Conversation on sin: Top religion stories of 1998

Christian Century, Jan 6, 1999

The ethics of intervention

The brutal and menacing acts of dictators held the world's attention in 1998, and sharpened the moral question of international intervention. In the post-cold-war world, what is the international community obliged to do when a nation is posing a significant threat not only to its neighbors, but to the citizens within its borders?

In Iraq Saddam Hussein continued to defy the United Nations and renege on promises, thwarting UN investigators' efforts to determine the status of Iraq's weapons program. On two occasions the U.S. and its allies wound up to strike Iraq militarily, only to pull back at the last moment.

Just as important, in the face of Iraq's noncompliance the UN maintained heavy sanctions on the country that have exacted a harsh toll in human lives and suffering. Who is responsible for the pain of sanctions? The UN says Saddam Hussein has only to comply and sanctions will be lifted immediately. In the meantime, average Iraqis live without basic necessities--clean water, food and medicine. And though Saddam Hussein balks at having photographs taken of his presidential palaces, he welcomes every roll of film shot in Baghdad hospitals. The Iraqi dictator has succeeded in turning the sanctions into a major propaganda victory.

In November the outgoing president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement about the moral dimensions of the Iraq sanctions. "The international community should not resort to means which effectively punish the Iraqi people for the actions of an authoritarian regime over which they have no control," said Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland. Pilla added that "the Iraqi government has a duty to stop its internal repression, to end its threat to peace, to abandon its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, and to respect the legitimate role of the United Nations in ensuring that it does so."

In December, after Iraq once again stymied the work of UN arms inspectors, the U.S. and Britain could think of no more creative solution to the continuing problems than bombing, but the recent military actions over Iraq seemed to have solved the inspection problem only by canceling it. When in doubt, bomb, the saying goes. But bombing Iraq relieved none of the doubts about Saddam Hussein--about his intentions, his military capabilities, his political future. And the sanctions--morally as murky as the drinking water in Baghdad--remain fully in place.

Meanwhile, a threat of military intervention dissuaded Slobodan Milosovic from pursuing a murderous policy of repression against ethnic Albanians in Serbia's Kosovo province. It also nudged him into agreeing to allow international observers into the region to monitor the standoff. But Milosovic's harsh actions in the area over the past decade have succeeded in radicalizing Kosovars to the point that they seem intent upon independence. The rebel Kosovo Liberation Army has taken advantage of the Serbian withdrawal to solidify and expand its hold over areas of Kosovo, and has continued to press its military campaign against Serb forces. The KLA's escalating military action has significantly altered the moral question of intervention. Now international monitors increasingly find themselves in the position of observing not a tenuous cease fire, but an ever-expanding civil war.