As fighting continues in Libya, many are asking whether the international military
intervention there is morally justified and what are its implications for the wider
region? What is the end game and how is all this likely to impact on the often embattled
Christian minorities in the Middle Eastern region? To find out more, Susy Hodges
spoke to Harry Hagopian, a consultant on Mideast affairs for the Catholic Bishops
Conference of England and Wales.
He believes "the first moral response we
had in the West was to stop the violence that could have been on a horrific scale,
had the pro-Gaddafi forces managed to enter the city of Benghazi so in a sense, with
a U.N. Security Council resolution providing the legal mandate for the protection
of the Libyan civilians I think basically what the allied operation did was to prevent
what could have been a large-scale massacre."
Hagopian goes on to say that
as long as the military operation has "an objective that is proportionate to the needs"
... and if we are convinced that peace would ensue after the war, then not only are
we doing something that is legal and moral but we're also coming fairly close, as
the U.S. Catholic bishops said in a statement, quite close to our own understanding
of the Augustinian principles of a just war." Listen to the interview: