust Wars. The relevance of this is what Walzer says on war should not be dismissed lightly.
An article by Walzer entitled, “The Case Against Our Attack on Libya,” has appeared on The New Republic website. He provides four main reasons why the Libyan intervention is wrong:
1. “it is radically unclear what the purpose of the intervention is—there is no endgame, as a U.S. official told reporters.”
2. “the attacks don’t have what we should have insisted on from the very beginning—significant Arab support.”
3. Away from Russia and China, major countries such as India, Brazil, and Germany opposed supporting intervention by abstaining.
4. It is not “humanitarian intervention to stop a massacre.”
Whether or not one agrees with Walzer, I suspect that these points will become a cornerstone for liberal opponents against the intervention. The totalitarian Trotskyists who also oppose the intervention will just add these points to existing ones about imperialism, war for oil, and the rest of their drivel.
UPDATE
In the UK there has been a vote on the government’s reaction to the Libyan crisis in parliament. The Guardian reports that “[t]he government has won by 557 votes to 13 – a majority of 544” and states that “[m]ajorities don’t come much larger than this.”
The 13 MPs in opposition were, according to the Press Association and reported by the Guardian: Tory John Baron (Basildon & Billericay); Labour MPs Graham Allen (Nottingham North), Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), Barry Gardiner (Brent North), Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Hall Green), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington), Linda Riordan (Halifax), Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), Mike Wood (Batley & Spen); Green Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion) and SDLP MPs Mark Durkan (Foyle) and Margaret Ritchie (Down South).
