Brief a Bishop – House of Lords debate: Libya, Operation Odyssey, UNSCR 1973, Egypt, Middle East and Peace Process
Tomorrow (1st April) Peers in the House of Lords will spend the whole day debating recent events in Libya and the wider Middle East.
Charles Reed – Church of England advisor on foreign policy issues – has the complex task of ensuring the Church of England Bishops are properly briefed.
Happily for us, over the last week, Charles has blogged his thoughts and here are the links, starting with the oldest post:
Brief A Bishop – Libya and Operation Odyssey
OK, the final briefing can be found here on the Church of England website.
And for those of us who don’t have the time to read the final briefing, Charles has been kind enough to provide us with a brief synopsis, which I’m reproducing here with kind permission:
Whatever the initial justness of the intervention, the allied coalition is now in danger of acting irresponsibly by employing a level of force that is disproportionate to the original aims of UNSCR 1973. Unless there is greater clarity as to the operation’s objectives then the prospects for a just and lasting peace in Libya is far from certain.
The process of political transition in Egypt is unlikely to remedy the initial grievances and concerns that spurred protesters to overthrow the Mubarak regime. More could and should be done to invest in conflict prevention measures such as investing time and resources in helping to build up those institutions that might usefully protect the democratic space in Egypt.
On the Middle East Peace Process the briefing suggests that the regional crises should be seen as an opportunity to press head with peace negotiations rather than as an excuse to defend the status quo. Negotiating in such a fluid environment poses short term risks to Israel, but these need to be judged against the long terms risks should a two state solution no longer prove viable.
Tags: Law Moral Ethical, Politics
March 31st, 2011 at 1:59 pm
In hoc signo vinces
The British element of the militiary action in Libya is Operation ELLAMY the U.S. operational name is Odyssey.
“Whatever the initial justness of the intervention” – The first big mistake this should be the main contention the humanitarian intervention excuse was nothing more than supposed hyperbole to accept the humanitarian excuse is to accept counterfactual history.
Days before we had a PM conceitedly grandstanding in the MME with an entourage of British armaments dealers this stands the humanitarian argument on its head, what better way to fill their pockets and promote British armaments than to expend those munitions in Libya.
We had the Foreign Secretary falsely muttering that Qaddafi had fled to Venezuela so much for British intelligence or was it from the Libyan cleaning lady at the SIS office, did she also advice Mr. Mojo that there were no Al Qaeda affilations within the “rebels” or is it insurgence.
This government has brought the U.N. into disrepute by immplying that UNSCR 1973 can be read as an assasins contract on the life of an individual that individual being Qaddafi, so much so that the military top brass of the U.K. and U.S. have distanced themselves from what would be in fact a conspiracy to murder in the fog of war.
March 31st, 2011 at 2:39 pm
In hoc signo vinces
“On the Middle East Peace Process the briefing suggests that the regional crises should be seen as an opportunity to press head with peace negotiations rather than as an excuse to defend the status quo.”
The linkage of the Libyan farce to the if only Israel did not exist pathology is crass political opportunism and takes the debate over British military intervention in Libya into the Elders of Zion zone.