Land says jury out on whether war in Libya ‘just’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) – Southern Baptists’ top public-policy expert
said April 2 that whether or not President Obama’s action in Libya
meets moral standards for a “just” war depends in part on approval by
Congress.

Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist
Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said on his weekly
radio program that military action underway against Libyan leader
Muammar Qaddafi would appear to meet many of the “just war” criteria
used by Christians for centuries that recognize war is sometimes a
necessary evil that can be moral if carefully waged to prevent a greater
evil.

But Land said the president thus far is “way off the
reservation” in at least one regard. In order for a war to be morally
just, he said, it must be fought with legitimate authority.

“The use of military force is only the prerogative of governments,” Land
said. “Romans 13:1-4 give the divinely ordained civil magistrate a
monopoly on the use of state-sanctioned lethal force: internally the
police and externally military force. Consequently only the duly
constituted civil authority can legitimize military action.”

“However helpful, however nice or comforting the United Nations Security
Council vote may be, the only duly constituted authority for the United
States military forces is the government of the United States,” Land
continued, “and the authorizing vehicle is either a declaration of war
or a special joint resolution of the U.S. Congress.”

Land said
Obama is “way out of line” for not going to Congress to ask for support
for the use of military action in Libya. If he fails do so within either
60 or 90 days, Land said Obama will have broken the law under the War
Powers Act enacted in 1973.

“I think the War Powers Act is a
good idea, in that it gives the president the ability to react
immediately to a situation,” Land said. “I personally think that the
president’s intervention in Libya militarily came pretty late. He
allowed Qaddafi’s army to make some advances they probably shouldn’t
have been allowed to make and kill people that they shouldn’t have been
allowed to kill.”

Land said the problem lies in what the
president didn’t do. He said Obama should have at least said in his
speech the previous Monday, “Now I am going to the Congress and I am
asking the Congress for authorization to support what we have done and
what we are doing.”

“I believe that given the proper answers to
questions that the Congress would probably support the president,” Land
said. “But his not going to them shows a lack of respect for the
Congress. It shows a lack of respect for the law, and with every passing
day that goes by that he does not go to the Congress, he is arguing
that a Security Council resolution by the United Nations is sufficient.
It is not. Once he has gone beyond the War Powers Act’s limitations, he
is breaking the law, and he is weakening the sovereignty of the United
States.”

“It is the elected officials of the United States --
not the president alone, not the Security Council and the president
alone -- that decide when and if and under what circumstances American
combat troops can be brought into a situation where they are put in
harm’s way for more than a very short period of time,” Land said.

Land said he believes taking out Qaddafi constitutes a “just cause” for
war. “If the president had not intervened, we would have been forced to
watch incidents of mass murder,” Land said.

Land said other
requirements are harder to gauge without knowing the likelihood of
bringing Qaddafi to justice and replacing him with a western-style
democracy instead of another dictator.

“Could it be justifiable
by just-war criteria? Yes it could be,” Land said. “Will it be? It
depends upon whether the president seeks the approval of Congress and
gets it and it depends on the outcome.”