"A regard for every person starts the dialogue"

I am working very hard to avoid politics, apologetics, confrontations over the course of this holy season. Nonetheless, the world marches on and, alas, I am still me. So, with a deep diaconal bow to my dear friend Sharon, I want to draw attention to something written by Giorgio Vittadini, whom I admire very much. In addition to bringing Vittadini's remarks to my attention on Cahiers Péguy, Sharon also translated them into English from Italian. Her translation of Giorgio's piece appears in its entirety on the English page of the on-line publication Il Sussidiario, which is a site I urge you look at every day. In the interest of full disclosure and by way of a "plug", from time-to-time the editors of Il Sussidiario pick-up items from this blog and occasionally I write exclusive pieces. My most recent piece was on Egypt.

Getting to the point, here's an excerpt of what Vittadini wrote about the incoherence of the politics of armed intervention over the past two decades. With Vittadini, I ask, is this the best response?

"The excuse is always a humanitarian intervention or the defense of peace in jeopardy. It began with Serbia in the 90s. With the justification of humanitarian intervention, Belgrade and Serbia were indiscriminately bombed, leading to the overthrow of Milosevic.

"Arrested and tried for crimes against humanity at The Hague, he put attorney Carla del Ponte in a corner by demonstrating, in the light of international principles, that the reasons given for the action against his government had no legal basis. At that point, he died mysteriously in prison. Milosevic's was not an exemplary government with regard to the rights of his people, but he was democratically elected and his was not worse than other regimes (such as China) to which countries like France have bowed. Then it came to Saddam Hussein and the two Bush wars: the first for the invasion of Kuwait, the second for alleged possession of nuclear weapons. It turned out that Saddam did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. Only John Paul II and a few others, in fact, were against the war."

Pres. Obama seems to positively embrace incoherence, looking straight into the cameras yesterday in Santiago, Chilé and saying with a straight face that while it is his administration's determination that Col. Qaddafi must relinquish power, getting him to let go of power is not an objective of our military intervention. So, again, what are the implications of our involvement and our determination to get rid Qaddafi, do these decisions, as seemingly incogruent as they are with each other, take into consideration, as Vittadini insists they must, "all the factors at play"?

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis